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Abstract
In face of the systemic character of urban problems and the uncertainty surrounding planning methodologies, the need to intervene in urban space requires a holistic and spatial-based approach, rather than simply attempting to regulate urban expansion. Such an approach has increasingly been used in restricted areas to deal with complex urban dynamics and conflicting interests. This area-based and multi-problem approach in urbanism, although not new, has gained new relevance as it is highly relevant to the urban competition between cities (and the ‘creative cities’ agenda) and is specially suited to deal with the transformation of urban areas with high regenerative potential. It is also easily associated with public–private partnership and the creation of the ‘atmospheres’ that seem to fit conveniently with the dominant expectations and interests of educated middle- and high-class residents and visitors. In this context, Porto, its city centre and its older heritage area in particular, has provided a very good basis for analysing and discussing the dynamics, intentions and results of area-based initiatives. This is particularly so given the persistence of a range of problems previously commonly found in other cities in Europe some decades which coexist with the dynamics that characterize the larger metropolis where there is a rich recent history of spatial planning in central areas. This article examines what may be described as Europeanization of Porto (and Portuguese) urban policy, and the associated different programmes, projects and plans, providing indications of the agents, processes and results, of what we see as a late and brutal process of transition from public action, or strongly regulated private action, to a dominant private, public-supported urbanism, where social objectives matter much less than aesthetics and ‘spatial-based vitality’, and urbanism seems to create new divides and increased spatial injustice.
Notes
1. Several works analyse this evolution in planning for city centres in Europe and the United States, as well as from a Portuguese perspective (Fernandes et al. Citation2000, Balsas Citation2002), whereas others deal with the matter from a national perspective, such as for Holland (Musterd and Osrendorf 2008). There is also a significant number of studies on planning for a particular city centre, such as in the case of Manchester's recovery following the IRA bombing in 1996 (Williams Citation2003).
2. ‘Baixa’ is equivalent to the concept of ‘downtown’ and it is used to identify the area of Lisbon near the Tagus River which was reconstructed after the 1755 earthquake under the government of the Marquis de Pombal. Contrary to Lisbon, in Porto the ‘Baixa’ emerged as the main centre in a much higher area than the riverfront, or Ribeira, and a less planned, ‘natural’ eighteenth- and nineteenth-century extensions of the city.
3. Even though history covers all territories and time periods and it is not possible to clearly define the time limit or number of buildings and other urban elements, by which a given area is old enough in terms of occupation and the importance of the landmarks man left behind, to be called ‘historic’.
4. If ‘new centralities’ are asserted by economic specialization and the increased accessibility and symbolism of new areas in the enlarged and fragmented metropolis, the ‘old’ centre is also no longer seen as unique (even if in many cases it never was!) and can even seen as having become ‘peripheral’, in a process which François Ascher (Citation1998) called of ‘inversion of centralities’.
5. Expression used half a century ago for the United States by Whyte (Citation1993).
6. The total number of inhabitants and buildings mentioned herein are listed in the Management Plan of the Historic Centre of Porto completed by the Urban Rehabilitation Society ‘Porto Vivo’, publicly presented in December 2008 and available at http://www.portovivosru.pt/destaque_04.php.
7. Note that in many cases, besides the natural difference between the most dynamic cities and other cities that have become somewhat stagnant, even in the oldest streets, buildings dating from the nineteenth to twentieth century are often more numerous than the older buildings from the eighteenth century, as a result of small yet many actions of renewal, as is the case of the streets of Sant'Ana, Escura or Mercadores.
8. Nowadays, incidentally, this axis is with low usage by car traffic, as a result of the metro installed on the upper deck of the bridge.
9. One must also consider the many substitutions of buildings and several projects that were not implemented due to lack of economic and political capacity, such as those that provided for the opening of wide streets in the place of Rua da Bainharia and crossing the Barredo, linking the riverside road which comes from Gondomar (Av. Paiva Couceiro and Av. Gustavo Eiffel) with the road leading to the west side of the city (Rua Nova da Alfândega).
10. Relevant examples of recent elements in Porto that attract many visitors due to their architecture and cultural dimension are Casa da Música (projected by Rem Koolhas) and the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (by Alvaro Siza Vieira), among several cultural spaces and other architectonic works by the same architect (and also Souto Moura).
