Collapsed Rhythms

Abstract

This article discusses the impact of urban change in everyday life rhythms. Recently, urban space has been described and analyzed as polyrhythmic, being a congregation of diverse movements by different agents. While the role of materiality in this dynamic is recognized, the impact of urban change in everyday life rhythms is still underexplored. Seeing urban rhythms as comprised by affective relationships, I analyze how Lisbon’s recent macro-level spatial planning has affected the local everyday life rhythms of elders in Ameixoeira, a peripheral parish of the city. The article presents findings from 20 in-depth narrative interviews with elders who had lived for at least 40 years in the parish, with the purpose of understanding how urban change has affected their daily rhythms, which are stabilized by the resources of urban space. My conclusions identify a set of affective dimensions in which urban change has impacted the daily life rhythms of local elders.