Evolution of the Mindelo City urban Structure Contributions to the proposal of a Structure Plan Extended abstract Dénis da Graça Andrade Dissertation for the Master Degree in Urban Studies and Territorial Management Supervisor: Professor Doutor Jorge Baptista e Silva October 2016 Introduction This study aims to analyze the evolution of urban structure of the Mindelo city, through history, with special emphasis on the development of the urban area within the last 45 years (1969-2014) and the preparation of contributions to a proposal of urban structure, considering principally the system formed by the island of St. Vincent as an Island-city, that is defined by its essentially urban character, especially by Mindelo, his only city, which contain 92.5% of the population of the Island. In this study we emphasis in the historical evolution of the city, pointing out the most important moments that characterized the population growth, the biophysical description of S. Vincent Island and the identification of the main structural elements, that conditioned the human occupation of the island, through the examination of the several urban instruments that have designed the evolution of Mindelo city. In the last step of this study, we elaborated the diagnosis of the current situation of the city structure in connection with the S. Vincent Island, identifying the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the system, based on environmental, urban and social economic factors. Finally, we gave some contribute to urban structure of Mindelo city, which is included in the St. Vincent designed structure, that ensuring urban cohesion, environmental sustainability and economic viability. 1 Methodology, urban history, economic and demographic characterization 1.1 Methodology The methodologies used in this manuscript are essentially analytical with resource of the available information in accessed bibliographic, including Sites and Sources, Cartographic Officers, Documentation Centres, Libraries, Dissertations Repositories, etc. First, it proceeded to a historical analysis of the island evolution using current bibliography. Secondly it was designed a digital terrain model of the S Vicente island, that formed the basis of geographical and biophysics representation; then we proceeded to the spatial analysis of occupation, through the identification of urban living spot in town at 4 periods of time (1969, 1993, 2003, 2014), as well as the identification of the advantages and the disadvantages associated to the SWOT analysis method, which supported the development of the future scenarios. Finally, it was drawn up the structure for Mindelo in the context of St. Vincent, and the structural elements were individualized to forming the proposal, which was outlined manually and then drowned on Arcgis. 1.2 Urban history of the Mindelo city The history of Mindelo city can be divided into three main periods: its foundation (1794-1850); development, crisis and stagnation (1850-1960) and its transformation (from 1960 to actuality). The city of Mindelo was founded upon the official settlement of S. Vincent island, between 1794 and 1797, having the beginning of the human occupation been characterized by various crises that justified the several names changes of Mindelo throughout history, from Village “Don Rodrigo” in 1798, Village ”Leopoldina” in 1819 and finally Village of Mindelo, in 1838. The cyclical droughts that have always 1 affected the Cape Verde islands contributed to demographic fluctuations of St. Vincent Island, which justified the several repopulations of the island and consequently the constant news beginnings of the Mindelo urban settlement. The 2nd stage was characterized by a high growth, which beginning in the 2nd half of the nineteenth century, with the fixing of the coal companies in the “Porto Grande” in 1850 and it reached its peak at the end of the century. During this period Mindelo becoming the main city of the archipelago as a result of the generated development inherent to its harbour that became one of the most visited in the mid-Atlantic and this development justified its elevation to town category in 1858 and city in 1879. The city developed a long this period, and the downtown was formed through traditional urbanism, with rectangular narrow blocks, but the part that grew more in this period was the port area with the major occupations of the coast by the coaling companies. In twentieth century, Mindelo city suffered serious crisis associated to the technological development that produced changes in the use of fuel resource (coal was replaced for oil). The Porto Grande did not follow this development because they didn´t created port infrastructure essential for modernization, which contribute to low level of competition with ports of Dakar, Las Palmas and Tenerife. Although, the city in the 1st half of the XX century faced a high increase of population taking advantage of the hand work flows, arriving from the agricultural island in periods of cyclical droughts. This movement originated several districts