"We can't have city centers resemble Disneylands for adults"

ANTÓNIO COSTA IN PARQUE DAS NAÇÕES 20 YEARS LATER

In an interview about the 20 years of Expo '98, António Costa is worried about the gentrification of Lisbon and Porto. Middle-class housing access is a priority for the PM.

Parque das Nações, the last big mound of the city of Lisbon to be built from scratch, came at a time when the center of the capital was empty, recalls António Costa, and where the city councils were still concentrated on eradicating the barracks. "Today it is impossible to get a house in the center of Lisbon," admits the prime minister, noting that it is necessary to maintain the diversity of cities, because they are not only a result of the rehabilitation of the physical heritage as well as "of the experiences given by the people who live there" .

Tourism has come to stay in Lisbon and Porto and it's not by prohibiting, as was done with the freezing of incomes, that solutions will be found, he argues. In speaking of his new policy for housing focused on rehabilitation, António Costa is very focused on creating affordable housing for the middle class, for young people starting their independent lives, the generation that has given the title to the political movement Generation 20/30, which will now head to the 22nd Congress of the PS.

As we look at the city built in the former Expo enclosure, from the cable car window, we realize that in 20 years it has become one of the centers of downtown Lisbon, and remains as attractive in its public spaces as gentrified. Disconsolate, the Prime Minister comments on the tent placed under the flag of the Portugal Pavilion of Álvaro Siza, the symbol of Expo '98, for the Eurovision final: "That's horrible. It's unbelievable."

Do you believe that the instruments of housing support announced by the Government, such as the National Fund for Building Rehabilitation, will mitigate the gentrification of historic centers?

That is the purpose. When we finally gave priority to rehabilitation in the City Hall, the moment was a huge internal investment crisis. Because of this, rehabilitation was very much based on the attraction of foreigners who came to live in Portugal or financed on the basis of tourism projects. This created a great imbalance, which was very fast, because we moved from the donut city, completely empty in the center, to the city too pressed in its center. They filled up the immense voids that existed, but pressed on those who resisted leaving the center.

What has drawn people to the city center like Lisbon and Porto is authenticity, and this is not only a result of the preservation of the physical heritage, but also of the experiences given by the people who live there. Alfama, if fully preserved but depopulated from its own population, will certainly be a tourist park, but it will no longer be a neighborhood with a life of its own, which is what gives it its characteristic. We can not have the city centers like Disneyland for adults. We must have spaces that are perfectly lived, occupied, inhabited and renewed.

Twenty years ago was it possible to intuit, or even more recently when you were mayor, that the housing problem was going to become so central to a prime minister in 2018? How did the perfect storm happen? Was it tourism?

When I first came to city hall in 2007, what did everyone say? The center is completely empty, people are leaving the traditional neighborhoods: Baixa is deserted, Chiado is deserted, no one enters Mouraria, it is necessary to make a great effort of rehabilitation.

With the 2008 crisis, neither the state nor the municipalities nor the private sector had the capacity to intervene, and it was in this void that Lisbon simultaneously began to become a very interesting tourist spot. The promotion of the city was good, the opening of the low cost careers gave a new knowledge and we managed to start to dynamize the life and the public space in the city - this began to attract new people.

In a very short space of time, a set of phenomena - such as gold visas, the fiscal mechanism for non-residents, or the international image of security that the city has designed - greatly accelerated this movement. It was a jump. But more serious than the impact of tourism was the renting law. Because we went from a hyper-protectionist regime, with tenants with decades of frozen leases, with great difficulty from the landlord to terminate the contract, to a total liberalization.

But regardless of housing, are we witnessing the start of the tourist boom in Lisbon and Porto?

I don't think it's at the beginning of its intensity, but we're still going to have some growth, and I have no doubt that it will be long-lasting. I do not follow the idea that in Lisbon and Porto [tourism] is very conjunctural, that they are fashions. First, because city tourism is not properly alternative to sun and beach tourism that has been hit with security threats. Secondly, it is easier to travel today.

So the impacts on the cities and the problems we are discussing are therefore in the beginning?

Well, I'm no longer mayor and don't put me back in a place where I was happy. The exception here is Expo.

Most of the Portuguese live in cities ...

I think we should not have the easy temptation, which we have historically always had, of when there is an imbalance we react by prohibition. Salazar froze rents for decades and the Revolution generalized this freeze. Then the answer was the purchase of our own houses and the excess of indebtedness. Debt was then banned.

Tourism is very important for the cities and for the economy as a whole. Not only for the economy of consumption, also for the economy of production, from agriculture to the construction industry. Much of the foreign investment that we are able to attract today is due to the good image that the tourist that comes to Portugal transmits of the country.

What we have to do is complement the offer, so we can maintain the diversity of demand in the city. If we exhaust the supply that we have, we are simply left with tourism, with gentrification. That is why the concept of affordable income housing is very important, because today the challenge is not only with respect to people who have the right to social housing, fundamental to respond to the 26 thousand families who live in today's unworthy conditions in the country, but also launch a new project more focused on the middle class.

Today it is impossible to get a house in the center of Lisbon. This liberal illusion that liberalizing leasing liberalized supply, and that by liberalizing supply, prices fell and demand became accessible, it failed completely. Obviously we have to complement this with affordable rental.

The mechanisms we have presented, such as those being studied by various Chambers, such as Porto and Lisbon, are complementary to the mere market offer. They do not ignore the rules of the market, they have an accessible income benchmark compared to what is practiced in each zone - the price in Benfica will not be the same as the price in Belém or Parque das Nações - but it should not correspond to an effort more than one third of the income of each household.

The instruments of support are focused on rehabilitation. How do you get the sub-funds, which need to be competitive, not just fachadism, which is one of the criticisms of what has been done in historical centers? Is there any way for the State to disseminate good practices?

From the experience I have had in traditional neighborhoods, it can't just be Fachadism, but it can't just be about maintaining the pre-existing. One of the reasons why much of these homes has been reoriented to tourism is the fact that preserving the existing made housing dysfunctional for what is the normal requirement of any modern family. I had several situations in which people who had been displaced for rehabilitation later showed a strong resistance to return to the houses when the works were completed. Many have fractions with absolutely unhealthy dimensions.

But between what I believe and what the prime minister believes, how do good practices spread?

Then we have to respect the technical opinion and the politicians have to have that humility. But it is also important for technicians to test their beliefs and what they have learned by listening to people who use homes. In a neighborhood with a very old population, wanting to preserve by force solutions with several levels, which forces people to go up and down stairs when they have reduced mobility, is not providing a good service. It makes it easier for these people to quickly accept a proposal to move to another place, far from their homes. This space that is then freed is only really useful episodically by tourists or young students who want a very typical experience in the center of Lisbon. We have to find good complementarity here.

But is there a good practice manual for this rehabilitation associated with granting funds or not?

I think one of the functions of the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation is to define good rules and good practices in rehabilitation.