In 1974-75, in the period following the overthrow of a 48-year dictatorship, Portuguese society underwent an unprecedented mushrooming of experiments in popular mobilization and participatory democracy. Despite its short duration, this set of experiments constitutes an extremely rich repertoire of memories and resources for the reinvention of participatory initiatives. Urban dwellers' movements for the right to housing and for the "right to a place" appear as one of the most visible expressions of those experiments.

This chapter analyses Operation SAAL/Norte, a process launched by one sector of the State, involving namely architects and specialists in urban issues with the aim of promoting, in a participatory way, responses to needs in terms of housing and the quality of urban life. Three features of this process are examined in detail: the conditions and dynamics of popular participation and its forms of organization; the articulation of different modes of knowledge and experience, the role of experts and their relationship to popular movements; the ambiguous role of the State, through its different sectors and services, as facilitator or obstacle to citizen participation and to the organization of experiments in participatory democracy.