Housing Strategies in Urban Regeneration Projects: Braga’s Urban Regeneration Strategic Programme Case Study

Abstract

Recent analysis of the housing problem in Portuguese cities has shown that, in the past decades, the housing function in inner city areas tend to be reduced to less competitive market segments with lower income and less quality. This emptying of the inner city areas, with regard to housing and population, is inevitably linked to the excessive growth of housing supply in urban sprawl areas, this being a key problem of the Portuguese housing market. The most recent efforts to restructure the National City policies triggered new challenges for the planning and management of  consolidated  urban  areas,  particularly in respect of urban regeneration. Within this framework were created new planning, urban management and financing tools, able to influence the housing setor and real estate market. However, the implementation and execution of the new legal and political framework have shown several difficulties: the interdependence of such practices with local political contexts regarding the formulation of global territorial strategies; the coordination and compatibility between the different legal frameworks and instruments, such as land, urban regeneration and housing policies; the ability to the  public  and  private setor to interact and cooperate between them. Throughout this paper, the authors tried to highlight some of these considerations based upon a particular case: the Braga’s historic centre Urban Regeneration Strategic Programme (adjusted to the new urban rehabilitation legal framework – Decree-Law 307/2009).