Gentrification in Porto: floating city users and internationally-driven urban change

ABSTRACT

The heightening scale of urban tourism and the fast-growing number of “floating” city users raise new challenges to understand contemporary urban change – namely for internationally open, heritage-rich medium-sized cities. Discussing the case of Porto at a time when the contested notion of gentrification infuses local politics, we highlight the transnational drivers of this process in Portugal´s second city. While acknowledging perils and benefits, we argue that more than simply leaving a footprint to be solved with taxation, internationally-driven gentrification may endanger city diversity and identity, raising implications for urban policy and for our understanding of local development as a whole.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational gentrification
• touristification
• studentification
• retail
• holiday rentals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We thank one anonymous referee for making this remark.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through the following grants: UID/GEO/04084/ 2013; PTDC/GES-URB/30551/2017; SFRH/BPD/103707/2014.