Port regions are hubs connecting a nation and its hinterland to the rest of the world. Port cities' authorities and actors have always dealt with pressures and compromises in the sharing of space between agriculture, tourism, industry, and urban developments. The limited availability of land created conflicting uses over time especially when industrial sites disappear from the built environment to leave a polluted soil and water. The current literature discusses in detail changes in industrial land use, pollution of industries, and urban sanitary issues. Yet, only a few studies investigate the consequences of past industrial and urban developments on the health of citizens. This paper thus asks: How have authorities considered historical industrial activities in spatial planning policies and what are their consequences on public health in port cities? Of all pollutants, oil appears to be the widest spread with long term risks to human health. Oil industrial development in the port city of Dunkirk in the north of France can demonstrate this influence of past land uses. The objective is to highlight the impacts of past polluting activities over current populations' health in port city regions and the potential consequences of historically contaminated sites on public health. ... Read more

For the PortCityFutures community, the working year of 2022 started with a five-day workshop hosted by the Lorentz Center. Even though we couldn’t meet in person because of the lockdown in the Netherlands, these five days were full of connection: between academic, societal and governance partners, between new ideas, concepts and tools, and between water, culture, space and society. Through presentations, discussions and hands-on exercises, we got to know each other’s work better, but were also introduced to new ways for balancing the focus on technology and economy within port cities with a diversity of spatial, social and cultural approaches. In this report, we look back at each day and synthesize the main learnings from this workshop for our world-wide research community. ... Read more

Oil is a dangerous product. Its transport, storage and refining present numerous environmental and health challenges. Local, national and European regulators have taken steps to locate it in space since the beginning of industrial oil drilling in the 1860s. But key leaders of the oil industry in Northwest Europe, and beyond, have also served as policy makers and aimed to keep legal constraints (decrees, laws, taxes) as limited as possible to prevent the emergence of obstacles in the development of their industry. This process led to a cruel lack of anticipation in the design of rules and urban spaces when dealing with safety. Public authorities continuously established limited frames upon the oil industry and wrote rules in general terms to protect this strategic industry. Today, the pollution and the risks oil companies generated restrict opportunities for the future re-use of industrial sites, and there has been little done on the law-making scale to guide the transformation of oil spaces. Using the case of port cities like Dunkirk, in France, that have emerged as oil ports for their respective countries over the last 150 years, this thesis examines the emergence and application of spatial and environmental regulations along with oil industrial expansion. The objective is to highlight the need to shift from the current reactive process of improving legal frames after a disaster to one that anticipate and deal with the visible and invisible oil heritage. ... Read more

Since the development of the oil industry in the 1860s, petroleum products became increasingly important in economies and shaped the urban form. The impact of oil exploration, exploitation, and transformation led to the creation of districts and cities entirely dedicated to the oil industry. This dynamic relationship between economic activity and urbanization was presented in the shaping of cities and their borders. Although important, the notion of borders and its consequences on the uses of land as well as on the life of inhabitants are often ignored. This paper first conceptualizes the term borders in understanding the interlinkages between oil and other areas closely related, either geographically or for the functioning of the oil industry; it then illustrates the intertwined borders of all these spaces from the contemporary example of the city of Daqing, in Northeast China. The paper answers the question of how past borders designed during the development of Daqing in the 1960s are impacting future planning strategies and the health of local inhabitants? By mapping the current land-use of the city, this paper elaborates on the need to consider borders beyond two-dimensional perspectives by revealing how spatial planning practices in oil-dependent cities can be an environmental issue today and in the future. The objective is to demonstrate the influence of past planning decisions linked to industrial activities on contemporary urban spaces. ... Read more

