Changing Societies: Legacies and Challenges. Vol. i. Ambiguous Inclusions: Inside Out, Inside In
Doi
Abstract
Operations of urban renewal that focus upon issues of physical refurbishment are often presented as a contribution to social inclusion, via the improvement of housing and neighbourhood conditions. However, when the upgrading of the existing building stock leads to the reduction of affordable dwellings for low-income families, with housing costs increasing faster than household incomes, therefore exceeding what families can afford, different forms of displacement take place and expose resident families to several forms of social and spatial exclusion.
Our aim in this chapter is to critically analyse the statutory model of urban renewal set up by the Portuguese government in 2004 and implemented locally ever since. The results show that the SRU model is reshaping former working-class districts, with a legacy of affordable private rented housing, into spaces of tourism and consumption. It also shows that this model strongly contrasts with those used in previous decades that aimed to maintain and assist poor families which, in a context of globalization and financialization in which housing is seen as a commodity and a speculative investment, is reinforcing trends of urban social and spatial inequality
