Street-level Retail and Urban Fabric of the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires: The Southern Corridor

SCIUTTO, FLORENCIA; VECSLIR, LORENA

Toronto

Conferencia; 48th Annual Conference of the Urban Affairs Association; 2018

Urban Affairs Association

The aim of this work is to study recent changes in typology and growing patterns of commercial activity in the traditional centres of certain municipalities within the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires (MRBA). Analysis is based on the shift of commercial development away from the traditional compact centre towards a more dispersed, polycentric model which has taken place over the last three decades. An atypical case in the MRBA, the southern corridor situated along the Roca Railway and Yrigoyen Avenue, is the focus of the study. There, opposite to the northern access, the development process was not stimulated by the connectivity provided by the adjacent arterial road, gated communities, and shopping centres. Instead, it is a metropolitan axis "without free-way", that allows for an analysis of the revitalization processes of street-level commerce in traditional centres, focusing on the municipalities of Lanus, Lomas de Zamora and Avellaneda.