A New Methodology for Urban Rehabilitation: A New Opportunity for the Historic Center and Downtown of Porto

Abstract

This article intends to give an account of what has been the process of urban rehabilitation in downtown Oporto, why it came to be so, how we arrived here, hoping that from its reading some lessons will be drawn, not only on the basis of the new tracks and tested methodologies, but also of the errors of analysis or execution that are committed. This new methodology begins in 2002, when it was decided to introduce a rupture in the model of urban rehabilitation that had been followed in the city, based on Cruarb. It was then understood that it was necessary to create a legal, financial and organizational structure capable of responding at the same time to various challenges: intervention scale, speed of procedures, private investment, strict and transparent management. The article is divided into two parts. The first presents the main lines of analysis resulting from the Strategic Study for the Urban Rehabilitation Intervention framework of Baixa do Porto, commissioned by the City Council to the Department of Territorial Planning of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. For reading purposes, it should be noted that the study presents a diverse set of results linked together, some of which are more oriented to the spatial scope of the urban rehabilitation process, others to its strategic dimension, and others to complementary questions of reflection. The second part follows from the scope of the creation of the SRU (by Decree-Law 104/2004) and gives an account of the process of incorporation of Porto Vivo SRU, its objectives and ways of acting.