O caminho de ferro e as grandes transformações urbanas oitocentistas. Evidências a partir dos casos de Londres, Paris, Barcelona e Porto

Abstract

This dissertation explores the role of the railway, aided by industrialization, in the development of the nineteenth-century city. Throughout the work, I intend to prove that the railways were the main agents causing the modification of the urban morphology, from the city limited by its medieval walls to the city expanded beyond the previously built enclosures. To achieve the objectives previously stated, I intend to use 3 international examples: London, Paris and Barcelona. To address each example, I chose to study the first railway infrastructure that reached each of the three cities. And after a framework directed at the characteristics of the cities and each railway line, I begin an analysis divided into 3 parts: (1) Natural Conditions, (2) Expropriated Land and (3) Socioeconomic Impact. Each of these topics will be repeated by all the examples listed, with the intention of informing the consequences of the introduction of the railway in these European cities. The cities addressed serve as an example of comparison with the focus of the written work, the city of Porto. In this context, each of the examples should serve as an example for the national railway, since all of them were completed before the arrival of Campanhã Station. Once again, I intend to analyse the example of the city of Porto using the previously mentioned metric. All of this is to improve the understanding of the role of mobility in the city we experience today, which could not exist without transportation.