This is the story of how New Haven was built, reshaped, and still organized by its harbor, its institutions, and the choices made about its people and land. What follows moves from a religious colonial settlement to a city of Yale, wharves, factories, railroads, planning, redlining, urban renewal, and a later turn toward hospitals, research, and redevelopment, while older inequalities remain in view. To understand the city that emerges at the end, it helps to begin where its physical and civic foundations were first laid beside the water.