ABSTRACT
This chapter renders a tribute to Neil Smith by highlighting the creative and heuristic nature of his work, which has been key in framing the research on urban and social change in inner city Porto, Portugal. It shows how the initial work on urban renewal policies and urban and social change in inner city Porto tried to empirically illustrate and analytically specify Smith's hypothesis on 'gentrification as global urban strategy'. In the early 2000s, Porto was facing some pertinent legal, political and institutional changes, which suggested a clear transformation in the nature and goals of state action concerning city centre urban renewal. In Porto, the new urban renewal agency's 2005 masterplan wanted to favour a Back to Downtown Porto movement by younger, more qualified individuals and families. Nowadays, Porto's historic centre faces a contradiction resulting from its situation as both the city's main tourist attraction and one of the most degraded and impoverished areas within the city.
