Historical trajectories of currently shrinking Portuguese cities: A typology of urban shrinkage

Cities develop according to different patterns, undergoing population growth during some periods and decline (shrinkage) during others. Theories attempting to understand these behaviours include: 1) shrinkage is a natural process in the life cycle of a city, alternating with periods of growth, or 2) shrinkage is an extreme event that places cities into a continuous decline process with no return to population growth. We use retrospective data over a period of 130 years to study 25 Portuguese cities currently facing population decline, and show that both theories coexist in time and space. Five types of shrinking city are revealed: “Persistent Early Shrinkage” due to exodus fromthe rural periphery, “Metropolitan Shrinkage” due to the challenges of urban sprawl, “Recent Shrinkage” in de-industrialisation hotspots, “Cyclic Shrinkage” occurring in political transformation cores, and “Mild Shrinkage” due to life-style disamenity. As diversity of city population trajectories appears to be the norm in both Portugal and other Western European countries, the incorporation of this range into the management of urban transitions is recommended in order to reinforce city resilience.

Lisbon Street Art & Urban Creativity. 2014 International Conference

Disponível para consulta - índice e introdução.

How to improve urban mobility in Lisbon: intermodality and information and ticketing systems

Urban mobility is one of the main challenges facing urban areas due to the growing population and to traffic congestion, resulting in environmental pressures. The pathway to urban sustainable mobility involves strengthening of intermodal mobility. The integrated use of different transport modes is getting more and more important and intermodality has been mentioned as a way for public transport compete with private cars. The aim of the current dissertation is to define a set of strategies to improve urban mobility in Lisbon and by consequence reduce the environmental impacts of transports. In order to do that several intermodal practices over Europe were analysed and the transport systems of Brussels and Lisbon were studied and compared, giving special attention to intermodal systems. In the case study was gathered data from both cities in the field, by using and observing the different transport modes, and two surveys were done to the cities users. As concluded by the study, Brussels and Lisbon present significant differences. In Brussels the measures to promote intermodality are evident, while in Lisbon a lot still needs to be done. It also made clear the necessity for improvements in Lisbon’s public transports to a more intermodal passenger transport system, through integration of different transport modes and better information and ticketing system. Some of the points requiring developments are: interchanges’ waiting areas; integration of bicycle in public transport; information about correspondences with other transport modes; real-time information to passengers pre-trip and on-trip, especially in buses and trams. After the identification of the best practices in Brussels and the weaknesses in Lisbon the possibility of applying some of the practices in Brussels to Lisbon was evaluated. Brussels demonstrated to be a good example of intermodality and for that reason some of the recommendations to improve intermodal mobility in Lisbon can follow the practices in place in Brussels.