Elsevier

Cities

Volume 27, Issue 5, October 2010, Pages 405-419
Cities

City profile
Lisbon

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2009.12.008Get rights and content

Abstract

At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, in times of widespread uncertainty, Lisbon is facing some major challenges. On the one hand, it has to deal with a number of problems already visible at the end of the last century, such as the continuous reduction of resident population, increasing urban and social imbalances, low levels of mobility and accessibility, the steady and persistent degradation of the built environment, and an inadequate decision-making system. On the other hand, Lisbon has to deal with a number of structural infrastructure projects that were designed before the global financial crisis. Examples are the new international airport, the third bridge over the Tagus River, the high-speed-rail project linking the Portuguese capital with Oporto on the North and with Madrid (Spain) on the East, and the trunk road network at the metropolitan scale. In addition, there are demands for planning activity to provide more effective products, processes and results, both at the municipal and local scales.

Introduction

This paper is written almost three decades after Williams wrote the first city profile on Lisbon (Williams, 1983). The main objectives of the paper are to bring up to date the city profile; to identify the city’s main problems and threats; and to contribute to current urban planning activity. The article is divided into seven sections. After this brief introduction, the second part offers a description of the geographical settings. The third part describes the early developments of the Portuguese capital. It then moves to the 19th and the 20th centuries, analyzing the evolution of the city with respect to demography, society and politics, urban form, and municipal planning. The fifth section characterizes the on-going development of Lisbon, identifying the main problems and threats to the city. The sixth part of the paper critically reviews two important planning documents, at both municipal and local scales, and some major infrastructural projects, contributing as such to a reflection on current urban planning activity. Conclusions are drawn in the final section.

Section snippets

Geographical settings

The city of Lisbon is situated within the geographic coordinates 38°41′47″ to 38°46′53″ North and 9°08′35″ to 9°12′57″ West. The altitude varies from 6 to 226 m. The climate is temperate. In general, the annual maximum and minimum temperatures are between 29 °C in August and 7 °C in January (IM, 2009). Annual rainfall was 950 mm in 2006, the wettest year of the decade (IM, 2009). In that year, the heaviest concentration of precipitation occurred in October, 250 mm, and the lowest concentration

Early developments

The early developments of Lisbon go back to the 8th century BC. Two streams had a fundamental role in the contemporary geography. The first flowed from the North down the valley that is today the Av. da Liberdade, and the second flowed from the East down the valley of Av. Almirante Reis. Both met at Rossio, forming a large inlet that flowed into the Tagus. This geographical structure provided the ideal conditions for the establishment of an early settlement in Castel Hill, to the East of Rossio

The 19th and the 20th centuries

This section describes the evolution of the city throughout the 19th and the 20th centuries. These centuries present significantly different rhythms of urban development when compared with the previous ones. This is clearly expressed in the (unofficial) low rates of urban growth prior to the 1800s. The presence of the last decades of the 20th century in this section of the paper intends to address the first objective of the article – bringing up to date Williams’ city profile (Williams, 1983).

The main problems and threats to the city

The second objective of this paper is to identify the main problems and threats to the city, which will be the focus of the next paragraphs. Despite the whole set of positive and interesting features presented throughout this paper, Lisbon is currently facing some significant challenges. The city has been loosing population since 1981, with already less than half a million inhabitants in 2008 (estimated population) – see Table 1. Throughout the present decade, it has been loosing 1.9% of the

A critical review of urban planning and proposals for infrastructural projects

The third goal of this paper is to contribute to the current planning activity in Lisbon. This will be the focus of this section, critically reviewing what we consider to be the main institutional responses to the fundamental problems and needs of Lisbon, at the local, municipal, and metropolitan scales. It starts at the municipal scale, focusing on the Plano Director Municipal/PDM currently in force in Lisbon. The PDM is currently the main instrument of the Portuguese planning system. This

Conclusions

After updating William’s (1983) city profile in the first sections of the paper, we have identified the main problems and threats the city is facing currently; the continuous loss of resident population for the second ring municipalities of the LMA, the increasing urban and social imbalances, the urban mobility and accessibility problems, the steady and persistent degradation of the built environment, and the weaknesses of the city governance system.

The analysis of the 1994 PDM revealed a

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