. ?Urban policy and gentrification process: studying socio-territorial changes in the southern area of the City of Buenos Aires?

MARIA CARLA RODRIGUEZ; DI VIRGIIO, MARIA MERCEDES

Urban Geography

Bellwether Publishing, Ltd.

Lugar: Birmingham; Año: 2015 vol. 36

0272-3638

The processes of urban renewal and regeneration have played an important role in the transformation of the city of Buenos Aires during the last few decades. The model of economic liberalization in the mid-seventies laid the foundations of a new urban order sustained by the development of real-estate investments, dynamized commerce, the supply of cultural and recreational services, etc., which promoted the modernization of the city. This dynamic has had a considerable impact on the southern neighbourhoods, creating the conditions for the displacement of the lower-income sectors which have historically resided there. We understand gentrification as the result or effect, of different scope and characteristics, of the dynamic of urban restructuring in capitalist society: improvement in the built environment, changes in the composition of the population (those with higher incomes, not necessarily owners, sometimes consumers), presence of new commercial and touristic investments, with distinctive aesthetics. We are therefore interested on the one hand in explaining the conditions of development of the common features present in these dynamics which define the general framework that enables the unfolding of the gentrification processes. To this end, our investigation has demonstrated for the case of Buenos Aires the importance of the role played by urban public policies, particularly investment decisions and changes in regulations. The state has had a key role as a promoter, attracting corporate actions regarding the different neighbourhood environments. Even in that context, however, it is possible to observe that the instruments used to operationalize the processes of renewal and regeneration vary in the different contexts. This article, which presents the results of research into four neighbourhoods of the southern area where the changes are really evident - San Telmo, La Boca, Barracas and Parque Patricios - makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the particular characteristics assumed by the processes of gentrification guided by the state (Lees and Ley, 2008) and their scope, limitations and contradictions. Indeed, we have seen that there is no single model of gentrification that would allow us to understand the different dynamics that coexist in the city of Buenos Aires. In particular, the effects of the government interventions in each neighbourhood create different dynamics and resistance processes that also interact with public policies, producing new institutional answers that leave their mark on the neighbourhoods. In this sense, our analysis has recognized the presence of social housing development projects launched as the result of the demands made by social organizations and inhabitants who claim their right to live in the neighbourhood. These initiatives have developed concurrently with the processes of gentrification. The housing complexes for low-income families built in the four neighbourhoods on the initiative of several social organizations and cooperatives, under Law 341, represent the active organized resistance of the population and are a clear expression of this dynamic, giving it a particular and distinctive character in the context of the last gentrification wave in comparison with other cities, in which these cycles of resistance have declined (Lees and Law, 2008).