Abstract
The current financial crisis in Argentina seems to be associated
to the Neo-liberal policies applied during the last two decades,
in the management of Buenos Aires. Different researches explain
the territorial transformation of strategic areas through renewal
projects; and on the other hand, the growing socio-territorial fragmentation
process of vulnerable communities as results of the application
of neo-liberal city management policies -Ainztein, 1998-
Since Buenos Aires assume its legal status of autonomous city,
in 1996, the urban environmental plan (Plan Urbano Ambiental) has
been looking to combine neo-liberal principles, such as improving
the competitiveness of the city investing in strategic projects
with social-environmental orientated ideas, such as providing housing
for low income people, promoting public transport or creating new
public green areas. The experience allows to discuss the viability
of such alternative models, in the context of a deep and virulent
local crisis and a global economy.
Some important shifts in the urban policies can be discover already
mainly as results of the current crisis. The privatization of services,
one of the basic principles of neo-liberalism, has tends to be rejected
by the public opinion, as results that after the devaluation of
the local currency (peso), the prices for the services increase
in relation with the dollar price, while the salaries of the population
remain the same. The local government looking to go back from the
privatization paradigm has decide to subcontract some crucial urban
services, such as garbage collection, to low income groups micro-business
and not international big enterprises, as it was done before. The
priority to generate employment and income for low income groups
is top, at the moment, but the obstacles and resistance to implement
such "alternative" ideas for privatization are still important
and resisted by many sectors. The same happens with many ideas of
concentrating small and micro business in strategic areas, with
the idea of returning back in the idea of modern urbanism removing
out of the city all industrial activities, settle in industrial
parks. But in an scenario of depression, the need to protect employment
move the plan to encourage industries in certain zones. However,
the interest of the real estate investors to make carry out profitable
business in certain zones, create an important pressure to keep
the neo-liberal paradigms of urbanism in power.
Other programs targeted in housing and services for low income groups
are promoted by the urban-environmental plan but with serious financial
obstacles. The idea of subsidizing social housing, in the framework
of urban revitalization programs, in strategic areas, like the case
of " La Boca", arise many discussion around its social,
urban and financial sustainability.
New finance strategies of revitalization include more and more cross
subsidizing operations. Such strategies are closely associated to
the ideology of the Plan to harmonize competitiveness and equity
in the context of sustainability. But the implementation of such
programs tends to involve public-private partnerships to make it
financially viable, that in practice imply the transference of resources
and business opportunities from the public to the private sector,
with high social externalities and limited benefits for the low
income groups. The case of the southern area, characterized by the
high percentage of poor population, shows the important limitations
of the " alternative model" to achieve results, under
the current circumstance of Buenos Aires.
The comparative impact of such programs and projects in the context
of the territorial changes transformation investigate the potential
of the different approaches proposed to become a real alternative
model to the unique neo-liberalism paradigm. In order to check such
hypothesis, it was mapped the territorial changes of Buenos Aires
according to four main typologies: Areas oriented to the global
market; areas concentrating micro and small business mixed with
residential uses, zones in deterioration process and neutral areas
without transformation. This four typologies create a particular
context defining the suitability of the different programs proposed
in each particular case: Renewal, orientated to increase competitiveness,
and revitalization, orientated to equity.
Being Buenos Aires a city deeply influenced by European urbanism
from its early development, populated by European descendants, the
role of European academics in the past and in the preparation of
the present urban-environmental plan has been and is of paramount
importance. The new paradigms of territorial management in the European
Union, combining neo-liberal principles of city network for metropolitan
development and strategic investment for increasing urban competitiveness
with social welfare strategies such as subsidies, typical of traditional
planning, impact profoundly in the ideas sustained by the urban
environmental plan of Buenos Aires.
Firstly, the paper consider how the different programs to renew
and revitalize the southern zone of the city, in the framework of
the principles promoted by the Urban Development Plan, contribute
an specific territorial management based on alternative model to
neo-liberalism. Secondly, it is investigate how the current European
experience influence the search for alternative models, in the context
of the gap between north and south are crucial question included
in the research. Thirdly and finally, the paper focus on the role
of the crisis as a main driving force to reshape an alternative
model or in the contrary, it frozen any possibility for sustainable
changes.
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