ABSTRACT
The interaction between infrastructures and urban development has increasingly become an important object of urban history studies. The evolution of maritime technology, beginning with the Industrial Revolution, propelled European colonial expansion. The development of the colonial economy and commercial exchanges between the metropolis and the colony therefore compels new functional requirements in the ports, in particular a greater regularity of the maritime services, a rapid circulation of the goods to cover the costs of investment in the port apparatus. The Chamber of Commerce of Algiers played a major role in promoting colonial economy, port infrastructure development in Algeria. City interventions in the port were subject to an exceptional regime, because, despite its location in the city centre, the port benefits from an autonomous administration. This parameter meant that new institutional dynamics at the local level resulted in negotiations between municipal actors and port stakeholders on the application of city prerogatives in the port.
