3S RECIPE – Smart Shrinkage Solutions: Porto (PT) Policy Brief #1. Resilient Urban Economy & Municipal Finance

This policy brief showcases a successful resilient urban economy solution – two urban regeneration projects based on the conversion of traditional food markets into multifunctional consumption spaces centred on gourmet food courts. This brief reveals the importance of these transformations in terms of economic revitalization and the generation of (re)new(ed) urban centralities. The traditional farmers’ market, understood as a node of the economic life of an urban agglomeration and, therefore, of the social relations that stem from it, now also plays a role in urban densification and concentration of tertiary activity. The key lesson learnt is that creative place-making and place-branding processes and interventions should maintain strict control over those variables likely to produce phenomena of residential/commercial gentrification and touristification of the surrounding areas. This brief analyses in detail the cases of Bom Sucesso Market and Bolhão Market, and concludes by offering policy recommendations.