Ports as sea-land interface nodes have always been key crossroads for goods and people and for the diffusion of innovation. The recent challenges descending from sustainability need to consider the interaction among the city and its port, particularly in their capacity of playing pivotal roles in shaping the sustainable economic development of their regions, exerting a substantial impact on well-being and overall quality of life, representing an opportunity for implementing Circular City concepts. Achieving this goal depends on the use of appropriate development models for production and consumption, with a focus on interactions within the urban and territorial framework. The implementation of the concepts belonging to the circular economy into the port context, expressed within gateway ports, by their nature strongly embedded within an urban and regional framework, is nonetheless a subject yet to be more deeply investigated. The present research is based on an analysis performed combining different models developed in time to study the city-port relation (Bird’s Anyport model) as well as location in space (Weber model of industrial location) within a circular framework. Operationally, a city-port interference and interaction matrix is developed, to analyze the areas of potential development of the circular activities, in particular those related to building maintenance, demolition and reconstruction. These in particular spatial analytical and mapping instruments are also implemented to realize and examine a GIS database for the model’s application. The study was implemented to introduce some considerations for the development strategies into the framework of the city-port relation for the study area of Trieste, Italy.
