ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a theoretical analysis of the types of relationship that can exist between closely located ports. It investigates the major tendencies affecting maritime and port activities and local social contexts in order to explain, in spite of an increasingly competitive global economic environment, today's paradoxical increase in interport cooperation. The chapter shows how recent changes motivate Dunkirk's progressive integration within a nascent subset of the Northern Range. Dunkirk has nothing in common with the traditional profile of a Northern Range commercial port. Dunkirk is thus essentially a bulk port that provides raw materials to the heavy industry in its maritime industrial development area (MIDA). The port of Dunkirk had all the appearances of an industrial port in crisis located in a conurbation in crisis. The Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, where the port of Dunkirk is located, has historically been a border region.
