Once the city’s beating heart, Rotterdam’s port is no longer as present in everyday life. In My Port City Rotterdam, researchers Yi Kwan Chan and Maurice Jansen walk through the city with residents, tracing the places that matter in their lives. The book brings together eighteen personal walking routes, capturing how diverse the stories of Rotterdammers are – and the many ways people connect to the port.

In Delfshaven, Paulo walks past the windmill near where he grew up and through the streets where his Cape Verdean family settled. His father came to Rotterdam as a seafarer. In his story, the port is close, part of everyday life and family history. “I am a Rotterdam love story,” he says. 

Elsewhere, the port is harder to point to. Conce, who moved to Rotterdam from Chile, finds it harder to place. “When you say the port in Rotterdam, I am always wondering… where is it?” she says.  

Backyard for some, background for others 

For some residents, the port is nearby and familiar. For others, it remains somewhere in the background. Port researcher Maurice Jansen (Erasmus UPT and PortCityFutures) grew up in Vlaardingen and calls the port his “backyard.” For human geographer Yi Kwan Chan (PortCityFutures), who moved to Rotterdam from Hong Kong a few years ago, the port was not immediately part of her life in the city.  

That difference runs through the book. Together, Chan and Jansen follow residents through Rotterdam, tracing how people find their way in the city, and how the port appears – or not – along the way. 

Walking as a research method 

Rotterdam is changing. Former port areas are being redeveloped, and the relationship between city and harbour is shifting. Much of that change is discussed in terms of plans and projects. “In our book, we wanted to take a different approach,” Yi Kwan Chan says. “By walking with residents, through routes of their choosing, we began to see the city and the port through the eyes of Rotterdammers – new and old.” 

For Maurice Jansen, the walking method taught him a lot about his own city. “I thought I knew Rotterdam,” he says. “But you pass by so much without even noticing it. For someone else, those same places can carry a lot of meaning. And I also learned that you don’t always see what it took for someone to get here. Only when you walk with people, and hear their stories, you start to understand that. Their stories resonate well with Rotterdam’s motto: stronger through stride.” 

A city seen through its residents 

The book shows a city in which the port is sometimes close, sometimes distant, and never quite the same for everyone. It also raises a broader question about Rotterdam’s future. “We talk a lot about improving the city,” says Yi Kwan Chan. “But who are we building it for?”