Flows and Pauses in the Urban Logistics Landscape: The Municipal Regulation of Shipping Container Mobilities

Abstract

The mobilities turn has demonstrated the importance of the social, cultural and political implications of travel for a variety of modes, though largely focused on people and vehicles, not freight. The transport of goods by shipping container has become the predominant means of freight transport since the 1960s, shaping places from port cities to rural distribution centers. This paper uses two North American case studies to explore temporary immobilities or pauses in the flows of shipping containers, showing that the problems containers pose to the places they pass through are not a function of the objects themselves, but their state of mobility. Pauses are important as a category of mobility because of the consequences of regulations that attempt to eliminate or redirect them.

Mobilising security and logistics through an African port: A controversies approach to infrastructure

“…Accordingly, for some freight forwarders, shippers and transporters, fixes to delays may come from more efficient procedures and software, but also from more forceful initiatives to thwart corruption. A controversy about how to diminish immobility also helps to reveal the practices of state actors to routinely regulate immobility (Cidell 2012).…”

Holding together logistical worlds: Friction, seams and circulation in the emerging ‘global warehouse’

“…Thus, there is a surfeit of empties in economies where imports greatly exceed exports, such as the UK and the US. Here mountainous piles of empty containers are a constant presence in the port landscape (Cidell, 2012). Empties also result from imports and exports in a country coming from different Holding together logistical worlds -revision 2 -September 2016 -14 -some of these processes and the frictions that result.…”

Metropolitan Governance of Transport and Land Use in Chicago

“…Many municipalities use aesthetic requirements in their zoning regulations or other restrictions to keep container storage areas out. For example, certain municipalities require container storage areas to be connected to waterways and railways, even if municipalities do not expect these containers to arrive by water or railways (Cidell, 2012). It is questionable if such a system of zoning regulations leads to the most rational organisation of freight traffic flows.…”