The first development that brought about this so-called forgetting was the rise of the container. Pioneered by the United States in the late 1950s, ‘containerised’ shipping set a world standard for general cargo by the end of the 1960s. These uniformly sized boxes, capable of being mechanically transported from the berths of ships to a wide variety of land transport systems, quickly made possible a dramatic increase in economies of scale. This expansion led to the rise of the super-ship as well as the super-port, city-like structures located at an unbridgeable remove from metropolitan consciousness. The second development facilitating this rapid growth was the creation of a ‘flag of convenience’ system of ship registry in the late 1940s. Roughly akin to a deregulation of international labour markets, this system created a loophole for industrialists in the developed world by allowing them to register their ships in particularly permissive countries like Panama, Honduras and Liberia, thereby evading national labour and safety legislation.
about Intermodal Freight Transport
scale model of future Container Bar
