Port cityscapes: conference and research contributions on port cities

The multifaceted structure of port cities, their global function, their distinctive appearance, and their storied history attracts the interest of a broad range of people. At least that is what the recent proliferation of workshops, sessions, and conferences on the theme of port cities suggests. These events mostly fall into two categories: those organized by professionals of ports and technology who seek to improve the functionality of the port and academics from social science and humanities fields who explore a broad range of port city-related developments. Two commonalities stand out among the conferences from the last three years: first, both sets of conferences explore interrelation of port and city; second, a new and strong interest in history on the side of the port developers matches an increase of history-oriented events among academics. Those organized by professionals of ports and technology seek to improve the functionality of the port and academics from social science and humanities fields who explore a broad range of port city-related developments. Nonetheless, the two groups pursue their interests independently, for the most part. Planners, and particularly those who double up as planning historians, have an opportunity to take the lead in this field. This article identifies six domains in which planning history could do more: the multiple and overlapping scales of port and city, the actors and their networks, the different temporalities of the port, local cultures, path dependence, and finally the study of port cities’ surprizing resilience. In conclusion, the article argues that research on the history and culture of port cities can both strengthen the future development of ports and help sharpen the theoretical and methodological focus of planning history. This may push them to integrate the two research perspectives and potentially collaborate with social scientists and humanists, including historians, who have taken a broader and more critical perspective towards port and city development. A systematic approach to port cities would provide scholars with a strong framework to compare and contrast case studies in planning history. Following a brief overview of recent professional and academic conferences and of historical approaches, this article investigates and reflects on the role that planning history can take in the study of port cities.