Pela segunda vez, OVOODOCORVO publica este artigo de Raphael
Mindermay datado de 23 de Maio e não “desta semana” como a jornalista do
Expresso num artigo mais abaixo afirma … OVOODOCORVO
Lisbon Is Thriving. But at What Price
for Those Who Live There?
By RAPHAEL MINDERMAY 23, 2018
Not long ago, Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, was a backwater.
Today the city is booming. But who has gained and who has lost has become a
divisive issue for residents. Credit Ana Brigida for The New York Times
LISBON — Not long ago, Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, was a
backwater of Europe. Its historical center was dotted with decrepit and
semi-abandoned buildings. Some downtown squares were the domain of prostitutes
and drug dealers. The city served as a display case for the devastation of
Europe’s debt crisis.
Then, in 2011, the country embarked upon a series of
difficult steps in return for an international bailout of 78 billion euros, or
$92 billion, among them a new rental law that liberalized the capital’s housing
market.
Today the city is booming. Tourists stream off cruise ships
to fill its squares and ride tuk-tuks up and down the hills. Historical
buildings now gleam. New bars and restaurants throb with life.
But who has gained and who has lost in Lisbon’s revival has
become a divisive issue for residents, and for Europe, as the continent finally
emerges from the lost decade of its economic crisis to see what it has wrought.
Tourists at Miradouro de Santa Luzia. Lisbon’s 4.5 million
annual visitors now outstrip the city’s population by more than eight to one.
Credit Ana Brigida for The New York Times
Portugal has been a prime exhibit of Europe’s economic
recovery. Unemployment has been halved. Exports are booming. Foreign investors
have flooded Lisbon. The country even provides buyers of properties worth
€500,000 or more the chance for a “golden visa” to reside there.
Yet the monthly average wage is still roughly €850. Market
liberalization, combined with a huge influx of foreign money, has helped raise
property prices in central Lisbon 30 percent in two years.
“Portugal’s strategy to exit the crisis was all about
attracting foreign investment, which solved a major financial problem but is
also now creating new issues for our people, like this housing crisis in
Lisbon,” said Ana Drago, a former lawmaker and a researcher in urban studies at
the University Institute of Lisbon.
The revival of Lisbon feels to many less privileged
residents who are being displaced like an abrupt swing from one extreme to the
other. On some streets both extremes live side by side.
In the medieval neighborhood of Mouraria, a luxury
condominium is being built a few yards away from a renovated building that has
become a second home for French and other foreign investors.
At the end of the block, an aged building with narrow
balconies has turned into a symbol for Portuguese activists fighting housing
evictions, a new phenomenon here. Opposite the house, residents who won a
lengthy legal battle to stay have hung a Santa Claus, surrounded by signs
showing their Christmas wish-list: affordable housing and social equality.
No doubt, most Portuguese, led by those who own real estate,
consider Lisbon’s transformation to be an essential part of Portugal’s recent
economic recovery.
The arrival of deep-pocketed investors and celebrities like
Madonna is “creating housing problems in a few neighborhoods,” said Luís Correia
da Silva, a director of Dom Pedro, a resort and hotel company.
“But people shouldn’t forget that nobody wanted to do
anything to save these same neighborhoods a few years ago,” he added.
In 2010, my first article for The New York Times in Lisbon
focused on Portugal’s antiquated tenancy rules, which could leave a landlord
renting two identical apartments in the same building, but one for less than 3
percent of the other’s price.
Portugal had a long history of antagonism toward landowners,
dating back to the 1910 revolution that ended the monarchy. Then, during a long
military dictatorship, rents were frozen in Lisbon and the northern city of
Porto.
Fixed rents for new contracts were abolished more than a
decade after another revolution, which overthrew the dictatorship in 1974 but
not for existing contracts, and downtown Lisbon remained a partly derelict area
shunned by locals.
When Portugal received its bailout, the inner city had
552,700 inhabitants and 322,865 housing units, of which 50,289 stood vacant,
according to the most recent census of 2011. A year later, the new rental law
came into force that liberalized the housing market.
Politicians sought to lead by example. In 2011, António
Costa, who was then mayor of Lisbon, moved his city hall administration from
its historic headquarters to a former tile factory building at the corner of
Intendente, a square known for drugs and prostitutes.
