Governance and Sustainability of green spaces in Buenos Aires and Montevideo

FAGGI A & C ANIDO

Leipzig

Congreso; Megacities; 2009

Helmholz Center

Urban green spaces provide a wide range of social, environmental, and economic benefits and also offer a direct contact with a natural environment to much of the population. The characteristics and proportion of green space in cities generally depends as much on their history as on contemporary planning and management policies.   This paper describes an emerging process that during the last decade affected the quality of green spaces in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo — two cities that have so much in common as regards their contextual design and urban structure. We tried to lay open how much governance played  a role in the vulnerability of those cities to their management by comparing indicators and development trends in their respective parks, natural urban areas and botanic gardens.   In Buenos Aires many green places were created and improved, as a consequence of vigorous participatory processes. The strongest growth of green space took place in the Eastern side of the city and along the waterfront and near the historical center. Also the expansion of new urban centers favored the restoration of many parks and squares. This greening process however was not powerful enough to remedy the recurrent deficit of green places in many neighborhoods, because remnant areas are highly priced pieces of land, usually subjected to the pressure of real estate speculators to build them up.   Several processes intended to implementing Agenda 21 goals with the participation of the civil society and firms or using UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook (GEO) methodologies were more often commenced in Montevideo than in Buenos Aires during the last decade. Nevertheless, common goals agreed by consensus were generally weakly implemented, and those programs became stagnated or were altogether abandoned every time a Government’s political color was changed by an electoral event. In addition, the current Buenos Aires and Montevideo governments unfortunately discouraged either the co-management or investments in a program for the use of public spaces and protected areas for leisure. This program proved to be very successful in the past, because it resulted in striking advances in the condition of natural and green areas used by city dwellers.