Infrastructure Development and Waterfront Transformations: Physical and Intangible Borders in Haifa Port City

Keren Ben Hilell,Yael Allweil

doi:10.17645/up.v6i3.4198

Abstract

Constructed on its natural bay as a fortified Muslim town in the late 18th century, Haifa’s port city transformed into a modern cosmopolitan port city in the second half of the 19th century. Significant technological, administrative, and social changes made Haifa into the transportation and economic hub of northern Palestine: Its harbor, the first in the region, became a gate to the east for commodities, pilgrimages, and ideas. British imperialism enlarged it with landfill areas and added an industrial function, constructing refineries and a connecting pipeline with Iraq. Haifa port served as the main entry port for immigration and goods for the newly founded Israeli state. Privatization and neo-liberalization transformed it from national port to international corporate hub, reshaping both port and city. Individual entrepreneurs, local governments, and imperial actions shaped and reshaped the landscape; perforating new access points, creating porous borders, and a new socioeconomic sphere.<strong> </strong>This process persisted through the Late Ottoman era, the British Mandate, and the Israeli state. From the first Ottoman landfills to the sizeable British harbor of 1933, the market economy led urban planning of Haifa’s waterfront and its adjacent railroad to the current Chinese petrol-harbor project. What were the city’s tangible and intangible borders? How did these changes, influenced by local and foreign agendas, unfold? Tapping into built-environment evidence; archival documents (architectural drawings, plans, maps, and photographs); and multidisciplinary academic literature to examine Haifa’s urban landscape transformation, this article studies the history of Haifa’s planned urban landscape—focusing on transformations to the port and waterfront to adjust to new technologies, capital markets, and political needs. We thus explore Haifa port history as a history of porosity and intangibility—rather than the accepted history of European modernization—building upon theoretical literature on global networks and urban form, regional dynamics of port cities, and tangible and intangible border landscapes.

Highlights

Ports and port cities present a history of spatial situa‐ tions defined by flexible borders, as porous access points connecting distant places and facilitating movement of goods and people worldwide
Haifa’s port has undergone a series of dramatic trans‐ formations to its landscape and infrastructure since the mid‐18th century, with implications and derivatives extending to decisions taken in Istanbul, London, and Jerusalem, goods sought in Marseille and Damascus, peo‐ ple coming from Europe and the MENA, and oil pumped from Basra
Haifa was inaugurated as a port city in the Eastern Mediterranean by a new local ruler interested in attracting French ships and exporting cotton and other agricultural products to Europe

Summary

Introduction

Ports and port cities present a history of spatial situa‐ tions defined by flexible borders, as porous access points connecting distant places and facilitating movement of goods and people worldwide. Ports provided the necessary facilities to connect land and water transport, including the development of docks and breakwaters, redesigned coastlines, and landed infrastructure at the intersection of water and land These spatial elements enable the porosity of tangible borders. More extensive and more specialized ships—sail ships to steamships, to container ships and oil tankers—demanded deeper docking pools and larger cranes, railways, warehouses, administrative areas, and worker housing They changed the waterfront and urban fabric of port cities, and the grain of porosity required of port landscapes. Run by global corpo‐ rations, Haifa port has transformed again into a global container port To explore this history as a history of porosity and intangibility—rather than the accepted his‐ tory of European modernization—this article builds upon three spheres of theoretical literature: global networks and urban form; regional dynamics of port cities; and tan‐ gible and intangible border landscapes

Global Networks and Urban Form

Geographic Dynamics of Port Cities

Port Cities

Haifa Port City

Findings

Conclusion