> Compared to Northern Europe certainly. Housing quality in Portugal is a joke. It's like going back in time a 100 years compared to Northern Europe: (...) Por

> Compared to Northern Europe certainly. Housing quality in Portugal is a joke. It's like going back in time a 100 years compared to Northern Europe: (...) Portuguese here, and a civil engineer to boot. From your description, it sounds like the reason you found the houses you're commenting on to be reminiscent of going back in time 100 years is most likely because they were indeed over 100 years old, and/or illegal settlements that haven't received a inhabitability certificate ("certificado de habitação" for the portguese speakers among us). The reference to the "illegal ghettos" sounds an awful lot like one of the still existing offshoots of the africa exodus, post-carnation revolution shanty towns that popped up during the 1970s during the massive influx of people from the newly independent former colonies. There are a few of those still standing, such as Lisbon's infamous Cova da Moura neighborhood, but a bunch of social housing neighborhoods were built to re-house similar shanty towns in the outskirts of Lisbon's and Porto's great metropolitan area since then, which are comprised of quick and cheap housing projects. Even though those houses are exceptionally cheap (you could purchase a 2-bedroom appartment in thr Quinta da Princesa neighborhood for around 20k€) they are also renowned for being extremely shoddy houses in extremely shoddy neighborhoods.