Three and a half years ago I came to Faro for the first time. Like many Germans, I came for the sun and to escape the winter in the North. I fell in love! I fell in love with my future wife, but also with the place.
The natural beauty of Ria Formosa is unique. People are friendly and open to foreigners. The food is delicious. The old town has charm. There is a university. The place is neither too big nor too provincial.
Faro it is on the same latitude as San Francisco. I've lived in California, there are many natural similarities. Faro it has all the ingredients to be the San Francisco of Europe.
But of course Faro need to make up for lost history. The Algarve was extremely poor and neglected until 1974. Portugal in general was poor. The country's modest wealth, in the past, was controlled by some families in Lisbon and Porto.
In 1986, when Portugal joined the European Community, the Algarve lagged behind Western Europe in many basic indicators, such as literacy and access to water. The south of Portugal was the most underdeveloped region that has ever entered the EU.
The region has made immense progress since the 1970s and 1980s. International tourism and European funding started a wave of infrastructure investments in the 1990s and 2000s.
Still in 1991, only 68% of the Algarve had access to water pipes and 56% to the sewer system. Thanks to EU investment, in 2001 already 91% were connected to water. Later, European programs focused on the road network; a questionable project.
Tourism brings money, but also problems. In the Algarve, tourism has become a monoculture. The region depends a lot on it. Employment from tourism is highly seasonal, with a big difference between summer and winter. Most workers are in the low-skilled and low-cost sector. On this basis, it is difficult to create a sustainable local economy.
The Algarve has evolved into a mostly middle-class beach holiday destination, which is better than the mass tourism found elsewhere, but remains a specific niche.
Faro it's not a tourist magnet, it's more of a logistical hub. It attracts few tourists who come to explore urban life. Faro cannot compete with Lisbon and Porto. However, smaller cities such as Aveiro, Braga and Évora have managed to attract urban tourists in recent years.
Politicians need to think about how to Faro a more livable urban space: to attract tourists dedicated to the city; to offer beach tourists another option; and to keep existing residents.
Faro it is an example of what was known as modernist urban planning. Abandoning the restrictions of historic centers, modernist urbanists developed mono-zones in the surroundings: industrial zone, commercial zone, residential zone, educational zone; all these zones were built as blocks separate from each other. Modernism made construction easier and cheaper, but it destroyed the charm and coherence of a traditional city.
Modernist planning led to a terrible unintended consequence: huge amounts of daily traffic. If all parts of daily life are spatially separated, people must constantly move from one zone to another. If life is more complex, daily traffic grows even more between work, school, shopping, entertainment, sports and back home.
Such a deluge of traffic is a challenge even for a well-planned city. It is even more so if lack of planning and lack of investment means that most of this traffic is done by car. Herein lies the number one problem of Faro: the city is suffocated by cars.
In response to the rising tide of automobiles, policymakers from Faro, for decades, decided to build more streets for cars instead of reducing the number of vehicles. City streets are built for the convenience of cars, not people.
The coronavirus crisis opened its eyes. During quarantine, when traffic was minimal, the streets became friendlier. People had more room to walk. Noise and pollution have been greatly reduced.
Coronavirus made current flaws in cities visible. Social distance of two meters is difficult when the sidewalk is one meter wide. Not to mention illegally parked cars that take up pedestrian spaces.
Today, streets are imagined based on the primacy of the car. Car lanes are designated first, for driving and parking, and then any space that remains is given to people. First cars, then people.
A healthy society would do the opposite: consider people's needs first, then add cars if necessary and possible.
Good urban design would start by giving each side of the street at least six feet of space to walk, then add lanes for bicycles and scooters, and then think about the needs of cars.
In narrow places, this means that cars are reduced to one-way streets or that they need to share slow-speed streets with bicycles. The speed limit in cities must be 30 km/h. A small inconvenience for cars, but a big improvement for people.
A healthy society would reduce parking space. We live in a time of rising rents and house prices, which many families can no longer afford.
We also live in an age of free car parking, or for little money. It's absurd: the poorest people would be better off if they were cars instead of humans. Our current ideology is more concerned with parking for cars than with space for residents. It's like cars rule this planet.
Faro it could be a cyclist's paradise, but the reality is grim. Bikes and scooters are ideal for cities the size of Faro. The climate is ideal; cyclists in Amsterdam and Copenhagen dream of it.
Without dedicated bike lanes and safe streets at reduced speed, cycling and e-mobility will not thrive.
The third scooter business is now trying its luck, but it remains a doomed adventure when urban planning is not ready.
The city does not have a coherent network, there are only a few isolated cycle paths. On most streets, cycling between cars is dangerous.
Circular roads like Avenida Calouste Gulbenkian destroy the city, cutting off neighborhoods from each other and presenting unpleasant obstacles to people.
Much effort has gone into the Parque Ribeirinho, but the lovely waterfront park is isolated from the city by a monster road that stretches from the Forum shopping center to the prison. Imagine walking or cycling from the Hospital to Parque Ribeirinho; it's not a joy.
Here are other challenges: taking a bicycle or scooter from the train station to the university campus in Penha or from the swimming pool to the Forum. Some students are willing to take the risk.
For most residents, such trips are reckless. Responsible parents do not allow their children to take these trips, so they need to drive them by car.
Tourists won't take any chances either. Think about what a tourist experiences when he arrives at the train station and goes to the old town. The first sensation is that of an uncomfortable but achievable ride.
Then consider a longer walk, to the Market or the Forum: it will be an obstacle for most tourists. The charming neighborhoods of Penha and São Luís remain a mystery to tourists because they never get there. The bus system is limited and even local residents don't always understand it.
In recent years, foreign tourists have experienced how their cities in Germany, France, Benelux and Scandinavia have rid themselves of cars and become more livable. They want the same thing when they're on vacation. The primacy of the car is a big disadvantage.
Other destinations understood the signs and began to change their road planning. Majorca and Seville, for example, are transforming very successfully. In Portugal, Aveiro is one of the leaders.
Coronavirus is a huge crisis for tourism. The next economic shock will reduce tourist spending. Travel, especially by air, faces a major logistical and psychological hurdle.
Tourists will be reluctant to book trips abroad for a while, but they will come back. When they return, they will be demanding: looking for social distance, avoiding mass hostels and hotels, preferring private accommodation and holiday apartments.
Eventually, tourists will spend the same amounts of money again, but in a different way: instead of several shorter and cheaper vacations, they will prefer a longer and more expensive vacation in a larger space.
In the future, tourists will choose their destinations with a critical eye. Competition among European tourist sites will be fiercer.
The Algarve was less affected by deaths from coronaviruses than other regions in Europe. However, the Algarve will feel the economic effect of the fall in tourism more strongly than others. This is the downside of a mono-economy.
Such economic collapse will hit the local population hard. It will be more difficult to keep people in the Algarve and attract new residents from other parts of Portugal. When the tourism industry is in crisis, the entire region is in crisis.
Some important problems for the Algarve, such as a health service that is smaller than in the rest of Portugal, are beyond the control of local politicians.
However, there are concrete steps that local policy can take. Faro a more habitable place. Faro it needs to attract a new class of urban tourists and persuade its current residents to stay, particularly the younger ones, who are more flexible to relocate. A crucial step in this direction will be to abandon the car's primacy.
Cars play a role in medium-distance travel. But a well-planned city, especially the size of Faro, do not need cars.
Faro it needs people and the city must give them priority. Faro it's a good city, but with better planning it could be one of the best places to live in Europe.
Author Alexej Behnisch was born in Germany, studied in the UK and now lives in Faro. He works as a political advisor and teacher.
Comments