Gentrification and urban regeneration policies in Portugal: a critical analysis in light of Neil Smith’s rent gap thesis

Abstract

The article discusses the role that urban regeneration policies in the historic centers of Portuguese cities play in facilitating the process of gentrification, as they consolidate themselves as conditions that are necessary, but not sufficient to induce, by themselves, this socio-spatial process. Still, the urban regeneration programs, in stimulating the redevelopment of buildings and creating favorable conditions to attract private capital for the redevelopment of areas in the city center, are a strategic factor to the establishment of the new middle-classes. It is possible to say that they contribute to the expulsion of former residents, promoting residential segregation and uneven urban development. The problem is framed by Neil Smith’s rent gap thesis. The structural aspects of the capital accumulation process (and its cyclical movements) are mobilized and related to the urban (re)development and to the production of environments built by gentrification.