Seaports are vital nodes connecting the hinterlands of countries and continents with the rest of the world, attracting industries and people. This nodal function, however, is incompatible or even in conflict with other uses: port activities affect the entire region of a port city and not just the area administrated by the port. Despite several legal interventions, the side-effects from the port’s activities - such as pollution and risk of accidents – still affect the natural environment of the port and the health of the citizens in the “port-cityscape”. In a webinar, which was organized jointly by the European office of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) on June 17, 2021 and attracted over 100 participants, a group of researchers and practitioners discussed how health can be negotiated in expansion plans of seaport cities. ... Read more

Sea snot is spreading over the Sea of Marmara in Turkey. This slimy substance is a symptom of marine pollution, and is threatening life both under and above water. Based on their own observations and the preliminary findings of experts, Gül Aktürk and Stephan Hauser discuss the deeper-lying issues of sea snot in the Sea of Marmara: the failure on all levels of governance to ban pollution on land and in the sea. This blog highlights the urgency and importance of a better management of water resources through better cooperation and coordination of various stakeholders. ... Read more

The explosion in the port of Beirut in 2020 showed that ports are clusters of risks, and that accidents in port areas can have disastrous effects on close-by residential areas or historic city centers. Such disasters are not new, and cities and nations have had time to establish special safety regulations and prevent such disasters. Because authorities implemented these rules in reaction to incidents rather than planning to prevent and enforcing existing rules, however, more disasters ensued. The evolution of industrial techniques and scales often overran the ability of law-makers to adapt rules and anticipate to industrial innovations. ... Read more

Water has served and sustained societies throughout history. Understanding the complex and diverse water systems of the past is key to devising sustainable development for the future with regard to socioeconomic structures, policies, and cultures. Today, past systems form the framework for preservation and reuse as well as for new proposals. In this course, you will learn how to identify the spatial, social and cultural aspects of water heritage in your environment. You will investigate real situations, assess specific issues and evaluate the impact of potential measures, following existing expertise on water heritage and water management traditions as a model for your own practice. ... Read more

Since the 1860s, petroleum companies, through their influence on local governments, port authorities, international actors and the general public gradually became more dominant in shaping the urban form of ports and cities. Under their development and pressure, the relationships between industrial and urban areas in port cities hosting oil facilities evolved in time. The borders limiting industrial and housing territories have continuously changed with industrial places moving progressively away from urban areas. Such a changing dynamic influenced the permeability of these borders. Port cities are nodes and logistic points where various flows of commodities, wealth, and knowledge gathered before further re‐distribution. These flows affected port cities by changing their spatial organization and the availabiity of space between borders. The main question here is: How did industrial and urban borders evolve through time in port cities? Through a historical analysis, the article explores the settlements of oil facilities and the influence of oil companies over local, regional, and national governments in creating borders and how it influenced the porosity of port cities. This article, through the petroleum narrative, illustrates the impacts of past borders on the contemporary urban form through the evolution of the French port city of Dunkirk, in the North of France. As a historical study, the article analyzes the changing relationships between petroleum industrial sites and housing areas in the city of Dunkirk, using aerial pictures, archival sources, and regulations of different periods. The importance of this analysis lies in knowing that former oil sites previously located on the periphery of Dunkirk, that were forgotten by the authorities are now located within the current urban tissue. This process demonstrates the importance of historical developments to understand current challenges in the urban planning of industrial port cities. ... Read more

Port city regions are at the forefront of many urgent contemporary issues such as migration, climate change, digitization, etc. Addressing these challenges and developing sustainable solutions, requires more than technical interventions, it requires rethinking and redesigning the basic spatial and socio-cultural paradigms that prevail at present.

