The Future of Post-Industrial Landscapes in East Lisbon: The Braço de Prata Neighbourhood

Eser Yagci,Fernando Nunes Da Silva

doi:10.3390/su13084461

Abstract

East Lisbon is being exposed to large-scale urban regeneration processes, where luxury residential projects and mixed-use spatial developments are already underway. Thus, it is a living laboratory for “smart”, “creative” and “green” projects, as well as related urban public space interventions. Braço de Prata is an urban space overlooked by developers, being surrounded by obsolete industrial buildings. Concerning the recent interest in international investments in brownfield regeneration and greenfield developments, it represents an attractive urban terrain as a post-industrial working-class neighbourhood, where “smart” and “green” suggest transforming space so that both new and old residents can live and work together and share public space regardless of analysis on their environmental recognitions. The aim of this paper is to present an empirical evaluation model that examines the possible impacts of environmental negligence through the reorganisation of the physical and social fabric. The analyses focus on dwellers’ moral understanding of their changing environment as site-specific domains to address the unique conditions that affect transiently defined presumptions about the collective needs. Taking an evaluative approach in the Braço de Prata case, this paper demonstrates the specific socio-ecological implications of urban inequality in post-industrial neighbourhoods that could be threatened by new decisions, both through urban planning approaches and instruments.

Highlights

The main hypothesis of this paper is that the urban regeneration process, of brownfields, following the long-term negligence of a stigmatised post-industrial neighbourhood, can be considered a potential cause for the destruction of socio-ecological unity depending on the loss of socio-spatial commons
The local environmental impact assessment (EIA) system and the post-implementation impacts are related to the flexed social values on environmental degradation caused by long-term stigmatisation and segregation within the urban scene, as the brownfield developments were concentrated in this part of Lisbon
This has become more visible in the case of Braço de Prata, as an old post-industrial neighbourhood that has been identified by many Lisboners as an area to be developed

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Braço de Prata as an East Lisbon post-industrial neighbourhood represents a fragile urban space for examining the impacts of international developments through spatially visible evidence of spatial fragmentation in relation to socio-ecological stigmatisation. Among many historic neighbourhoods facing a tourism and real estate boom following the tax exemptions and certain regeneration programs such as the Golden Visa Program, most these developments took a toll on East Lisbon, with an increased interest in brownfield developments since the city proved its interest for international entitlements by becoming European Capital of Culture in 1994 and later placing EXPO 98 in this part of the city

A Segregated Neighbourhood

Review of Results

Discussion