The EU’s urban policy through the 2008 financial crisis: A perspective from the case of Oporto

Many European countries are currently faced with a difficult situation fostered by a set of financial, socioeconomic and environmental problems. The last decade has been particularly rough for the Southern Europe countries due to the political reactions from the European Union (EU) to the strong economic crisis that affected the great majority of the developed economies. The EU’s actions, placed in order to face such challenges, can be characterised as a series of austerity measures that clearly diverged from the original ongoing strategies. The debate on the causes of the crisis remains unsettled and the dominant studies on the crisis focus the socioeconomic national indicators. Since the urban changes in the face of a new strategic context resulting from the crisis has been poorly explored I’ll focus on the city of Oporto as a case study. This paper describes the different practices of urban policy in the city and focus the urban change phenomenon before and after the 2008 financial crash. The paper argues that after the 2008 crash that hit especially hard the Portugal, urban policy was of extreme importance in combating the urban changes in the city of Oporto. Such political and strategic framework was both EU and national-led and promoted integrated approaches to improve the physical, social and economic conditions of the different spatial contexts within the city.