The Geography of Unemployment in Porto

Communities and territories with greater vulnerability to poverty and social exclusion

Abstract

The incidence of unemployment is not the same for all social groups or for all territories and the severity of their experience depends on a variety of factors, such as the length of unemployment or the level of social protection State and family/ friends. Faced with this complexity, we chose to articulate, in this study, and throughout four parts, a perspective of sociological and geographical analysis of the problem of unemployment. In the first part, the relations established between unemployment and poverty and unemployment and social exclusion are discussed, noting that these connections depend on the support mechanisms of the State and the family. Secondly, an empirical approach is developed for the problem of unemployment in the context of Greater Oporto, seeking to identify and explain the intra-urban variation of the phenomenon. The third part analyzes the forms of socio-spatial organization of unemployment in Oporto, as well as the distribution of social protection associated to the unemployment allowance, and we conclude that there is a particularly evident intra-urban variation between the western part and the eastern city. Finally, we reflect on the permanence and effects of some spatial concentrations of unemployment that were being built by the construction of some of the largest social housing districts in the city. For this debate we review the theories of 'area effects' and discuss their relevance to explain the historical inertia or immutability that is associated with unemployment in these areas, which favours processes of socio-spatial devaluation and which tend to cause urban segregation. Reflection on these effects leads us to call for greater sensitivity and common sense in the cultures and practices of land planning and urban management in Portugal.