The role of urban policy in socio-territorial changes in the southern area of the City of Buenos Aires

HILDA ; MARIA CARLA RODRIGUEZ; MARIA MERCEDES DI VIRGILIO

Santiago

Seminario; TOWARDS AN EMERGING GEOGRAPHY OF GENTRIFICATION IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH; 2012

ORGANISED BY: Professor Loretta Lees (Department of Geography, King’s College London) Dr. Hyun Bang Shin (Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics) Dr. Ernesto López‐Morales (Department of Urban Planning, University of Chi

1- SUMMARY Renewal and urban requalification processes have played an important role in the changes occurred in the City of Buenos Aires during the last decades. The economic liberalization model that began during the 90s established the bases for a new urban ordainment based on the development of real estate investments, commercial stimulus, the supply of cultural and recreational services, etc., that promoted modernization in some city areas and boosted capital accumulation processes through a competitive insertion in the global market. This dynamics began to change (and kept on changing) the southern area of the city and, at the same time, it increased conditions for the displacement of the lower income sectors. The State –national and local- played a necessary role as kickoff and support of these changes. Within this framework, this paper analyses the current local government’s urban policy –the first one openly neoliberal since the City became politically autonomous in 1996 and at present in its second term of government – by identifying policy changes and continuities and, particularly, their definitions and effects in relation to the popular sectors, many of which have been displaced by the gentrification process.