Publicação
Nature, urban life and the deep structures of urban belonging: a retrospective on leverage points in Porto, Portugal
| datacite.subject.fos | Ciências Sociais | |
| datacite.subject.sdg | 10:Reduzir as Desigualdades | |
| datacite.subject.sdg | 11:Cidades e Comunidades Sustentáveis | |
| datacite.subject.sdg | 15:Proteger a Vida Terrestre | |
| dc.contributor.author | Vidal, Diogo Guedes | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-08T14:21:00Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-08T14:21:00Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2026-07-08 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Some images stay with us long after the fieldwork ends. An elderly man sitting alone beneath a plane tree in the Jardim da Corujeira; a homeless person sheltering in the bandstand of Arca d'Água; a couple silently reading in the shade of the Cordoaria. Four years after concluding doctoral research on urban green spaces (UGS) in Porto, Portugal, these scenes continue to inform how I understand the city. They speak of something that ecosystem service metrics and resilience indicators rarely capture: the quiet, embodied, and deeply human work that urban nature performs in sustaining the very possibility of inhabiting a city. Contemporary urban governance, dominated by the languages of optimization, smart infrastructure, and techno-managerial efficiency, tends to reduce nature to a functional instrument. This perspective article argues that such framings, however necessary, operate at the shallowest levels of systemic intervention. Drawing on the methodological triangulation of my doctoral work—an ecosystem services assessment grid, a user survey, and human behavior mapping of 979 users across four contrasting spaces—I revisit the empirical evidence of a "two-speed city" marked by profound environmental injustice. From this retrospective vantage point, I propose the concept of deep structures of urban belonging to argue that UGS are relational infrastructures that mediate coexistence, memory, and ecological consciousness. The deepest urban leverage point, I suggest, is neither technological nor infrastructural. It is the slow transformation of how we collectively imagine, inhabit, and share the city with the living world. | eng |
| dc.description.sponsorship | The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This work was funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. (FCT), the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through the Thematic Programme for Innovation and Digital Transition COMPETE 2030), Portugal 2030, and the European Union | Operation No. 15514 COMPETE2030-FEDER-00652800. The author also acknowledges the support of the R&D Unit Centre for Functional Ecology—Science for People & the Planet (CFE), with reference UIDB/04004/2025 financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) with an Extension at the Universidade Aberta and the Associate Laboratory TERRA, with reference LA/P/0092/2020. This work was also supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. with the grant number SFRH/BD/143238/2019. | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Vidal DG (2026) Nature, urban life and the deep structures of urban belonging: a retrospective on leverage points in Porto, Portugal. Front. Sustain. Cities 8:1903445. doi: 10.3389/frsc.2026.1903445 | |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.3389/frsc.2026.1903445 | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2624-9634 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/22236 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | |
| dc.peerreviewed | yes | |
| dc.publisher | Frontiers | |
| dc.relation | Laboratory for Sustainable Land Use and Ecosystem Services | |
| dc.relation | Além do Verde: os jardins e parques urbanos na resposta aos desafios socioambientais contemporâneos. Estudo de caso da cidade do Porto | |
| dc.relation.hasversion | https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-cities/articles/10.3389/frsc.2026.1903445/full | |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | Affordances | |
| dc.subject | Environmental justice | |
| dc.subject | Heterotopia | |
| dc.subject | Leverage points | |
| dc.subject | Relational ecology | |
| dc.subject | Urban green spaces | |
| dc.subject | Urban sociology | |
| dc.title | Nature, urban life and the deep structures of urban belonging: a retrospective on leverage points in Porto, Portugal | eng |
| dc.type | journal article | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| oaire.awardNumber | LA/P/0092/2020 | |
| oaire.awardNumber | SFRH/BD/143238/2019 | |
| oaire.awardTitle | Laboratory for Sustainable Land Use and Ecosystem Services | |
| oaire.awardTitle | Além do Verde: os jardins e parques urbanos na resposta aos desafios socioambientais contemporâneos. Estudo de caso da cidade do Porto | |
| oaire.awardURI | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/21837 | |
| oaire.awardURI | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/22235 | |
| oaire.citation.endPage | 6 | |
| oaire.citation.issue | 1903445 | |
| oaire.citation.startPage | 1 | |
| oaire.citation.title | Frontiers in Sustainable Cities | |
| oaire.citation.volume | 8 | |
| oaire.fundingStream | Concurso para Atribuição do Estatuto e Financiamento de Laboratórios Associados (LA) | |
| oaire.version | http://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85 | |
| person.familyName | Vidal | |
| person.givenName | Diogo Guedes | |
| person.identifier | https://scholar.google.pt/citations?user=NRP26CoAAAAJ&hl=pt-PT&oi=ao | |
| person.identifier.ciencia-id | C918-3B10-A36E | |
| person.identifier.orcid | 0000-0002-2777-2372 | |
| person.identifier.scopus-author-id | 57205490753 | |
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