The Portuguese Planning System and the Planning Practice over the Last Two Decades

Planning practice is strongly influenced by three components that depend on national contexts: first, the existence of a tradition in planning, and the extent to which it is impregnated across the different layers of society, from national government to citizens; second, the socio-economic context that frame land and housing markets, and spatial development; and third, the legal framework that legally embodies that tradition in order to regulate those markets. These three components are strongly interdependent and they feed themselves constantly, in an action/reaction relationship. This creates a cycle that must be careful and permanently monitored in order to ensure the desirable convergence between practice and regulation. In this paper, we present an analytical overview of this cycle within the Portuguese planning system for the last two decades, a period of intensive activity in planning that is contemporary of a period of strong economical and urban growth that occurred after the country’s admission as a full member in the former European Economic Community.