A Real Estate Strategic Model to Attract High Tertiary Offices Location

Abstract

In this paper it is proposed the definition and implementation of an integrated policy of local and municipal management, meant to attract high tertiary sector activities to inner-city locations, and to take advantage of its direct and induced effects upon the development of the local urban economies. The model proposed is based upon a deep reflection about the interdependencies between the spatial structure and the sustained development. Sustainability is apprehended in a long-range planning perspective, taking special care about the relationships between different urban variables (accessibility, public investment, real estate features, planning rules), institutional co-ordination, public participation and involvement, and monitoring of some urban indicators behaviour. A sustained development, applied to a city, is the ability of the urban area and its region to continue to function at levels of quality of life desired by the community, satisfying the current societal needs, without restricting the options available to the present and future generations, and without causing adverse impacts inside and outside the urban boundary (Brundtland Report, World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987; Rio de Janeiro, First International Conference on Urban Regeneration and Sustainability Conference, 2000). It is emphasised the importance of the inter-relationships between the planning process and urban economics, as well as the active performance of municipal powers in urban land use regulation, guidance, co-ordination and control. It is examined the way land use municipal planning influences the Real Estate Market, as a complex inter-related system involving different agents and their strategies, the administrative framework, the urban planning process and municipal engineering, as well as the way the Real Estate Market influences the Municipal Planning process. The model proposed is beginning to be implemented in the Oporto city (Portugal).