Planning with infrastructures in the face of austerity:
New opportunities in the portuguese planning system
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18055/Finis39141Abstract
About fifteen years after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), land-use planning practices remain largely unchanged worldwide, even in regions affected by austerity and reduced public spending. Moreover, critical research on crisis, austerity, and urban dynamics often overlooks land-use planning, creating a disconnect from planners’ everyday realities. This is particularly relevant in areas undergoing extended urbanisation, such as Portugal. The austerity measures triggered by the GFC in Portugal exposed significant shortcomings in its spatial planning system, including its rigidity and inability to adapt to socio-spatial contexts marked by dispersed urbanisation alongside demographic and economic decline. Using action-research methodologies, this study explored opportunities arising from the crisis and developed a procedural tool, Infrastructures vs Building (IvB), which leverages infrastructure as a reference point for land-use planning. IvB strengthens Portugal’s planning system by challenging expansionist urban paradigms and providing quantified infrastructure data for land-use classification. Beyond diagnosis, IvB offers a practical framework for integrating infrastructure networks into land-use planning, with relevance for Portugal and other contexts.
The GFC-induced austerity measures in Portugal exposed significant flaws in its spatial planning system, including its rigidity and failure to adapt to socio-spatial realities marked by dispersed urbanization alongside demographic and economic decline. Using action-research methodologies, the study explored opportunities arising from the crisis. It developed a procedural tool, Infrastructures vs Building (IvB), leveraging infrastructure as a reference point for land use planning.
IvB enhances Portugal’s planning system by challenging expansionist urban paradigms and offering quantified infrastructure data for land use classification. Beyond diagnosis, IvB provides a practical platform to emphasize infrastructure networks in land use planning, with relevance in Portugal and other contexts.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Finisterra
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
-
The opinions expressed in the texts submitted to Finisterra are the sole responsibility of the authors.
-
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to share the work with acknowledgement of its authorship and initial publication in this journal.
-
Authors commit to following the “Submission Guidelines” available on the RCAAP platform.
-
Whenever the text requires changes based on suggestions from Scientific Reviewers and/or the Executive Editorial Board, authors agree to accept and implement these changes as requested. If there are changes the authors disagree with, appropriate justifications must be provided on a case-by-case basis.
-
Reproduction of copyrighted material has been previously authorised.
-
The texts are original, unpublished, and have not been submitted to other journals.
Copyright
It is the responsibility of the authors to obtain authorisation to publish any material subject to copyright.
Editing Rights
Editing rights belong to the Centre for Geographical Studies of the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Lisbon.
The editing of a text submitted to Finisterra for publication implies that it is an original.
Publication implies acceptance of the submission guidelines and compliance with authors’ responsibilities.
Publication Rights
All publication rights belong to the Centre for Geographical Studies, as the publisher of Finisterra.
Licence URL: CC Attribution – Non-Commercial – No Derivatives (BY-NC-ND).
Digital Preservation Policy
Finisterra uses the Open Journal Systems (OJS 3.2.1.4), a free and open-source software for journal management and publication, developed and distributed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) under the GNU General Public License. PKP is a multi-university initiative that develops open-source software and conducts research to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing. OJS includes the PKP PN plugin, a means of digitally preserving journal content in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN), which ensures long-term access to OJS journal content. PKP enables OJS journal publishers to preserve content in a decentralised and distributed manner. This ensures that, in the event a journal ceases publication or goes offline, continued access to articles and issues remains available (long-term preservation).
For more information, visit: https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/
