Innovating in port planning processes
The system of planning and managing port infrastructure must respond to the development of the economy and the demands and rights of people. This requires a multidisciplinary and innovative perspective.
The foreseeable obsolescence of many port infrastructures highlights the need to introduce participatory rather than rigid planning processes that incorporate complementary voices to those of logistics and engineering.
Even if the institutions are not formed around the holistic approach, you can still begin small. Organise a competition or some other type of event in which you bring people around the table to discuss things collaboratively, conduct charrettes in which common visions are being formed, and try to get to more long-term, and more sustainable and holistic solutions.
Stefan Al
Architect, urbanist and professor at Columbia University
The goals of optimising management, opening to participation and moving from a model of mass construction of hard infrastructure to a more innovative and sustainable model with green and blue solutions require multidisciplinary planning models. Mono-disciplinary and technocratic perspectives are unable to respond to the growing complexity of new social rights and climate challenges, and have failed to consider port infrastructure at a human scale.
There needs to be a recognition that the ports need to be at a human scale. And so in order for them to function, we can't demand constant growth. We have to think about the trade-offs there. And the trade offs might be that the port won't be the biggest in the region. It might be that it won't be the richest port in the region. But if it is a more humane, more equitable, better integrated port, then that again, that's the job of educating, and it's not just educating the public, it's also educating the politician.
Laleh Khalili
Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London
It is then necessary to design the mechanisms of governance and participation for changing ports, cities and territories to respond to the evolution of the economy, demands and rights.
Laws and public policies are designed for static cities, a city that does not change. [...] How can we see ourselves in our diversity and in a less dictatorial, less modernist relationship with our environment and instead, from now on, every time we build new infrastructures, think about the necessary flexibility that these infrastructures must have because our old way of dealing with natural and climatic processes is no longer sufficient and cannot be sustained.
Gabriella Gómez-Mont
Founder, Experimentalista
Key Actions
- Give preference to prevention principles over substantial changes that require public capital investment and do not positively impact the general interest.
- Form multidisciplinary teams that allow the inclusion of strategic perspectives to develop societies and common challenges.
- Engage opinion polls and co-design tools with citizens to explore alternatives to port infrastructure development.
- Give preference to prevention principles over substantive changes that require public capital investment and do not have a positive impact on the general interest.
Experts
Gabriella Gómez-Mont
Founder, Experimentalista
Laleh Khalili
Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London
Stefan Al
Architect, urbanist and professor at Columbia University