Mr. Costa is now Portugal’s prime minister and Intendente is
almost unrecognizable. It has a handicraft shop, cafes and several construction
projects in the works. In the center stands a garden, surrounded by red
forged-metal barriers designed by Joana Vasconcelos, one of Portugal’s
best-known artists.
Asked about Lisbon’s transformation, Ms. Vasconcelos said that
“the city is changing fast, but for the better.”
“My impression is that Lisbon is getting back to what it
used to be, because this was a multicultural city for centuries, a trading
center that was connected to the world,” she said. “During a dark period of
dictatorship, we lost our way but we’re now back on track.”
Rising rent drove Rodrigo Azambuja, who makes traditional
carpets, out of his apartment, but he now expects income from a building he
bought and renovated, where he will open a wine bar. Credit Ana Brigida for The
New York Times
Photo
Some bemoan the “Disneyfication” of the city. At the
Fantastic World of Portuguese Sardines, tourists can buy a can of fish adorned
with their birth year. Credit Ana Brigida for The New York Times
But there’s a sad flip side to almost every happy story
about Lisbon’s fortunes.
Rodrigo Azambuja used to weave traditional Portuguese
carpets. In 2013, his landlord raised his rent from €300 to €1,200. A few
months ago, the landlord told him he needed to be out in July.
By August, however, Mr. Azambuja should start getting rental
income from a property he bought two years ago, in one of the auctions of
derelict buildings held by the city. Rather than making carpets, he will soon
be serving wine in a bar that he will open on the ground floor.
“I guess that I’m really living both sides of this story,”
Mr. Azambuja said. “To me, the only real drama is that all this change is
happening so fast, in a kind of perfect storm, for which many people were
completely unprepared.”
Luis Mendes, an urban geographer, is a member of a citizens’
platform called Morar em Lisboa (Living in Lisbon) that has been fighting to
halt housing evictions. He worries that Lisbon risks “killing the golden goose”
that has made it so attractive to visitors.
“If we’re evicting the old residents and creating gated communities
for the wealthy, then what are we going to show tourists who expect to see
traditional Portuguese life on our streets?” he asked.
Some residents complain a dual economy has emerged, split
between those who deal in property and tourism — and the rest. They also decry
the “Disneyfication” of Lisbon, which they see in new shops, like “The
Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine,” where tourists can buy a can of
fish with their birth year on the label.
Lisbon’s 4.5 million annual visitors now outstrip the city’s
population by a ratio of more than eight to one. About 30 hotels are scheduled
to open in Lisbon in the coming year.
Many worry that the city will lose its charm if traditional
life is pushed out. Credit Ana Brigida for The New York Times
In recent years, hundreds of three-wheeled tuk-tuks have
swarmed city streets to accommodate tourists. Credit Ana Brigida for The New
York Times
The housing squeeze in Lisbon, as well as in Porto, is
becoming a political issue for the Socialist minority government of Mr. Costa,
who has relied on the support of Communist and other far-left lawmakers to stay
in office since 2015.
Far-left politicians want to tighten laws to stop evictions
and protect tenants, including those who are over 65 and have lived in their
property for more than 25 years.
While rules already exist to protect older residents, they
are not ironclad.
After her husband died, Maria Teresa Alves Ramos Mendes, a
79-year-old seamstress, was told by her landlord that the rent on the apartment
where they had lived for more than 30 years would increase several-fold.
She consulted lawyers, who warned that she could lose a
costly court battle. So she abandoned the place.
“I really thought that at my age there was no way that I
could be forced out of my home, but I was sadly wrong,” she said.
“I really thought that at my age there was no way that I
could be forced out of my home, but I was sadly wrong,” said Maria Teresa Alves
Ramos Mendes, a 79-year-old seamstress. She now lives with her daughter. Credit
Ana Brigida for The New York Times
Renovations in Intendente, an area once known for drugs and
prostitutes. Credit Ana Brigida for The New York Times
She now lives with her daughter on the outskirts of Lisbon,
but the short-term rental market aimed at tourists and developed by companies
like Airbnb is spreading even there.
Life in upmarket neighborhoods is being hollowed out. In
November, André Júdice Glória, a Portuguese lawyer, moved into a new apartment
with his wife and two children, in a renovated six-story building.
Three Brazilians and two Angolans own the other apartments,
but Mr. Júdice Glória said he barely sees them.
“It’s a first-world problem, but of course this building
feels very empty,” he lamented. “It would have been nice to have some other
families around us, people with a real stake in the day-to-day issues of living
here.”
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