City-country relationships with regard to the production and consumption of agricultural products and the demographic flows: the case of the Longroiva Thermal Baths (Northeast Portugal)

Abstract

City-country relationships are historical, perceived through activities and flows such as those associated with the production and trade of agricultural products, as well as with the endogenous potential and existing connections with the surrounding territories and urban environments. Rural areas are not static, they suffer continual changes in which aspects such as accessibilities, demographic flows and, more recently, the digital world have interfered, fostering changes in city-country relationships. It is in this context that thermal activities are approached from a holistic perspective. Subject to urban demands, thermal baths have undergone structural, functional and aesthetic transformations, changing the traditional paradigm associated exclusively with medicinal treatments. Thus, peripheral spaces have been revitalised, as well as the territorial (re)connections, as is the case of Longroiva (NE of Portugal), a parish where the modernisation/renewal of the local Thermal Baths and Spa have to be analysed.