The Port of Reggio Calabria is located on the eastern shore of the Strait and consists of an artificial basin protected by the long Western Pier. Santa Caterina is the urban district overlooking the port. Together with the port of Villa San Giovanni, the Port of Reggio Calabria ensures connections with Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. In addition to passenger and commercial services, the port of Reggio also serves recreational boating. With regard to freight traffic, in the past it was connected to numerous Mediterranean ports: Casablanca in Morocco, Marseille in France, several Turkish ports, Ceuta in Spain, Patras in Greece, Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, and Valletta in Malta. The port area has direct connections to the road and motorway network (a link road on the final stretch of the A2 motorway crossing the city of Reggio Calabria).
Many shortcomings hinder the development of the port at a territorial scale. In terms of integration with other Calabrian nodes included in the central and global European networks, the port does not benefit from a direct road connection to Reggio Calabria Airport, nor from direct rail links to the same airport, to Lamezia Terme Airport, or to the Port of Gioia Tauro. Port and city, therefore, appear to have little relationship with one another, seeming “foreign” to each other for two main reasons: on the one hand, the self-contained management of port authorities; on the other, the limited capacity of urban planning to manage the spatial effects of infrastructure policies, which are often sectoral and self-referential. THE URBAN WATERFRONT HAS BECOME A HIGHLY RELEVANT ISSUE, AFFECTING NOT ONLY LARGE URBAN CENTERS BUT ALSO SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED CITIES OVERLOOKING WATER, WHICH ARE SEEKING TO SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITIES OFFERED BY THE INTERFACES BETWEEN THE URBAN FABRIC AND THE WATER. Territorial contexts to be restored to accessibility and public use have, in recent years, become the focus of interesting processes of urban-port reconversion and transformation projects along waterfronts; complex territories and relationships that encapsulate the contradictions and challenges of contemporary design; different scales, territorial strategies, tools, funding mechanisms, and aspects involved in the transformation of port cities and urban waterfronts in Italy—examined to demonstrate that the relationship between city and port should not be conceived as a matter of homogeneity, but rather of diversity, where policies, projects, actors, and resources do not necessarily assume the same roles. Recent studies, together with public debate, have brought the port issue back to the forefront, highlighting it as an underused infrastructure relative to its potential. In particular, it has been noted that railway installations within the port area, the elevated ring road, and the disordered development of the nearby Santa Caterina district have contributed to creating a “barrier” between Reggio and its sea. Enhancing the “in-between land” of the waterfront at territorial, urban, and extra-urban scales—through the creation of a pathway that strengthens connections and activates permanent civic, sports, and social functions alongside more specifically port-related ones—represents a project of connectivity that goes far beyond infrastructure and its associated elements.