Historicizing the circulation of urban policies through career paths analysis: Barcelonian experts and their role in redeveloping Buenos Aires? Puerto Madero.

GUILLERMO JAJAMOVICH

Delft

Workshop; Regional Studies Assosciation WORKSHOP Cross-national policy transfer in regional and urban policy; 2015

Regional Studies Assosciation - Delft University of Technology

In 1867, in his unfinished general theory of urbanization, some years after the completion of his plan for Barcelona, Idelfonso Cerdá included references to Buenos Aires. In 1990, the Barcelonian Strategic Plan for Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires strategically mobilized Cerda´s allusions, seeking for legitimacy by emphasizing a long tradition of exchanges between local and Barcelonian experts. This article addresses various issues of urban policy circulation, focusing on the Puerto Madero redevelopment project and in exchanges between experts and politicians from Barcelona and Buenos Aires. I emphasize the relevance of national states in processes that merge economic, political, and technical projects. Second, I argue that conflicts are relevant parts of those processes, and show how foreign proposals are contested and modified by local actors. Third, I show career paths analysis - including the role of individuals - as a relevant tool for analyzing and historicizing these processes. In so doing, I aim to demonstrate why and how local experts chose to learn from Barcelona. In sum, I focus on recent history that is largely overlooked to date, and argue that both career paths analysis and a substantive consideration of the state in these processes can enrich recent policy mobility literature.