- New Approaches to Spatial Planning – Lisbon’s EXPO’98 Project and Social Housing in Oeiras   364 kb by    Figueira/Mateus, Joana/Ana & Serdoura, Francisco & Ferreira, Victor | figueira_joana@hotmail.com    Short Outline The paper is a case-study about social relations in public space that are affected by urban configuration, occurring in Portuguese social housing neighbourhoods. Abstract The concept “Sustainability” has become part of the contemporary lexical. This being the case, it is universally accepted that “Sustainable Development” is the main goal for progress and National growth. Attending to “Sustainable Development”, more and more, strategic policies in Local, Regional and National Territorial Management asserts issues like increase of the internal economy, social cohesion and preservation of the environment. In Portugal, as in many other countries, the balance between economy and environment, in community behalf are priority concerns. However, more than just competitive factors, as creation of job pools, development of human resources, and maintenance of natural resorts; issues like social integration, safety in society, and comfort in urban space are vital concerns of governance systems. Nowadays, urban threats like crime, vandalism, segregation and discrimination are major weaknesses of every civilized and developed country. Thus, in order to clarify the importance of strategic issues attending to social cohesion, this paper shall assay the level of relation between urban configuration and social integration, to see to what degree urban design of outdoor space can interfere with the interaction between people. For that purpose, a case study on two social housing neighborhoods, characterized by a “melting pot” of ethnical groups, in the municipality of Oeiras (one of the most developed municipalities of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area) shall be analyzed. The methodology adopted in the paper will be supported by an analysis of the urban space configuration using Space Syntax tools, complemented by a characterization of the ethnical groups, in order to evaluate the community urban realm. The physical analysis consists in a quantification and localization of five variables in the outdoor space such as: presence of garbage outside the garbage bin, inscriptions in walls, presence of animal excrements, signs of vandalism and neglect of public space. The functional analysis looks at the housing uses, social facilities and retail uses. The aim of these analyses and characterizations is to measure the vulnerability of the public space in those social housing neighbourhoods. As a conclusion, this paper shall point out how public space can interfere in social organization and social integration. Keywords Urban life Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2004: Management of Urban Regions   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper