Starting over: A focused vision for the old suburbs of Lisbon

The phenomenon of suburban decline is a reality across the western world. In Europe, the reaction to this problem has been slow and unfocused and has also had very limited success. Urban research aims to deal with suburbs not just as devalued urban growth models, or available space for future expansion, but as areas for redevelopment, regeneration and re-invention. Today, within the Lisbon suburban areas, many outlying rural areas remain, alongside derelict factories and residential developments. Several areas show decline symptoms such as population decrease, ageing, deindustrialisation and defunctionalisation. Rescuing the older suburban centres may require a certain mourning of the past, but at the same time it incorporates the mechanisms of new social and productive systems. New ways of local genesis begin to emerge, mobilising involvement in and by the community and investing in emblematic and replicable initiatives. The aim of this article is to present the revitalisation strategy in place in Amadora: an innovative, interdisciplinary and prospective intervention in Lisbon’s outskirts.