A small story in a big city that makes the city smaller and the story bigger. Bolhão is the name of a fresh produce market built almost one hundred years ago in the center of Oporto, the main city of Northern Portugal.
Recently, it has been involved in great controversy, as the City Authority opened tenders for the building’s rehabilitation and the winning project granted the rights over the building and the market stalls to a private company for a period of fifty years. Furthermore, this company intended to build there apartments and a shopping center. So Bolhão Market became another episode in a long war between traditional commerce and huge shopping centers, which is a lost war for those who don’t have the means and the strength to fight the “big money”.
The decision adopted by Oporto city authorities met fierce opposition and generated a huge protest from Oporto citizens, and from elsewhere throughout the country, who took the initiative to create a document that gathered 50,000 signatures – http://www.petitiononline.com/ptratt/petition.html – against this proposed deal, thus trying to avoid the destruction of one of the city’s symbols.
The fight of the citizens and the market sellers for the market’s rehabilitation is not only aimed at job keeping but also at preserving the symbols and history of a city that should live for its own inhabitants and not for building speculation.
In a society where the fights for true causes are rare, it’s important to support this citizens’ movement, bearing in mind the social, cultural and historical values that underlie this fight.
Text and photos by Manuela Moreira (PLR member)
