Urban growth, retail trade and working-class residence: changes in Lisbon’s social space in

the late nineteenth century

Daniel Alves and Ana AlcântaraIHC, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

Vienna, April 26, 2014

Introduction

• The growth of industrial cities in the periphery of Europe in the end of the nineteenth century (Bairoch 1988)

• Lisbon as a second level metropolis, with social features and an urban growth similar to other port cities, namely those of the Mediterranean (Pinol and Walter 2003; Clark 2009; Ünlü 2013)

Introduction

• These demographic and urban transformation, similar to what occurred in other European and even North American cities, promoted certain levels of social hierarchization or segregation (Beascoechea Gangoiti 2003; Gilliland and Olson 2010)

• Recently these features were studied with a greater detail using GIS (DeBats and Lethbridge 2005; Alves 2010; Lesger and Leeuwen 2012)

Sources and methods

• On the working-class: official reports, surveys and other archival sources from the 1890s

• On the shops: city directories and fiscal data for 1890• On the city streets: city directories for 1890 and very

detail historical maps for 1876, 1891 and 1911• Quantitative data on population; quantitative and

qualitative data on the distribution of retail trade, working-class housing and dwelling rents

• Spatial statistical analysis that greatly benefits from a range of recent work developed with Historical GIS

Lisbon’s population growth

Year Population CAGR (%)

1878 237591 --

1890 298995 1,9

1900 350374 1,6

Population density (1878)

Population density (1890)

Population density (1900)

CAGR (1878-1890)

CAGR - Some parishes

Parish (city center) 1878 1890 CAGR (%) 1890 1900 CAGR (%)Encarnação 12813 7819 -4,0 7819 8531 0,9Santa Catarina 10313 9433 -0,7 9433 10016 0,6São Nicolau 12153 11850 -0,2 11850 12048 0,2

Parish (periphery) 1878 1890 CAGR (%) 1890 1900 CAGR (%)São Jorge de Arroios 1495 3832 8,2 3832 5824 4,3Campolide 3207 6659 6,3 6659 8662 2,7Santo Condestável 5669 11281 5,9 11281 14008 2,2

Location of workers’ housing

Dimension of workers’ housing

Locations of shops

Shops by rent paid

Average rents per street

Average rents per street

recently builtboulevards

old commercialcity center

Average rents per parish (all)

Average rents per parish (validated)

Workers’ housing and rents (streets)

Workers’ housing and rents (parishes)

Number of shops per parish

Number of persons per shop

Types of shops most common on streets with an average rent of...

Conclusions

• In the end of the nineteenth century, the population of Lisbon began to grow in very different rhythms, slower in the center, faster in the periphery

• The highest concentration of shops remained in the city center, but gradually they began to move to other areas in larger numbers

• In this growing and industrializing city, working class housing was built away from the center, which was also the main political and cultural milieu of the city

Conclusions

• Both features had a very clear geographical link with the rising rental value of the dwelling, visible as one moves away from the central streets and the recently built boulevards

• But the change in the geographical distribution of the shops was also caused by the demographic change in the city

• Shops selling everyday consumer goods or low value products, those accessible to the working class, were now moving away from the city center

Conclusions

• The center reinforced its almost exclusive identity as an area of services, and of shops dealing with clothes, accessories and luxury goods

• Despite these changes, areas where the working class and the petty bourgeoisie were concentrating were not far from the economic and political center and in moments of crisis (i.e. contention against the monarchy or strikes during the republican regime), these social groups quickly move to the old bourgeois city to make their voices heard

Thank you!

Daniel Alves

alves.r.daniel@gmail.com

@DanielAlvesFCSH