Twin cities? Posadas, Argentina and Encarnación, Paraguay in socio-urban perspective

BRITES WALTER FERNANDO

Estudios Fronterizos

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Lugar: Baja California; Año: 2018 vol. 19 p. 1 - 26

The objective of this article is to demostrate the mechanisms of complementary relationships maintained by the border cities of Posadas, Argentina and Encar- nación, Paraguay. From a descriptive and diachronic approach the study argues that these cities can be interpreted as twin cities, which share a cultural and his- torical matrix in the regional context. Both cities apart from their specificities, present similar socio-urban aspects, and in their evolution they were involved in the same processes and problems: border flows, Mercosur policies, construction of the international bridge, Border Neighborhood Traffic Agreements, even a more unusual phenomenon, such as the effect that large infrastructure works have left on their territories. It is concluded that these cities, despite not having a common government, the economic, cultural, neighborhood and complemen- tary relations, generate impacts in a city and vice versa, generating interdepen- dencies, mutual conditioning, and a specific form of inter-urban articulation.