Why are maritime ports (still) urban, and why should policy-makers care?

Despite ongoing transformations in the maritime transportation industry and the of global supply chain systems, most of the world’s important container ports urban. Ports continue to occupy urban spaces, are embedded in localized systems, draw on urban labour markets and infrastructure and are to local politics and policy concerns. We identify contemporary theories which help us understand the often increasingly urban of core economic activities despite globalization. We explore how theories may apply to port studies, highlighting both how they have been by maritime scholars to this point and also why further development and are warranted. We argue that a central concern of these geographic is the articulation of place- and sector-specific processes operating at a of spatial scales. This is in contrast to most maritime studies which to be dominated by perspectives which emphasize the global logic of the industry and the analysis of space in generalized and abstract . We conclude that a re-appreciation in maritime studies of urban economic , informed by geographical theory, will provide policy-makers and with more understanding of why deep connections between ports and places still matter.