ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a description of how neoliberal urbanism has been inscribing itself into the Portuguese urban landscape, and discusses the role played by the state in this process. It focuses on the analysis of the new urban lease regime as a practice of neoliberal urbanism in Portugal, which promotes eviction, displacement and residential segregation. Among the most relevant instruments for this process to take place, one finds the new urban lease regime, in Portuguese, the novo regime do arrendamento urbano (NRAU). Concomitantly, urban neoliberalism has spread across the globalising world through the entrepreneurialisation of local governments, the privatisation of public services and the commodification of urban spaces. The chapter concludes that the emergence of social movements is a manifestation of post-austerity fixing-up, intending to function as recuperation agents that redefine the realm of possibilities, generate specific meanings for social alternatives, and make certain experiences and narratives more viable in the post-crisis scenario.
