GRANDE PORTO - Geography and history
The city of Porto (the biggest in the Norte region and the second largest in the country) exerts polarisation effects far beyond its physical borders, forming a conurbation covering most of the 817 square kilometres of this sub-region, which is the smallest in the Norte in terms of area. Urban settlement is, however, less intensive in certain areas of Grande Porto which have more of a semi-urban character - above all the extreme south-east and the northern zones, except the coastal strip.
Over half the coastline of the Norte is in Grande Porto. Its beaches suffer from the effects of a dense population, however. The mouths of three rivers lie within the sub-region: the Ave (at Vila do Conde), the Leça (at Matosinhos) and the Douro (one of the great rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, which flows into the sea between Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia).
The excellent access to Grande Porto makes it (and above all Porto itself) the point of departure for all main lines of communication, particularly road links, across the north of Portugal, whether in a northerly direction (Braga, Minho, Spain), towards the interior (Vila Real, Bragança etc.) or to the south (Lisboa, the Algarve and beyond).
In 1995, 29% of the area of Grande Porto was wooded and 26% was farmland.
A metropolitan district concentrating the resources of the Norte
The attractions of this metropolitan district centred in Porto are such that it housed in 2000 more than a third of the population and around half of all businesses in the North; its network of infrastructures and communal facilities is also unbalanced in the region. Some of Grande Porto's functions extend beyond its actual territory and serve the whole of the Norte, making it the true regional centre. In addition to the road and rail network linking Grande Porto with the whole of the Norte region, the rest of Portugal and Europe, the sub-region has a major commercial seaport and the North's only international airport, both essential to an internationalised regional economy.
The concentration of facilities and resources in this sub-region makes itself felt in various fields. In the health sector, for example in 2001, half of the Norte region's hospitals and 68% of its doctors were in Grande Porto, which has at least three times as many doctors as any other sub-region of the Norte. 70% of the Norte region's students in higher education study in Grande Porto. The sub-region's hotel capacity was in 2001 43% of the total for the region, and its has more fixed-line telephones than any other sub-region of the North.
The GDP per capita (PPP approach) of the Grande Porto is exceeded in Portugal only by that of Grande Lisboa and Madeira.
Grande Porto's attractions are likewise reflected in its population density, which is by far the highest in the Norte at 1490 inhabitants per square kilometres in 2001, and in the presence of 15 of the 20 largest employers in the region. The pressures arising from the development of the metropolitan district create imbalances in certain areas, environmental degradation and social exclusion being two of the problems encountered. Grande Porto inevitably has the highest unemployment rate of the sub-regions of the Norte (8% in 2001).
A distinctive demographic trend and growth in service jobs
The demographic trends in Grande Porto are typical of a metropolitan district, showing population losses in the centre of Porto and gains in the suburbs. Grande Porto also appears gradually to be turning into a centre for services. The population of Grande Porto increased by some 41 100 persons (+3.4%) between 1995 and 2001, which is relatively high compared to the national average of 2.3%. Demographic growth was seen in most municipalities in the sub-region, but not in Porto, which lost 25 000 inhabitants between 1981 and 1991 and another 20 000 by 1995. Grande Porto shows a positive natural population balance (the difference between live births and deaths). The birth rate fell from 19 per thousand in 1980 to 15.2 per thousand in 2000, while the mortality was constant around 10 per thousand (10.4 per thousand in 2000). Here, too, the Porto municipality distinguished itself by being the only sub-region to register a negative natural population growth: since the beginning of the 1990s its birth rate has fallen by some 12 per thousand to 10 per thousand while the mortality rate varied between 11 per thousand and 12 per thousand.
During the 1980s Grande Porto recorded negative and sometimes strongly negative migration rates, but these were never enough to offset the growth in the population. By the 1990s slightly positive migration rates had begun to appear. The Porto municipality still shows fairly strongly negative migration rates, however. The ageing coefficient of the population resident in the city of Porto (which in 1995 showed 106 persons aged over 65 per 100 under 15) is far above that of any other municipality in the sub-region. Grande Porto as a whole also shows increasing ageing of the population, with 65 elderly persons per 100 young people in 1995, compared with only 34 in 1981.
The decline in the population of the Porto municipality does not mean that there is less employment in the city, however. Many workers commute to the city, bringing traffic congestion on its main access routes.
Employment patterns in Grande Porto show increasing specialisation in the tertiary sector. In 1999, there were 63% of jobs to the tertiary sector: 21% to the distributive trades, hotels and restaurants, 20% to services of a social nature (chiefly public administration, education, health and personal services) and 12% to transport, communications, financial services, real estate and other business services. The secondary sector accounted for 35% of employment while the primary sector had a very small share compared to the national average (2% against 11%). In terms of Gross Value Added, the predominance of the tertiary sector in total economy is even more evident, as it accounted in 2000 for 69% of it, the highest share of the Norte region. The secondary and primary sectors represented respectively 30% (comparable to the national average) and 1% (3% for Portugal as a whole) of the GVA.
The data available for 1996 show heavy losses in the relative weight of manufacturing and the construction industry, which now account for only 30% of jobs in Grande Porto. The percentages of jobs in services have increased accordingly: education from 5% in 1991 to 10% in 1995, real estate and business services from 4% to 7%, health also from 4% to 7%, the distributive trades, hotels and restaurants from 21% to 24% and financial intermediation and insurance from 3% to 5%.
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