In this course we will analyze examples of port cities from a multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural perspective. You will develop the skills to identify and address the challenges port cities face now and into the future. ... Read more

Oil, as a resource, was a great contributor to the development of the modern movement. Its planning techniques came with the creation of intimate relationships between living and working areas. The “Cité des Ingénieurs” of the former refinery of Dunkirk, in France, was an excellent illustration of this process. When environmental and health concerns together with economic and climatic challenges emerged, western refineries and the urban tissue around them were reconsidered. The mechanism of creation of health and environmental measures after incidents, in this case oil-related, triggered extreme solutions: the destruction of this heritage and a further disconnection between industrial and living areas within port cities. The “Cité” of Dunkirk had to face the growing pollution and noise issues that were going hand in hand with a need for better living conditions of the employees. Deserted and demolished, its neighboring refinery is now experiencing the same fate. The emergence of stricter regulations, the acknowledgment of a transitional need and economic reasons linked to a lack of profitability induced the loss of this industrial heritage. In this perspective, Dunkirk is a perfect example of what will happen to this oil heritage in other places as the city is closing these factories and trying to transform them. This paper examines how the evolution of the environmental concern led to this result, and how innovative ideas of transformation – of the infrastructure and of regulations – can preserve the built heritage and reconnect it to the city. The analysis of old and current environmental rules will highlight the evolution of the legal framework, while the observation of aerial pictures will illustrate the change induced by new rules on the planning of cities in general, and port cities in particular. The work of Master students of the Faculty of Architecture of TU Delft will also exemplify how new perspectives can provide a future to this industrial heritage. ... Read more

Transformations in the global petroleumscape, such as the closure of refineries in Dunkirk, a port city in northern France, can have a huge impact on local economies, livelihoods, and the built environment. Dunkirk was a hub of global petroleum shipping beginning in the 1860s, when the petroleum industry started to shape port cities around the world. As the link between producing sites and the hinterlands of many countries, Dunkirk, like many other port cities, became a privileged place for French and foreign businessmen investing in petroleum activities. The oil industry provided employment and development opportunities on local and regional scales, while impacting the spatial planning and the political life of Dunkirk and other host cities. As one of France’s most important petroleum hubs, Dunkirk took on an urban form that has been greatly influenced by the ups and downs of petroleum sites. This chapter considers the impact of changing economic and spatial conditions on a variety of actors in the French port city. How have these actors adapted, what oil spaces have they created, and with which collaborators and tools? While the refineries closed in 2016, the mark of the petroleum industry remains in the fabric of the city, in the memory of inhabitants who remember oil’s heyday as a time of prosperity, and in the pollution left behind in the soil in sites where uses were never adequately recorded. To better prepare for the future planning of port cities around the world, public and private actors need to understand the long-term influence of the petroleum industry on the governance and spatial characteristics of port cities. ... Read more

The district of Fındıklı in the Northeast city of Rize in Turkey is environmentally and culturally rich with its rural, built, and natural heritage. The city of Rize has been experiencing more frequent and severe rainfall, flooding, and landslides in the last decade. River flooding along the coast and in the center of the city is destroying infrastructure and residential areas, while landslides are becoming more destructive and repetitive in the hinterland of the district. Vernacular heritage is particularly exposed to the catastrophic consequences of floods and landslides, e.g., through the deterioration of historic building façades. This paper aims to identify the vernacular settlements under the threat of natural disasters in the selected case area. ArcGIS software was used to reveal the changes in spatial planning since 1969 in combination with geo referenced built and natural heritage sites at risk in the district. The comparison between the maps of 1969 and 2019 aerial pictures on ArcGIS illustrates the river transformation, coastal change, urban sprawl, and deforestation as threats to vernacular heritage in the area. Furthermore, this paper will highlight landslide-prone sites in the hinterland and river floods on the coastal area on the current map to show heritage sites at risk. The findings of this study intend to present the accelerated effects of floods and landslides along with the mismanagement of land use and rivers on vernacular heritage at a district scale to inform decision- and policymakers on needed actions. ... Read more

The deep economic and spatial link between industrial activities and ports, covering land and maritime spaces, places port cities at the forefront of both climate, health and environmental challenges and makes them possible agents of mitigation and adaptation. Recognizing this particular role, the Port City Futures Team is starting the blog series ‘Greening the Port City’, in which we will deal with the legal, social, economic and ontological challenges of climate change in port cities. This first blog addresses the legal aspects of climate change, especially in times of Covid-19. ... Read more

