Villes portuaires
Reconfiguration du système productif global et mutations des zones portuaires maritimes : l’exemple d’Anvers
Katja Hackenberg
année 2006-7
jury
Alain Bertho, professeur d’anthroplogie
Thierry Baudouin, Chercheur CNRS, Institut Français d’urbainimse
Philippe Maingault , économiste, IEE
Alex Wall, professeur en Urbainsme (Université de Karlsruhe)
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This paper aims to give a dense image of the port development of Antwerp/Belgium. The analysis focuses on the question: “How has the harbour area of Antwerp changed since the 1970’s due to the emergence of the global productive system in the post-industrial period?” The port’s development is analysed under the following aspects: technology, function and actors. Thereby, the spatial, economic and strategic structures of the port are analysed in reference to global tendencies. Through these analyses, the junctions between the global and the local may become evident.
Firstly, the periods of the productive systems are defined:
- The industrial period (1945 – 1973)
- The post-industrial period (since 1979)
Characteristics of the industrial period are the strong regulatory measures undertaken by public actors (national state, local government), which contributed to rebuild national economies devastated by war in Europe. The public actor led voluntary politics in order to provide for economic growth. This period is known as the silver fifties or the golden sixties; these titles refer to the stability and the regularity of the national economies’ growth. It went hand in hand with a strong demand in consumer products, a low unemployment rate, as well as a constant increase of wages.
The post-industrial period began in the 1970’s after several events had prepared its breakthrough (oil crises, crisis of Bretton Woods, informational revolution). The post-industrial period is characterised by a global economy, meaning that transactions on financial markets take place instantly on worldwide scope. The national regulation and protection politics are abolished in order to open up markets for international supply and demand. As a result, companies become global actors. They pursue the international division of labour wherein the production of commodities is mainly organised in newly developed countries with low wages (e. g. South-East Asia, Eastern Europe) and consumption takes place in the developed parts of the world (e. g. Western Europe, North America).
These changes are intrinsically intertwined with our society causing the transformation of the social paradigm: from industrial to post-industrial society. The post-industrial city and the post-industrial productive system are sub-units of this society showing the “pervasiveness” (Castells, 1998) of the phenomenon. That’s why it is necessary to engage in a multi-disciplined, integral approach in order to understand the transformation of Antwerp’s port since the 1970’s.
Port development in regard to technological aspects
The industrial period of Antwerp’s port development is dominated by the introduction of new technologies concerning transport of raw materials (e. g. very large crude carrier).
The post-industrial period is characterised by the increased use of container ships. The innovative factor of this technology consists in the transfer capacity of the container from one transport system to another (ocean, road, river, train). The size of the ships have continually increased due to strategies of cost reduction. This led to a profound transformation of Antwerp’s port development: the ancient harbour areas nearby the city could not be used any longer for port activities due to their small dimensions. Consequently, city and port have become disconnected because of the extensive use of land needed by the large terminal operators handling the trans-shipment of containerised cargo.
The old docks were abandoned in favour of new dock areas recently built on the right riverbank outside of the city and near the mouth of the Schelde River (Deurganckdok). The abandoned sites have been used for new urban projects, which give a character of public space to these areas. In Antwerp, several museums along the river coast and nearby the old basins were planned. These museums are thematically involved with Antwerp’s history and its maritime activity.
Port development in regard to function
In the industrial period port’s development is largely influenced by national and local growth politics (Ten-Year-Plan, economic expansion politics of the Belgian state). These politics favoured de-industrialisation of urban spaces and the development of industrial activities within the port boundaries. Mostly American and German transnational firms in the automobile and petro-chemical sectors responded to offers of generous subsidies and built up large industrial sites. Port traffic was dominated by trans-shipment of oil, coal and steel in order to provide these firms with raw materials for production processes. Port function became less controlled by water-activities; it functioned similarly to industrial inland sites.
By the 1970’s, Antwerp’s port development underwent major changes: containerised cargo was responsible for the growth of port traffic. This is obviously connected with the international division of labour. Containers are used for long distance transport of semi-finished and finished goods. The port function was largely influenced by this transformation: it developed from an industrial port to a logistic port.
A logistic port plays an active role in the global productive system. It completes the productive process taking place outside of the consumer market. This is necessary because products have to adapt to the taste and customs of local markets, production has to be “reterritorialised” (Baudouin, 2006). As such, the city of Antwerp plays an important role as intercultural articulation point between the global and the local. The location of the port function also changes: in the previous period we note a concentration of industrial activities within the port. The maritime harbour area represents an enclave of industrial activities in the city. By the time of containerisation location of port function diffuses into the city. This is so because logistic function needs networking of two or several economic actors. It is the city, which, due to its high spatial and cultural density, has a social fabric at its disposal capable to support networking.
