This urban block, correspondent with the genesis of the city of Porto, in IX century, it possesses a sufficiently organic morphology and the limits defined well by diverse equipment, such as the Theatre of S. João, the Station of S. Bento, Street 31 de Janeiro, the Police Station, two great hotels, an extensive slope, among others, and functions as an important fond point of road axles and public spaces of all the downtown.

However, what in a normal case it would correspond to a historical centre (in a central situation) dinamized and adapted to the current times, in this case that corresponds to an urban nucleus kept out of society by the city, not that does not have life, because has immense, but because it represents what the growing society rejects: the gradual degradation of the buildings that compose this set, the difficulty of access characterized for narrow sufficient streets and of great pendant and the lack of great public spaces.

These had been the premises for the abandonment of the population, remaining only the aged ones, the migrant people with a more precarious financial situation, and minorities that find in this zone associated with the unemployment, poverty and crime, the incomes most favorable for its installation.

They are currently about sufficiently moving streets, endowed with a very proper life and high contrast with the neighbouring life. They are people who had arrived at the city, had taken possession themselves of “the obsolete” city and had made thus its city.

Urban blocks of S.Bento (PDF)