With the European Green Deal made public last December, the new European Commission took the first steps to transforming Europe into the first climate neutral continent by 2050. The Green Deal offers a wide range of climate policies and measures that directly affect European cities and citizens. Whereas port cities are high polluters and important economic concentrations, they are not mentioned in the European Green Deal as such. However, to make the ‘’effective and fair transition’’ that the Commission aims for, port cities could make a difference as they concentrate key economic and industrial facilities and are key to the EU’s long-term economic competitiveness. ... Read more

Coastlines have long attracted industrial activities, services, housing, and tourism. At select geographic locations, harbors host port facilities and provide local economic growth opportunities. As such, these areas also concentrate populations around the world. In the north of France, where the unemployment rate is high, port industries are still massive providers of work. However, in the last decades, the port development has become a major threat to the architectural heritage, the historical scenery, and the unique biodiversity of these areas, both at sea and on land. The impact of urban redevelopment has been clearly visible since 1950. At this point, this paper raises the following question: How is it possible, in this context, to efficiently limit this urban sprawl through legal frameworks to protect land, sea, and their in-between environment, in spite of the economic interests? The urbanization of the northern coastline of France has gradually expanded since 1950 until a fundamental act appeared in 1986, the Shoreline Act “Loi Littoral”. This act allows us to analyze the last thirty years of urbanization and its binding force towards the protection of the environment; and yet, we also understand that it has a limited role. It does not forbid all kinds of construction, but just new buildings coming out of nowhere, though expansion in urbanized areas is allowed. After decades of existence, this framework has been integrated by both politicians and citizens, and its results have been judged. If the law is now seen as a guardian of the shore, inhabitants and environmental organizations have often criticized its dimness, which favors interpretation. This paper analyzes the soft limitations that have affected the ongoing space consumption since the 1950s using aerial pictures provided by the IGN (Institut National de l’Information Géographique et Forestière), as well as if the rules were efficient enough in their protection. ... Read more

Port authorities who once considered the inclusion of local actors in the decision-making process a threat to efficiency have begun to see their inclusion as an opportunity. The notion of inclusion can bring together the sometimes diverging objectives of port and city actors. In the Northern Range – the most important European ports between Le Havre and Hamburg – the competition of port authorities to attract people and industries is particularly tough. This area includes numerous ports with their own governance.
The drive for both economic benefits and environmental preservation pushes public authorities towards compromises in the implementation of their policies. The competitiveness of ports can be impeded by the need to protect natural environments and by demands for inclusion.
The paper analyses how the French government has tried to reform relationships between ports and cities and to give more power to local actors in hopes of reaching a balance between economic interests and environmental protection. The paper focuses on the French port city of Dunkirk to illustrate the impact of legal frames on the competitiveness of port cities. It emphasizes the importance of the different legal scales available to public authorities facing the challenges of governance that result from globalization.
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In the early days of the petroleum industry, oil infrastructure had a short lifespan. Individuals were creating their own company and competing with others, without the financial means of current great companies. Many oil facilities were established in port cities like Dunkirk, because they were the entrance gates to many nations. In the case of Dunkirk, many former oil sites became houses and schools in the current urban tissue, and official records lost track of many others. The limited data available on official records to inform the people on the pollution of their soil is a threat to their safety and health, and an obstacle for the planning strategies of public authorities. The analysis of archival documents, past and present aerial pictures, paintings and mapping techniques related to geographic information systems (GIS) can reveal lost industrial sites, and thus indicate potential pollution. This paper investigates the oil history of Dunkirk as a background for its petroleum history and its transferability to other petroleum related cities. A cross analysis of sources will attempt to complete French files and locate oil sites. The objective is to illustrate the transformation of former oil sites, and why the current land use is often not compatible with its history. ... Read more