(Re)Imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, Society and Culture

Week 1: What are Port Cities?

• Explore the characteristics that port cities have in common and those that separate them from other cities.
• Examine new and varied perspectives on the relationship between the port and the city, with attention to socio-cultural aspects.

Week 2: Who makes Port Cities?

• Understand the complex networks, formal and informal, of a broad range of stakeholders that make up the port city.
• Look at the influence stakeholders have on each other and on space, and discover how their needs and interests often conflict.

Week 3: What catalyzes change in port cities?

• Identify moments of change in port cities and their causes and effects, both globally and locally.
• Review how causes for change, such as catastrophes, trigger responses to change by inhabitants and authorities.
• Learn how to use tools to implement change and respond to challenges.

Week 4: What challenges are port cities facing?

• Discuss the contemporary social, economic and environmental challenges to port cities and the way past decisions are still influencing the present and the future.
• Explore the role of values in the decision-making of various stakeholders and their conflicts which may arise from the challenges.

Week 5: How to respond to challenges in port cities at times of change?

• Learn how to set goals to inform decision making in response to a challenge.
• See how the UN Sustainable Development Goals are tailored to port cities and the stakeholder tensions they lead to.
• Develop a value-based approach to decision-making.

You will choose to work on a goal that relates to your port city and the challenges it faces and present the results of your research.