Introduction

Port cities are elemental and captivating: the salt in the air, the connection to distant shores, the ebb and flow of diverse cultures and cargoes. From Osaka to Hamburg and Vancouver to Istanbul, port cities worldwide share narratives of cosmopolitanism and even exceptionalism. But many port cities also share global legacies of empire, colonialism, inequality, and political unrest. These global legacies are contradictory and intertwined. They encompass the nostalgic and the forgetful, the radical and the reactionary, the parochial and the worldly. They are uncomfortable subjects of denial, debate, and ambivalence. This book argues that the concept of ‘global legacies’—enduring forms, processes, or ideas of the ‘global’ that shape urban identity and politics is an important lens for analysing difficult pasts and uncertain futures in struggling port cities.