‘A Deeper Channel Floats all Boats’: The Port Economy as Urban Growth Engine

Abstract

This paper analyzes an urban growth strategy revolving around port logistics. The growing significance of port economies is linked to the larger process of globalization and the increasing geographic distance between the points of production and consumption. Transportation and logistics emerge as a potential growth scheme for cities and regions that seek to develop ‘logistics clusters’. The analysis is based on the case of Jacksonville Florida, and the effort by public and private officials to identify and promote the maritime port as an engine of growth. This case study considers the efficacy of the growth machine model in understanding this urban development process as well as the limitations of this approach when applied to a development strategy based on the ‘strategic coupling’ of the urban economy with global supply chains under conditions of intense interport competition. The requirements of the port logistics sector for large-scale publicly financed infrastructure projects and the modification of the natural environment for commerce pose unique challenges and uncertainties for this development strategy.

Fungible Space: Competition and Volatility in the Global Logistics Network

“…Among the fundamental preconditions of a place's insertion into the logistics network are the industry's requirements for large‐scale infrastructure, often in the form of speculative megaprojects involving considerable public investment. As Jaffee (: 790) notes, the provision of the appropriate infrastructure is a ‘necessary, but ultimately insufficient, condition for achieving the economic development objectives’, since there is no guarantee that ships will actually call at a port facility once it is built. In container shipping, the necessary infrastructure comprises waterside elements (navigation channels, breakwaters, bridge clearances) and landside elements (berths, container yards, cranes, road and rail connections), as well as the various components of the wider regional logistics system (truck routes, intermodal rail terminals, warehouse space).…”

“…Over the past two decades, efforts to attract cargo traffic and value-added logistics activities have played an increasingly pronounced role in entrepreneurial growth strategies at the local, regional and national scales. Yet, with only a few exceptions (Negrey et al, 2011;Jaffee, 2015;Wachsmuth, 2017), this development has received little attention in urban scholarship. This article probes the relationship between these two phenomena--the increasing substitutability of places within corporate supply chains and the intensification of competition among localities for commodity flows--through a multisited study of the container-shipping industry.…”

Approaching the Relational Nature of the Port‐City Interface in Europe: Ties and Tensions Between Seaports and the Urban

“…These ideas have increasingly been adapted by actors in the logistics and port business communities, leading to the creation of freight villages and maritime logistics clusters in order to generate local growth. Or as Jaffee (, p. 783) has simply put it: ‘a deeper channel floats all boats’. However, the current degree of openness of the rather volatile knowledge and information‐driven economies may undermine the belief in the possibility of strongly localised units becoming anchor points of economic development.…”

Environmental Conflicts in Port Cities

“…Continuing, the port city has been perceived as growth pole, that provide comparative advantage to the local economy where it is located, resulting in self-agglomeration and hub-effect (Fujita, 1999). The port city is also recognised in the frame of growth machine (Logan, Molotch, 1987) that posits the mutual empowerment of maritime and land-based elites led by the growth imperative, that have strong influence on urban development policy and land use policy (Jaffee, 2015). Nevertheless, the above port -city relations must be perceived in a sustainable development perspective that include the full board of stakeholders for urban development and spatial planning, not only economic ones.…”