Housing informality in Buenos Aires: Past, present and future?

Abstract

As in most other Latin American cities, a principal way of accessing housing for the urban poor in Buenos Aires has been through the illegal occupation of land. Over a period of roughly eight decades, this has led to the formation of hundreds of informal settlements in the city. This article traces the historical development of informality in Argentina's capital. It shows that different phases in this development, each with particular characteristics, can be discerned. Currently, the contours of a new phase, different from all previous ones, are taking shape. It will be argued that without an adequate understanding of the different conditioning factors of this new phase and an integrated approach to address them, informality in the city is bound to persist and even to increase in size, in spite of the country's impressive recent economic growth and high government expenditure on social housing.

The urban effects of the emerging middle class in the global south

“…And goes on to argue that since home is an important space for access to resources, precarious housing should be part of arguments for rights to the city. Precarity is a global phenomenon but particularly pronounced in cities of the global South (Harris and Nowicki, ; Inostroza, ; Van Gelder, et al, ).…”

Homeownership, mobility, and home: A relational housing study of Argentine Ludar and Romanian Rudari

“…Romania privatised most of its socialist-era public housing stock in the 1990s and discontinued its social housing provision almost entirely ( Amann et al, 2013 , Șoaită, 2017 ). Argentina also drastically cut back on social and public housing provision in the 1990 s ( Van Gelder et al, 2016 , Zanetta, 2002 ). Mass privatisation, rent deregulation, and disinvestment in public and social housing proved further deathblows for the inclusiveness of Romanian ( Amann et al, 2013 , Cinà, 2010 , Nae and Turnock, 2011 , Teodorescu, 2018 ) and Argentine cities ( Muñoz, 2017 , Monkkonen and Ronconi, 2013 , Roitman, 2005 , Van Gelder et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Much more important for low-income groups were the legalisation programmes for cheaply acquired vacant lots in peripheral and underdeveloped areas, the loteos populares . These lots were subsequently provided with minimal infrastructure ( Di Virgilio, 2017 , Van Gelder et al, 2016 ). In that way, the vast majority of lower-income groups could live in legally produced housing.…”

“…Unsurprisingly, the loteos populares comprise the largest part of the housing stock in the Greater Buenos Aires Region (GBAR). However, support for loteos populares was gradually discontinued starting in the 1990s ( van Gelder et al, 2016 ). The Argentine equivalent of the ANL is the Federal Housing Plan (FHP).…”

“…At first sight, the ANL and FHP housing plans seem more like neo-Keynesian strategies not in line with welfare retrenchment. However, the outcomes of these programmes suggest reduced capacities to actively intervene in the housing crises and clarify the continuation of slum construction and illegal rental markets in both countries ( Teodorescu, 2018 , Van Gelder et al, 2016 , Vincze, 2018 , Vincze and Rat, 2013 ). To start with the ANL in Romania, budgetary deficits and a poorly functioning organisation have made the ANL a failure in terms of output figures ( Amann et al, 2013 ; Turcu, 2017 ).…”