ABSTRACT
Introduction The current chapter supplies empirical evidence to extract and a critical analysis of how the economic crisis and its political management has affected the evolution of European urban regions. This will be carried out through an analysis of the recent evolution, both geographical and socio-political, of the main Portuguese urban region, the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA). The chapter proposes some insights into the ongoing discussion about the relevance of territorial and urban dimensions to the knowledge and interpretation of the present European crisis, that is, the economic crisis and its socio-political consequences. It emphasises the importance of the differentiated spatial impacts of the crisis but also of the pressures and conflicts resulting from the intersection of the reactions of the different political stances and scales (Othengrafen et al., this volume; Pinho, Andrade, & Pinho, 2011; Hadjimichalis, 2011; Werner, 2013). These are particularly painful times for Southern European territories and societies due to the conjunction of the financial crisis and the political responses of the European Union (EU) and individual nation states. The reaction was to put in place austerity measures that deeply disrupted social, economic, and territorial fabrics as well as the fundamentals of inclusive and sustainably driven societies. This clearly shows that the crisis is no longer, if it ever was, mainly driven by public and financial reasons, but it has instead multidimensional and structural political bases. Amongst several contemporary crisis landscapes, European cities are the locus where pressures and changes are most evident. A relevant part of the European crisis shows to be the result of the crash of an old economic order, supported on large amounts of non-secured urbanisation credit (financial, territorial, and environmental credit), with growingly unregulated financial markets. At the same time, and not surprisingly, it is the urban fabrics that witness the materialisation of new political and civic cultures. If this is true in the wider European landscape, the history and position of the Mediterranean urban territories makes their present role particularly relevant. The European Commission (2011) itself recognises that cities will reinforce their crucial role as main drivers for transition. Their very nature makes them places for
connectivity, citizenship, creativity, and innovation; all fundamental characteristics for facing the challenges ahead. However, ‘the European model of sustainable urban development is under threat’ (ibid.: p. 14): one that is not only arising from the upheaval of the crisis, but also from the mainstream political and financial responses to the crisis. This threat brings new pressures to bear on the urban socio-economic and environmental ecosystems and particularly on the growing spatial polarisation, both in income and in access to urban functions. Moreover, it hides other difficulties for the effective development of new models of social and economic progress, in parallel with the need for ecological regeneration. This chapter will study the links between the European crisis, its urban impacts, and the applied austerity measures, and will discuss selected innovative policies in their different scales. These links will be studied against the background of the (re)shaping of the political spaces of the LMA. The main hypothesis is that the urban trends within (and beyond) the crisis have to be dissected along three different dimensions. First, how the spatial impacts of the economic recession are transforming inclusion and exclusion patterns within the urban system. Second, how related ‘anti-crisis’ policies are expanding those patterns, and how the political economics for austerity are reshaping capacities and priorities at the local scale. Third, how the city’s political and civic realms react and reconfigure themselves, thus changing urban political systems, possibly in an enduring way. Lisbon will thus be shown as an illustrative example of the emergence of new political culture(s), whose characteristics are especially complex and inherently contradictory.1 Beyond this introduction, the text is structured in five sections. In the nex section, a critical perspective on the crisis and the applied austerity measures is introduced, complementary to the understanding provided by geographical and longitudinal analyses. The third section analyses the context of political responses to the crisis in Portugal to give a critical understanding of connections between national, austerity-driven pressures and local reactions. The fourth section includes some variables to serve as a basis for exploring the nature of the various impacts of, and their distribution within, the LMA. In the fifth section, a critical analysis of the main drivers of change at the institutional, political, and civic level will be conducted, before some concluding remarks in the final section.
