Beyond the logistical monolith. Multiplicity and differentiation along the Adriatic Corridor

This chapter challenges the notion of infrastructure-led development initiatives as monolithic systems by examining the multiplicity and differentiation of urban spaces along the Adriatic Corridor. It explores how infrastructural expansion and port development, driven by globalization, technological advancements, and shifting geographies of production, is reshaping urban and regional landscapes. In particular, it questions the role of the current global turn to infrastructure as a descriptor of current urbanization phenomena. By analyzing from the ground the urban outcomes of infrastructural transformation in Piraeus and Trieste, key sites within China’s Belt and Road Initiative, this chapter discusses the need to overcome a purely technical view of infrastructure and its processes, in order to recognise its current leap in scale, and to see these interventions as part of the new forms of contemporary urban phenomena. By observing the BRI in its material outcomes, the chapter highlights three conceptual issues for further research: the urban role of the global infrastructure turn; the deflagration and partialisation of development processes in incoherent trajectories; the BRI as a revealing construct, capable of displaying multiplicity and variety.