Cities in collapse: hospitality becomes a risk

With each passing week, it becomes harder to ignore the reality that the phenomenon of overcrowding in apartments by people in precarious situations is reaching alarming proportions. This technical, sanitary and structural problem, with direct impacts on public health, the safety of buildings and the social peace of neighbourhoods, challenges, above all, the physical limits of hospitality.

In a two-bedroom apartment designed for a family of four, we now find ten, twelve or more occupants; mattresses piled up, makeshift partitions, shared bathrooms in shifts and inadequate ventilation that is conducive to toxic mould on the walls. The facilities were not designed for this type of load. Drains burst, electrical panels overheat, rubbish piles up.

In technical terms, there is a clear violation of the minimum habitability parameters established in the RGEU (General Regulation of Urban Buildings), from the point of view of usable area, ventilation, health and structural safety. Can we count on the almost non-existent municipal inspection supported by relativistic political discourse?

The prevailing discourse says that we should welcome everyone, without limits. But a sovereign country does not leave its neighbourhoods to chaos or sacrifice well-being. The dangers are real, but they can still be avoided. The risk of fire is extremely serious if we consider improvised electrical connections, the excessive use of extension cords and the lack of fire extinguishers as ideal triggers for a tragedy. A short circuit is enough to turn a building into an apocalyptic inferno.

The structure of buildings, especially older ones, suffers from excessive live load. Engineering calculations did not foresee twenty beds, multiple refrigerators and human casters using the facilities in a rush. The medium-term consequences are inevitable: deformations, cracks, leaks and, ultimately, the risk of partial collapse.

Urban planning without rules is not inclusion, it is a “modern” regression to the times of “water-go-by”. Neighbors, long-time residents, see their buildings deteriorate, the garbage increases, the odors and, sometimes, with a touch of fear; they end up selling and leaving, forced by a State that does not protect its own or the newcomers.

A society that loses control over its inhabited space also loses its cultural, urban and health foundations. This complacency has costs: imminent fires, respiratory diseases, urban degradation and the emptying of the Portuguese middle class from the cities it built.

Allowing these situations to proliferate in the name of tolerance is a moral perversion. There is no possible inclusion where chaos reigns, where dignity is lacking and where housing overexploitation abounds. And, incompatible with this, there will be no sustainable urban future when building and occupation rules are systematically ignored, whether for political convenience or for fear of being gagged by “political correctness”.

If the authorities do not have the courage to intervene, in the medium term we will be faced with informal ghettos and health collapses. History has already shown us where this will undoubtedly lead.

Cities are more than just concrete blocks. They are living expressions of our culture, our collective memory and our way of life. When we allow them to be transformed into makeshift ghettos, we are destroying what unites us.

Overoccupation is just a symptom of a deeper problem: the collapse of urban and health authorities in the name of uncritical hospitality. But there is no inclusion possible where the law is ignored. And there is no free society where urban space is taken over by informality.

If we do not have the courage to confront this phenomenon with technical objectivity and political firmness, the social and urban costs will be irreversible. What is happening in many Portuguese urban neighborhoods is more than a technical problem: it is a symptom of national abdication. In each overcrowded building, in each two-bed apartment with 12 beds and cables hanging from the walls, we see the reflection of a State that no longer governs itself.

Disorderly immigration, combined with a total lack of monitoring, is creating zones of parallel occupation, where Portuguese law is moribund. Portuguese cities, once organized, cohesive and family-oriented, are being stripped of their character in the name of a cosmopolitanism that only impoverishes those who live here.