Evoluzione del network portuale e cambiamenti del waterfront urbano. Il caso di Durban.

Abstract

From the 1970s on, the structure and connections of the port city changed substantially due to many different factors, as the availability of new IT and naval and communication technologies, globalisation, climate change, and others. The scholar Brian Hoyle developed a model of the evolution of the city-port interface in chronological phases based on these factors. The thesis will start from this base theory and then move to an analysys of the revitalisation process which is considered the end of the evolutionary series of steps. After this, a question will then be considered to be answered: Is revitalisation really the final stage of the relationships between port and city? Or are we entering a new phase in waterfront development? Hoyle himself more recently considered the beginning of a new stage in his model in which port and city re-build their funcional relations and interdependencies. This stage will be analysed through the theory of Adalberto Vallega, calling for a more intergrated and sustainable coastal management. At this point we will discover how climate change and globalisation in particular affected the global system and thus also the most common global connection nodes, city-ports. The importance of new approaches in the triangular relation city-port-industry will be highlighted. Vallega points out that in this highly globalised system it is important for the waterfront to regain it’s gateway functions too, to become again a central place, an attraction area, easy to insert in the international and regional economic and trade links. From this point, we will consider another theory by Van Klink about entering the phase of a port network, through which we will unravel the complex structure and network of today’s big ports and why it is so important to achieve a great integration and cooperation in the management of all port resources, human, financial, and material. Three different typologies of port network will be outlined and we will conclude with the new role of the port authority within this complex system. The thesis then move to the second and third chapters in which we analyse and sketch out our case study, namely the Port of Durban as a port network and its revitalisation, trying to seize its specificities and unique features. In the second chapter we start with a panoramic view of the port structure and evolution in history. Then, two attempts of integrated management will be outlined. Moreover, a recent project for a new container terminal will be described: the Durban Dig-out Port. To conclude this second part of the thesis an attempt will be made to analyse the network of South African ports outlining a study by the scholar Theo Notteboom, about setting a new network structure for container terminals in South Africa. We will discover that these changes in the structure of the container port system in South Africa could result in a higher competition between the Suez route and the Cape route by 2020. In the third chapter we will be focusing specifically on the revitalisation process in Durban, which was peculiar compared to other African ports, beacause the port and city functions remained connected and interdependent. After an introduction on revitalisation in South African ports, the Durban Point Development (DPD) project will be described in all its features, trying to understand the benefits it wants to bring to the city-port life. Also, we will then discuss the main issues that the revitalization process in Durban brought about and we will describe the final layout of the DPD Project. In the final part of the thesis we will try to forecast some future possible developments for the revitalisation process in Durban.