outside the more consolidated urban area with no apparent link with the oldest urban core. The 3rd period is characterized by transformation of the existing and overcome the disordered structure of the city, marked by a strong investment of the Portuguese state in the transformation of Mindelo city's image. The city reached great modernization essentially by the construction of the new wharf in 1961 and the implementation of new development plans for the entire city, which intended to the incorporation of peripheral neighbourhoods in the same city (realized through plans parcelled and the rehabilitation of the areas of the historic centre that had been abandoned by the coaling companies). The transformation and development of the city continued in the post-independence period, but without effective plans of monitoring, that could control urban sprawl. 1.3 Urban, demographic and economic characterization of Mindelo city The city of Mindelo, located in the northwest of St. Vincent Island, in the sheltered bay of “Porto Grande”, in a little sloped area, while for it passes some of the largest island's watercourses and located in an area below 100 meters of altitude. Its expansion processed in form of oil stain, avoiding the tops of the hills and following the main roads direction. It seems that the areas occupied by the Mindelo city are predominantly those with lower slopes (0-4%) and very rarely on slopes still moderately low (4-12%), despite the recent occupation of the slopes in the Northeast and Southeast direction, which tends to expand to higher slope (12-25%). The higher 2 slopes (25-58%) of the St. Vincent Island, recorded just outside the city of Mindelo, on 4 major mountain ranges that structure of the São Vicente Island. Fig. 1 The location of Mindelo city in S. Vicente Island The Mindelo city location is product of the better use of whether good conditions (sun exposure) in the northern part of the volcanic caldera of Mindelo. Its position in relation to the large harbor bay, where the protection of northeast winds provided by the northern hills of this island made it possible to establish itself near the “Porto Grande” bay. It was expanding toward the flatter areas and next the small valleys surrounded in the northern part of the volcanic caldera. The other urban centres of São Vicente island located in the coastal areas, along the coves or bays sheltered, most particularly the urban centres of “São Pedro”, “Salamansa”, “Baía das Gatas” and Calhau and some scattered rural settlements in the interior of the island including rural spots (“Ribeira de Julião”, “Madeiral”, “Ribeira de Calhau” and “Lameirão”). Demographically, Sao Vicente island population in 1807 was about 0.2% of Cape Verde inhabitants, which in 1950 represented 13% of population, becoming the 3rd island. Then, in the last census (INE, 2010) it represented 15.5% Cape Verde inhabitant, taking the 2nd position, which showed the great distance to the largest island of Cape Verde, Santiago (55% of total population). Nevertheless of considerable unemployment, St. Vincent island continued in the 2nd position, relatively to Growth Domestic Product (GDP) contribution (INE, 2015), on the development and distribution of GDP in Cape Verde islands in the period 2007-2012, representing 15.2% of Cape Verde's GDP. 3 2 Planning and the development of Mindelo city structure around the last period of its history. After the main goal characterization, we focus in the analyse of the several urbanistic instruments developed to Mindelo, during the last phase of history (1960-2015), with special emphasis on main crucial period of urban structure evolution development plans for this island, 1960. 2.1 Successive development plans for the Mindelo city and the S. Vicente Island Three development plans were drawn up for Mindelo, during the period of (1959-1974). Through this period the activity of the cabinet of colonial urbanization increased. The first plan was made in 1959 which formed the basis of the other plans preparation, the Director Base Plan in 1960, and Master Plan in 1969. The master plans for Mindelo had two proposals, on one hand throw the existing urban structure, leading the urban renovation of the built city and the entire front coastline in order to restructure the city around its wide bay. On the other hand, they pretended to go further urban sprawl by creating the required road infrastructure for various peripheral cores connection, with the oldest nucleus. The last proposal would be materialized through the several partial plans that promoted consolidation of the urban structure of Mindelo city, which nowadays it’s basically characterized by continuity between the neighbourhoods’ fractions, in contrast to the existing urban situation in 1960. Fig. 2 Urban plans elaborated for Mindelo City and S. Vicente Island (1959-2011). They were also elaborated several partial plans for Mindelo to improve the strategic options of the master plans of 1960 and 1969, and that were developed during the sixties and early seventies decades of the last century.