Residents on illegally built urban areas in Lisbon metropolitan area municipalities

Abstract

This presentation is supported by the empirical corpus of thirty-seven directive interviews conducted with residents of illegally built urban areas in some municipalities in the Lisbon metropolitan area, specifically in Odivelas, Loures and Amadora (north of the river), Palmela, Almada, Setúbal, Moita and Seixal (south of the river) [1]. Thus, this analysis focuses around four themes: a) Individuals and family groups: socio-demographic; b) Paths: residential and professional; c) District: general characterization of the population; d) Home: purchase of land parcel and building of house. By drawing the sociographical profiles of the residents of these illegally built urban areas, we seek to establish a comparison of the social profiles of the illegal residents of the 1980s and 1990s. We analyze the whole process of acquisition of the lot and construction of the illegal housing in relation to the agents’ capacity to plan their future and the social-economic context in which the decision is made. In the end, we will seek to answer the question: “Where are the illegal residents today?” by analyzing the changes that have taken place in the residential makeup of the Illegally Built Urban Areas over time, taking into account the young people who were born in those neighborhoods.