Port’s development in respect to its actors
In the industrial period, actors of the port of Antwerp concentrated on expansion. They increase the size of the production sites in order to minimise costs per production unit (economies of scale).
The post-industrial period is characterised by strategies strengthening co-operation between port actors (economies of scope). These co-operations take place on the local as well as on the global level. As a result some port actors (e. g. stevedores) lose their local anchor and become global players, others reinforce co-operation with local partners (the petro-chemical industry). On the other hand, the port’s administration obtains a privatised structure. It is organised as if it were a part of a private company in order to manage the increased administrative duties that should not interfere with local politics. It gains autonomy from the city’s administration.
In conclusion, we would like to point out three bundles of transformation which emerge in the post-industrial period:
Spatial disconnection / functional diffusion / administrative independency
The first bundle concerns the relationship between city and port. The spatial disconnection is not a phenomenon unique to Antwerp. It has given the opportunity for a lot of port restructuring projects at European scope (Barcelona, London) as well as at international scope (Boston, Montreal). Ancient harbour areas become the material support for a new form of urban space: in Antwerp the basins are considered to show the ancient maritime functions even if those disappear from the view of its citizens. They serve as a museum for the maritime activities, which are a part of city’s cultural identity.
Nevertheless, the spatial disconnection is only one aspect forming the relationship between city and port. Our work demonstrates that spatial disconnection goes hand in hand with the functional diffusion of logistic activities. These activities prefer the metropolitan space as location because of the need for networking emerging from the spatial and cultural density of the city.
Finally, the fact that the port gains administrative independence from the city completes the transformation of the port/city-relationship. It represents the emancipation of the port. Its position is now equal to the city and it proves the increasing importance of the port activities for the urban economy.
Containerisation / product marketing / logistic node
The second bundle refers to the transformation that takes place in order to redefine the competences of the port-city in the macro-economic context. The advent of containerisation is a visible sign for the separation of production sphere and consumption sphere. However, partly the generation of wealth is relocated in the consumption sphere. Port cities contribute to the creation of an immaterial value generated by production marketing. This adjustment of the product to the taste of the local market is responsible for the rise of the logistic function as new port competence.
The harbour remains an important transport node between the global and the adjacent territories. Furthermore, it is an expert for local values and culture.
Global connection / local reassignment / co-operative elements
The third bundle indicates the transformation of port-city’s identity. Indeed, port cities have always been an articulation point between the global and the local. In previous epochs the port-city defined its identity mainly by stressing its specific relationship to the distance. This quality distinguished it from other cities.
In the current period, this identity stream dissolves: the connection with the distant isn’t anymore something specific for port cities. The global productive system and also the informational revolution have evolved other possibilities to connect to global flows: Saskia Sassen pointed out the importance of “global cities” (Sassen, 1996) connected to the flows of information and serving as central command centres for multinational firms.
It is the logistic function, which contributes to redefine a port-city’s identity: it reassigns the city to the local level. A city becomes more and more involved with its territory. The basis for this reassignment is formed by the co-operative elements. These are at the core of the post-industrial paradigm. As we have seen they take place on the global and on the local level. It is crucial to realise that they have been primitively introduced to diminish production costs. But, in fact, they also have a social dimension: at local level they strengthen the relationship between actors and hence, contribute to the reassertiveness of the territory.
Consequently, it is not despite the global productive system that a port-city is reoriented to the local; it is because of it. In the post-industrial period, the identity of a port-city is profoundly rooted in the local.
This work demonstrates that the strict differentiation of the harbour area and the concentration of its development have served to explain the deep intertwining of city and port. Last but not least, we’d like to point out some axis of analysis, which aims at giving a perspective on how this work could continue. When taking into account the large diversity of litterature emphasizing the nature of the port-city relationship (Chaline, 1994, Meyer, 1999, Lavaud-Letilleul, 2002) we’d like to deepen our analysis by focusing on the relationship between the port-city and its adjacent territories, thereby enlarging the study scale. “What kind of relationship does exist between the port-city and its territory due to the involvement of the material and non-material infrastructure emerging from the impact of post-industrial paradigm ?”
This exercise may allow to define more precisely the role of the port-city within its metropolitan space. This question concerns at the same time physical aspects (relationship between centre and suburbia), social aspects (the type of cooperation between port-city actors and metropolitan actors) as well as economic aspects (the distribution of competences between the port-city and its territory).
The answer to these questions may allow, in a second stage, to define the relationship between port-cities of the same maritime region : “Do the port-cities of the Northern Range develop supplementary qualities which aim at presenting the Northern Range as one coherent economic space in which the actors share their competences in order to get the maximum of global flows and – on the other hand – in order to provide service to the adjacent hinterland ?”
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