The Port - City Relations in the Era of Hybridization

Ports play an important role as interfaces among sea and land, elements of organization of the coastal space, with important influences on the cities and regions they are inserted in. A wide attention and consideration has been put in time by scholars from different disciplines on the relationships between ports and cities on the waterfront, following the different stages of maritimization and the evolution of the roles of ports and cities. In particular, during this evolution, ports become more and more hybrid in their roles and characters, changing continuously their shapes and functions, and, consequently, the relationship they have with their surrounding areas, cities in particular, being the most proximal elements to ports. In research and planning, however, little attention has been put towards dry ports and inner harbors, as the new areas important for ports, hosting vital operations for linking ports and their hinterlands in order to keep quays free for freight handling on the seaside. In this paper we put the attention on the process of hybridization of ports in time, focusing in particular on the new challenges coming out from the evolution of port activities into inner areas and, therefore, observing the interaction these have with peri-urban and peripheral areas. Analyzing some theoretical and real world cases, a matrix of interactions is proposed to evaluate the positive/negative interactions and the correspondence of planning instruments in tackling the issues of the port and city development.