11. The central freguesias (parishes) of S. Nicolau, Sé, Miragaia and Vitoria totalled 37,793 habitants in 1960, 27,961 in 1981 and just 13,218 in 2001, and recent estimates confirm the trend. Diverse causes have to be considered in this depopulation but it is essential to note that the negative values of the migratory balance between emigration and immigration has to be combined with the difference between birth rate (very low) and mortality rate (very high) in a group with an important segment of elderly people.
12. This relationship of many with a parcel of the city in which they were not born nor where they work or purchase goods or services is undoubtedly tied to the quest for complementarity, whether of homogenized land areas on the city outskirts, or places from where visitors come from, being that they are also citizens with a multi-territorial status (Haesbaert Citation2004).
13. This action was reinforced with national funds from the RECRIA programme, directed at the conservation and rehabilitation of buildings with residential use.
14. This programme aims to meet two of the three major objectives of the European Spatial Development Policy, focusing on urban requalification, with a view to reinforcing competitiveness, and on environmental enhancement, taking sustainability into account. The programme supported 28 major projects in circumscribed areas, normally central waterfront areas in urban centres, which were considered to play an important role in the national urban system structure (http://www.polis.maotdr.gov.pt).
15. Retail Urbanism projects under the PROCOM and URBCOM programmes made diverse yet globally important contributions to the viability and vitality of independent commerce in all major cities of Portugal and several small cities in Portugal, with investment in shops and their management (60% of the total of the project), public space requalification (30%) and animation and promotion of the city centre (10%) (Fernandes et al. Citation2000).
16. Shopping centres that normally include a hypermarket and a cinema multiplex are open every day of the week and every day of the year from 10.00 am to 11.00 pm, and shops, restaurants and diverse services benefit from legal changes facilitating flexible and temporary working contracts, at low wages and normally easy recruitment. It should be noted that there is access to shopping centres by car and to two of them also by light rail, that car parking is free, and that some have won international prizes for their architecture and environmental solutions, and also for animation programmes and their relation with local communities.
17. The theme of commercial resilience in Porto is the object of research in the REPLACIS project, where a comparative approach on the aegis of Urban Networks was conducted on the resilience of urban retail systems, considered in the internal report as ‘the ability of different types of retailing, at different scales, to adapt to changes, crises or shocks, challenging the system's equilibrium, without failing to perform their functions in a sustainable way’.
18. Saskia Sassen (Citation1991) was especially noted for the relationship she established between changes experienced by the global economy and the increased importance of a limited number of ‘global cities’.
19. The idea is particularly widespread through the works of Landry and Bianchini (Citation1995) and especially with Richard Florida's best seller (Citation2003), emphasizing the competitive advantage of cities that attract a ‘creative class’.
20. The relationship between the conditions of an area and development has long been the object of study, but it was revived after Jacob's pioneering work (1961), with subsequent dissemination of texts by many geographers, economists and sociologists, some of them especially remarkable, such as Peter Hall's Cities in Civilization (Citation1998) and Edward Soja's Postmetropolis (Citation2000).
21. It should be noted that some authors claim there could be a certain exaggeration in the appreciation of the role of space in development, presenting evidence that shows that most people and companies of certain ‘creative industries’ establish their contacts and get information and connections outside the city where they are based, and thus it seems ‘… it is the need for proximity to consumer knowledge that seems important’ (Amin and Thrift Citation2002, p. 63). Many other authors stress the exaggeration of the idea that ‘bohemian’ and ‘creative’ communities could be the driving force in the new economy and desirable environments should be based on a selective policy that improves speculative real-estate development, gentrification and landmarks designed by renowned artists (Glaeser Citation2004, Peck Citation2005). Others insist that nations, not cities, generate economic growth (Taylor Citation2006, Polèse Citation2006), and claim that there is no such thing as ‘cities creating wealth’ (Polèse 2006, p. 1637).
22. Old house rents are very low, as increases fixed by law do not allow for normal updating after remaining untouched for decades; the consequence is that owners do not receive enough money and maintenance is not done. Old rents on retail meant that in the 1980s and 1990s it was much easier to open a shop at a new shopping centre than having to pay a huge amount to replace another retailer in the city centre. Labour laws are another problem, as old workers have significant rights and firing is almost impossible, in contrast with temporary work formulas who are adopted by the more recent units.
23. PRU or Partnerships for Urban Regeneration is an integrated tool in National Strategic Reference Framework and consequent with the urban national policy POLIS XXI, which aims to promote well-planned and well-governed areas of innovation and competitiveness, citizenship and social cohesion, quality of life and environment. The municipalities may have access to PRU funding for urban interventions through applications, presenting integrated operations that can benefit from 70% to 80% of financial aid over the total value of investments, for interventions in various domains in a restricted urban space, forcing the creation of partnerships and the adoption of monitoring and assessment systems.
