A city for all? Public policy and resistance to gentrification in the southern neighborhoods of Buenos Aires

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyze grassroots movements’ resistance to gentrification processes in the southern area of Buenos Aires. We first review the limitations of the concept of gentrification when applied to the transformation of Latin American cities. We then examine the relationship between gentrification and social class in order to explain why and how local residents and grassroots organizations mount resistance to gentrification in three pericentral neighborhoods in the southern portion of Buenos Aires. Contemporary changes in these neighborhoods are driven by (1) the promotion of neoliberal urban renewal policies, and (2) the genesis and development of Law 341, a program that provides low-income people and organizations with loans for housing construction and renovation, and (3) the Programa de Autogestión de la Vivienda (the Self-Managed Housing Program), which supports cooperative-style housing management. Through two cases, we examine how the actions and strategies of grassroots organizations have countered some of the effects of gentrification in the South of Buenos Aires.

KEYWORDS:

• Gentrification
• social class
• resistance to gentrification
• urban social movements
• grassroots organizations
• neoliberal urbanism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For a detailed analysis of these issues and of their spatial impact see Kessler and Di Virgilio (2008, 2010).

2. The tenements (conventillos) are collective housing buildings that are rented per room. This is a form of housing that began towards the end of the nineteenth century and still persists in La Boca.

3. Herzer (2012) sampled 431 low-income dwellings in La Boca between 2000 and 2008. 1.2% had changed use, 3.7% had been demolished, and 5.6% were uninhabited. In total, 54.5% of the households sampled in 2000 no longer lived on the same premises by 2008. Given the nature of the sample, it is possible to know with certainty why those families decided to migrate and where they went. Taking into account the characteristics of those who replaced them, it is clear that population displacement in La Boca is ongoing.

4. The “Centros de Gestión y Participación” (Management and Participation Centres) are local management units that have been decentralized throughout the communes in accordance with the city’s constitution, which was approved in 1996. These units have elected authorities but provide only a few social and civil services.

5. Although there are no official statistics available, we estimate that 20,000 people are evicted every year in the city of Buenos Aires. This number is derived from data from the Statistics Bureau of the Civil National Court of Appeals. According to the National Court of Appeals, between 2006 and 2008, 12,661 eviction orders were started. In this period there were also increasing numbers of criminal proceedings for the offence of usurpation or squatting, in which offenders are required to vacate the premises. The Criminal and Correctional National Court of Appeals of the Federal Capital has estimated that 1,362 such proceedings began between 2006 and 2008, and at the same time the Federal Criminal and Correctional National Court of Appeals registered 248 proceedings (Arcidiácono & Royo, 2009).

6. Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA) was created in 1991 as a Congress of Argentine Workers Union with the mission of opposing neoliberalism by regrouping the working class “as it is,” including both the formal and informal sectors, self-employed workers, pensioners, neighborhood organizations, and youth from the community (Zapata, 2013).

7. Even with Law 341 in place, 409 cooperatives that applied (78.8% of the total) could not advance with the purchase of plots. This illustrates the need to implement further state policies to help low-income communities gain access to urban land.

8. This was called RECUP La Boca and was a policy initiative linked to the action of professional city planners related to government spheres and with capability for the management of additional resources from international cooperation.

9. Market sales prices here are more than USD $2,000/m² higher than the average in the southern neighborhoods of Buenos Aires.

10. One of the organizations involved in social disputes is the Secretaria Latinoamericana de la Vivienda Popular (SELVIP; Popular Housing Latin American Secretariat), which comprises movements from Uruguay, Brazil (FUCVAM), Ecuador (Unión Nacional de Moradia Popular), Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina (Federación Tierra y Vivienda and Movimiento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos (MOI)). The MOI is one of the founding members of this network, created in 1991 through the impetus of FUCVAM, the largest self-management collective-property and mutual-aid organization in South America. Organizations that are part of SELVIP promote policies, program, and regulatory instruments, such as Law 341 studied here, in their respective countries.