Imponderabilia

Abstract

The globalization that we are facing completely transformed the world as we knew it fifty years ago. The historical era we live in today is cha- racterized by the use of technology, which is one of the factors that made globalization possible. While some time ago it was possible to define and identify the “center” of powers, of cities, it became more challenging today. Nowadays different types of centralities exist, ranging from the new transnational networks of cities to electronic space (Sassen, 2001). The urban question addresses the cities as the main places where the activities that arose from globalization are focused and they are characterized by different degrees of virtuality. Finance is one of them, probably the most virtual, thanks to the liberalization that happened in the eighties of the last century (Harvey, 2007). (Sassen, 2001) proposes a challenge to the archi- tects and urbanists in this sense: are we able to study and imagine projects for the places of intersection between the global, mostly virtual dynamics, and the local realities? The research that is explained here wants to take up this challenge. It focuses on the topic of the global commercial networks that have been developing in the last years. Such corridors aim at creating new con- nections between cities around the globe, by building new infrastructure in strategic points, among them harbors too. The practice of allowing den- ser flows between these areas is less virtual than the activities of finance, for instance. Every commercial corridor needs to take into consideration the question of logistics, mobility and consequently infrastructure whose physical implications are tangible. Similarly, some of the flows that pass through the hubs are flows of very tangible objects such as containers or liquids. Along with the concrete passengers of the commercial there will be the unofficial ones, whose presence is intrinsic every time there is an exchange of goods: the knowledge and culture from the places connected by the new economic corridor. Just like in the case of finance, explained by Sassen (2001), there is a variety of other activities and spaces that emer- ge along with it. This research wants to address the ones that emerge and could emerge from the development of harbor cities in the current logic of globalization and growth of global flows.
This research wants to underline that the answer is not in the obedient ac- ceptance of the conditions that the global powers dictate. That is why, the outcome of this thesis wants to be a new method, and a new lens through which we can all choose to look at the urban paradigm of harbor cities.