Fungible Space: Competition and Volatility in the Global Logistics Network

Martin Danyluk

doi:10.1111/1468-2427.12675

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines an emerging form of interspatial competition premised on attracting cargo traffic and value‐added logistics activities. Against the backdrop of economic globalization and the revolution in logistics, place‐based actors are increasingly vying to insert their localities into transnational supply chains. I explore the causes, conditions and consequences of this burgeoning growth strategy through a study of the dynamics surrounding the expansion of the Panama Canal, opened to shipping traffic in June 2016, and the consequent battle among North American ports to attract a new generation of oversized container vessels. The spatial practices of mobile actors in the logistics industry, I argue, represent the leading edge of capitalism's tendency to render places interchangeable—a condition I call fungible space. The abstract logic of spatial substitution, however, can never fully escape the concrete qualities of particular places, which form the very conditions of interchangeability itself. This dialectic of spatial fungibility and geographic specificity has intensified rivalries for volatile commodity flows and made logistics‐oriented development a particularly risky growth strategy for cities. What is at stake in these speculative ventures is the welfare of vulnerable communities and workers, who disproportionately bear the costs and risks of supply‐chain volatility.

Highlights

While the proponents have appealed the decision, grassroots environmental justice movements have dealt Southern California logistics interests a major blow in their campaign to beat the Panama Canal and their larger strategy to increase the volume of cargo moving through the region
Throughout the Americas, the expansion of the Panama Canal has sparked a flurry of entrepreneurial activity on the part of place-based actors seeking to capture footloose freight flows and the economic benefits purportedly attached to them
I have argued that the heightened substitutability of places within the logistics network has rendered supply chains highly unpredictable and intensified rivalries among geographically situated actors for footloose commodity flows

Summary

Introduction

It centers on the expansion of the Panama Canal, opened to shipping traffic in June 2016, and the consequent battle among North American ports to attract the new generation of oversized container vessels that can use the waterway. This dialectic of spatial fungibility and geographic specificity has intensified rivalries among places to attract volatile cargo flows and made logistics-oriented development an especially risky strategy for local officials and elites seeking to promote economic growth.

Results

Conclusion