Urban Restructuring, Immigration and the Generation of Marginalized Spaces in the Lisbon Region

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between the processes of restructuring in the Metropolitan Region of Lisbon (MRL) and changes in the location of immigrant communities, paying particular attention to the evolution of segregation patterns.1 The basic hypothesis underlying the analysis is that urban transformation processes, strongly supported by foreign capital, contribute to a sharpening of the socio-ethnic division of space and lead especially to the marginalization of African immigrants. The main body of my account is organized in four parts. First, I will provide an overview of the linked processes of urban restructuring and spatial segregation, noting how little work has been done on this interrelationship in Southern Europe. The second section of the chapter will briefly survey the metropolitanization of Lisbon during the 1960s and 1970s, establishing the links between migration and the evolution of employment and housing markets. The third part will present a synthesis of the major elements of the region’s contemporary economic and urban restructuring. The final section will focus on the changes in the socioethnic spatial patterns in the MRL, paying particular attention to the question of ethnic segregation. The basis for this analysis is information gathered in the Portuguese censuses of 1981 and 1991, with mapping at two spatial levels — the 16 metropolitan municipalities or concelhos and, for a limited number of variables, the 177 freguesias, the smallest administrative unit in the country.