Page 12 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 12
plex Gateways
favour of the latter, including in the analysis cases occurring inside some
market economy frameworks (Ramos 2016).
Overall, a systematic intellectual structuration of what a seaport is
and what are its main connections with its economic, social, and insti-
tutional environment seems to still be lacking (Pallis, Vitsounis, and De
Langen 2010). At the same time, there is a proliferation of specialized
books and papers, each starting from a highly-focused perspective and
dealing with only a portion of the multilayered and multifaceted dynam-
ic structure of a seaport. The old-fashion specialized subject of port eco-
nomics seems to be not so popular anymore (Cullinane and Talley 2006;
Talley 2009; Coto-Millan, Pesquera, and Castanedo 2010), but there are
some very interesting books presenting cases of entangled developments
between ports and cities (Wang et al. 2016; Hesse and McDonough 2018).
Moreover, among the leading scholars dealing in various ways with the
search for a comprehensive definition of what roles a seaport can play in
the global connectivity system, there are some researchers sustaining the
importance of path dependencies (Ducruet 2017), while others see as de-
terminant and defining all the technological and organizational novelties
which have appeared during the last decades (Lee and Cullinane 2016;
Jacobs and Notteboom 2011).
Geographers, more than economists or historians, appear to be on
the way to comprehensively defining port activities, urban synergies and
regional positionalities inside the global environment. Recently, César
Ducruet published three essays, formally distinct but closely linked with-
in a very innovative conception of port activities as a dynamic and pro-
pulsive constituent of the complex mechanism of inter- and suprare-
gional modernization, since the end of the eighteenth century up to very
recent times (Ducruet, Cuyala, and El Hosni 2018; Ducruet 2018; Ducruet,
Juhász et al. 2019). The indissoluble link between the history of ports and
urban history seems to have been reaffirmed, while the connections be-
tween the economic history and the social history of seaports still ap-
pears weakly analysed.
Anyhow, as Sarah Palmer said more than 20 years ago, ‘ports have
rarely been treated as urban entities’ (Palmer 1999, 100), in the sense that
the human and social side of the seaports’ activities have attracted less
attention than the technical and economic ones. Since then, the recon-
structions and the discussions regarding the rationality applied in sea-
port planning, building, and managing have been by far more numerous
12
favour of the latter, including in the analysis cases occurring inside some
market economy frameworks (Ramos 2016).
Overall, a systematic intellectual structuration of what a seaport is
and what are its main connections with its economic, social, and insti-
tutional environment seems to still be lacking (Pallis, Vitsounis, and De
Langen 2010). At the same time, there is a proliferation of specialized
books and papers, each starting from a highly-focused perspective and
dealing with only a portion of the multilayered and multifaceted dynam-
ic structure of a seaport. The old-fashion specialized subject of port eco-
nomics seems to be not so popular anymore (Cullinane and Talley 2006;
Talley 2009; Coto-Millan, Pesquera, and Castanedo 2010), but there are
some very interesting books presenting cases of entangled developments
between ports and cities (Wang et al. 2016; Hesse and McDonough 2018).
Moreover, among the leading scholars dealing in various ways with the
search for a comprehensive definition of what roles a seaport can play in
the global connectivity system, there are some researchers sustaining the
importance of path dependencies (Ducruet 2017), while others see as de-
terminant and defining all the technological and organizational novelties
which have appeared during the last decades (Lee and Cullinane 2016;
Jacobs and Notteboom 2011).
Geographers, more than economists or historians, appear to be on
the way to comprehensively defining port activities, urban synergies and
regional positionalities inside the global environment. Recently, César
Ducruet published three essays, formally distinct but closely linked with-
in a very innovative conception of port activities as a dynamic and pro-
pulsive constituent of the complex mechanism of inter- and suprare-
gional modernization, since the end of the eighteenth century up to very
recent times (Ducruet, Cuyala, and El Hosni 2018; Ducruet 2018; Ducruet,
Juhász et al. 2019). The indissoluble link between the history of ports and
urban history seems to have been reaffirmed, while the connections be-
tween the economic history and the social history of seaports still ap-
pears weakly analysed.
Anyhow, as Sarah Palmer said more than 20 years ago, ‘ports have
rarely been treated as urban entities’ (Palmer 1999, 100), in the sense that
the human and social side of the seaports’ activities have attracted less
attention than the technical and economic ones. Since then, the recon-
structions and the discussions regarding the rationality applied in sea-
port planning, building, and managing have been by far more numerous
12
