The Demographic Aspect of Contemporary Urban Processes (The Case of Portugal)

In the last decades in most European countries urbanization can be observed, characterized by a tendency towards expansion of big cities into their environs with a decreasing number of inhabitants living in urban cores (urban sprawl). The result is networked, poly-centric forms of concentration. These new structures are the result of the changes in the organization of the production process, the increasing role of the service and information based economy and the growing mobility of the population.The aim of this paper is to present the demographic aspect of urban processes in Portugal, in the country as well as in the Lisbon Metropolita Area.