24. This occurred, for example, in the ‘normalization’ of the area formed by Praça da Liberdade, Avenida dos Aliados and Praça General Humberto Delgado, an intervention that led to a form of dememorization of the old place Nova das Hortas and later D. Pedro IV, where the Municipal Council was located until 1916 (currently Praça da Liberdade), that is now mixed indistinctly with the ‘city's avenue’ (currently Avenida dos Aliados) ripped off of its stone tracery and flowerbeds, characteristic of the most noble spaces created in early twentieth-century cities, and with the ‘square of the power’ adjacent to the City Hall (Praça do General Humberto Delgado). Dememorization can also be associated with the consequences of the ‘cleaning’ operation of the romantic garden in Cordoaria (officially named João Chagas), next to the front area of Cadeia da Relação, both currently inhospitable. It is also worth noting the unusual case of retro-urbanism that took place in Praça de Carlos Alberto, redone ‘a little better than it was before’, after being dissected for the construction of a parking lot and a contemporary intervention was halted amid public protest.
25. On ‘embellishment urbanism’, it is worth revisiting the text by Peter Hall on ‘City Beautiful Movement’ (Hall Citation2002).
26. On the widely discussed topic of gentrification, it is worth considering the difficulty of establishing the appropriate size of areas to be scanned or intervened, as disparities between blocks, for example, may be seen as a ‘good mix’ on the scale of the neighbourhood, and homogeneous neighbourhoods potentially considered correct when seen in the context of the global urban area (Atkinson Citation2008, Freeman Citation2009). It is in no way easier to establish the classification of the various types of gentrification according to social, economic and cultural strata, at different times and places, considering that it is already ‘… a multi-class phenomenon and that the accommodation offered is often in apartment blocks that differ considerably in quality, prestige and view’ (Bounds and Morris Citation2006, p. 99).
27. It is particularly interesting to note a diversified approach, with examples of cooperation between all property owners coordinated by Porto Vivo for the recovery of a block located between Rua das Flores, Rua Mouzinho da Silveira and Rua Trindade Coelho; integration of public actions (university residence to be managed by the private sector) that promote social mingling within the hidden mesh, and interventions with huge gaps (as in the tunnel under the Morro da Vitória), and monitoring of large private investments (as in Cardosas).
28. On the disappeared city, as a result of anxious and always unfinished renovation, or due to untouchable stagnation, see Calvino (Citation2002). About the continued need for several small interventions and the advantage of being suspicious of megalomania, see Piano (Citation2003).
29. Meaning, in this and other dimensions, a clear opposition to the determinations of zoning and the principles of ‘machine and radiant city’ that marked mid-century European urbanism, presented in the General Urbanization of Porto in 1962, and that, despite regulations not being approved yet, still helps to understand the city that was built in the following decades (from central and industrial areas to green parks in the East and West and fast lanes, tunnels and viaducts).
30. In the texts of POLIS XXI and PRU it is also especially noted the evolution mentioned for France and the Netherlands to a ‘project-led approach, to allow diversity of urban problems (social, economic, environmental, mobility) to be addressed in a comprehensive way’ (Verhage 2005, p. 131).
31. There is a vast amount of literature on planning and urban policies and projects in Portugal. Even though it does not include references to recently created PRU, the analysis by Breda-Vasquez et al. (Citation2009) of urban regeneration programmes in their relation with a ‘governance culture’ is of special interest.
32. Perspectives of ‘excessive’ urbanization and a ‘back to the compact European city’ ideal (connected with the Smart City and New Urbanism movements) is object of intense controversy, and sound reflections seem to be relatively rare (Geyer Citation2009).
33. It should be noticed that the expression ‘cities of knowledge’ adds nothing very relevant to the understanding of the city or of knowledge origins and causes, since cities have always been the main place of knowledge.
34. It is also important to remember ‘it is not true that the growth of metropolitan regions and their economic interpenetration have made the borders of major cities irrelevant. Quite the contrary: city borders remain decisive in the design of metropolitan policy’ (Frug Citation2007, p. 300).
35. We should not forget the lessons of Dresden and consider the advantages of a ‘shrinking city’ approach to some cities (Wiechmann Citation2008), rather than that of total ‘touristification’, or the apparently unlimited use of public funds to make people stay against their will.