Imagining alternative futures for ports in transition: Habitat III

“Imagining alternative futures for ports in transition” was an official Side Event of Habitat III, Quito, 17-20 October 2016.

Former ports of air and water, in various parts of the world, experience uncertain states of gradual or abrupt transition. Some are being imagined as metropolitan parks, while in times of economic recession, others are facing privatization and speculative development at the detriment of the communities and cities they serve and to which they belong.

By switching scales from local to global and by overcoming national frameworks, we attempt to understand horizontally the nature of these processes. Several workshops, research projects, presentations, and activist actions involve partners and collaborators in the process of forming a global transnational research network across cities in Europe and Latin America.

We examine the issues and challenges of peer production, large-scale participatory planning, alternative forms of governance and policy development, and the regeneration of urban commons at a metropolitan scale as timely and fruitful for developing global futurity. Several workshops, research projects, presentations, and activist actions involve a number of partners and collaborators in the process of forming a global transnational research network, which have taken place at a number of cities in Europe and Latin America including Ecuador. The aforementioned workshops and research initiatives are inspired by the richness of P2P production between individuals, collectivities, movements and institutions, and attempt a transfer of that experience into the realm of physical space and the global nomos, specifically using the concepts of ‘metropolitan’ and ‘cosmopolitan commons’.

Remote connection with collaborators urbanists, researchers and activists from other cities around the world address their research case studies, forming part of our network include Berlin, Hambourg, Gdansk, La Plata and Athens.