Cultural-led Urban Regeneration in Lisbon: Access to Culture in the Cases of Beato and Marvila

The process of urban regeneration has become a targeted strategy in urban development to respond to deprived urban areas that suffer from economic and social decline. With the increasingly significant role of culture for cities and reinforced by popular concepts like “The Creative City” (Landry 2000; 2002), as part of the planning paradigm in the development and management of cities, cultural policy and urban regeneration were merged as a “policy panacea” (LIN and HSING 2009, p. 1319). Therefore, culture is often used as a driver for generating capabilities within urban regeneration and to make urban areas attractive for economic growth and innovation. Lisbon has a great variety of cultural activities and a strong cultural diversity that on one hand contributes to the well-being, cohesion, social inclusion, identity and active citizenship of the citizens. On the other hand and concerning equal access to culture, the city also shows wide gaps and inequalities, analysed in this research within the process of urban regeneration in the parishes Marvila and Beato. This post-industrial area in the eastern part of Lisbon had been neglected for a longer time and attracted attention only recently, because of unaffordable prices, density and touristification in the city centre. Consequently, a new cultural and creative neighbourhood emerged along the riverside of the parishes paired with political attention for urban regeneration as well as interest of investment and large-scale project through private companies. However, these new dynamics increase existing inequalities and fragmentation because of socio-spatial barriers in the neighbourhood. The aim is to question the social sustainability of the process of cultural-led urban regeneration and to contribute to the policy debate on access to culture and cultural participation. Through in- depth research and applying mix-methods for data collection, several barriers (physical, social and cultural) could be identified that reduce the access to culture and increase inequalities and disparities in the area. These range from a lack of mobility and transport, accessibility of cultural facilities as well as social and cultural barriers like education, lack of interest, symbolic barriers, social exclusion, communication and financial barriers. Further on, a set of recommendations for policymakers is provided aiming to reduce these barriers and increase access to culture and cultural participation.