Special Issue: Small Ports, Big Challenges: Agents of Change in Urban and Regional Port Systems
Guest Editors: Lukas Höller, Yvonne van Mil, Silvia Sivo
Deadline for Abstract Submissions: 01-11-2025
Full Paper Submission Deadline: July 2026
Expected Publication: 2027
While global mega-ports and port cities such as Rotterdam, Shanghai and Los Angeles continue to dominate policy agendas and research attention, small and medium-sized ports (SMPs) are often overlooked despite their crucial role in supporting local and regional economies, connecting communities and cooperating with larger maritime hubs. Rather than viewing their smaller scale as a weakness, their relative invisibility can in fact be an advantage: it reduces agglomeration pressures and conflicts, deepens community ties, and opens up room for adaptive governance and po licy experimentation. At the same time, SMPs can “borrow size” through collaboration—pooling procurement, sharing services and data platforms, coordinating inland and short-sea links, and developing interoperable systems for green fuels and charging.
This special issue of Urban Planning invites a reframing of small and medium-sized ports: not as marginal, dependent, or secondary actors, but as agents of change with unique capabilities and regional relevance. Small ports—whether coastal or inland—often operate at a different scale, with smaller footprints, lower cargo volumes, and less extensive infrastructure than their larger counterparts. Yet this very scale, thanks to their close connections with the surrounding city and the direct hinterland, offers opportunities for innovation, experimentation, and flexibility—qualities that can be critical in addressing the environmental, social, and economic challenges of contemporary port city territories.
Rather than imposing a single definition, this issue welcomes diverse interpretations of what constitutes a “small port”, whether based on physical size, economic throughput, governance model, or position within broader ecosystems such as port systems, urban territories or river networks. What unites these ports is not just their scale, but their capacity to contribute to the resilience and sustainability of wider urban and regional systems.
Building on recent debates within the LDE PortCityFutures Small Ports, Big Challenges research group, this issue high lights three key research themes:
- The unique advantages of SMPs compared with larger hubs, such as strong local embeddedness, heritage value, and operational flexibility.
- Interdependencies within wider ecosystems, such as port systems, urban territorial and river networks.
- Challenges and opportunities facing small ports, including climate adaptation, infrastructure investment, en hanced social equality, and economic resilience.
At a time of climate change, small ports offer valuable perspectives through which to approach inclusive, sustainable, and adaptive urban planning. This issue seeks contributions that deepen, challenge, and expand our understanding of small and medium-sized ports in the 21st century.
Topics of Interest We invite original contributions that examine the spatial, economic, social, and governance aspects of small and medi um-sized ports. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Defining and classifying small ports
- What makes a port ‘small’? Criteria based on spatial footprint, throughput, governance or visibility.
- Temporality and flexibility in port usage (e.g. temporary or multifunctional waterfronts).
- Indicators for classification within river, coastal or inland port systems.
- Port networks and territorial interdependencies.
- Interrelations between small and large ports.
- Regional port clusters, logistical corridors and shared governance.
- Cooperative strategies and institutional interdependencies.
- Spatial and urban impacts of small ports.
- Port-city integration and conflict in cities with small ports.
- Impacts on land use, land-sea interaction, urban design, housing and public space.
- Pollution, mobility and infrastructure challenges in dense or fragmented urban areas.
- Governance and institutional dimensions of small ports.
- Planning and regulation across scales (local, regional, EU).
- Institutional fragmentation or innovation in port governance.
- The role of port authorities and intergovernmental bodies.
- Challenges and opportunities in transition.
- Small ports and the energy transition: opportunities and constraints.
- Digitalisation, automation and innovation in smaller-scale operations.
- Climate adaptation and resilience strategies.
- Comparative, historical and design perspectives.
- Comparative studies across regions or types of ports (e.g. coastal, riverine, inland).
- Historical trajectories and the transformation of small port cities.
- The role of spatial design, architecture, experimental practice and student-led interventions.
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts (300–500 words) should be submitted by 1 November 2025 to y.b.c.vanmil@tudelft.nl.
Abstracts should outline the research question, methodology, case study or theoretical focus, and relevance to the special issue theme.
Selected authors will be invited to submit full papers (6,000–8,000 words) by July 2026.
All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review following the journal’s guidelines. For detailed author instructions, visit: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/pages/view/forauthors