Cityscapes

Archipelagos of Wealth and Poverty

The city is an ever-changing reality. Buenos Aires and its metropolitan area as a whole  make up an evolving conglomerate. Without transformations, the modern city loses its meaning. But the city does not change capriciously, rather it is forced to do so numerous times by the circumstances arising from the context of the city itself. (Fig. 1)

The last decade's multiple economic, political, and social changes, especially including the decreasing influence of the State in basic issues, have affected all of society, particularly the extremes on the social hierarchy: the poor and the rich.
As a result, these processes have accentuated the very lifestyles that they have changed— quantitatively and qualitatively—the demographic composition, the urban landscape, and the pre-existing function of the whole metropolitan area of Buenos Aires.

Historically, the city of Buenos Aires and its metropolitan area have been developed along the grid system. This urban model, which can be described as inclusive and infinite (well explained by Adrián Gorelik in his book La Grilla y el Parque), has responded to the city’s growth since its founding in 1580.  From that time, a “city of infinite neighborhoods, of micro-worlds scattered across the interminable grid” was generated. The borders of the original city resulted in neighborhoods that ultimately attained a sense of autonomy. Beyond autonomy, there was the creation of identity: soccer in each neighborhood, cafes on the corners, daily grocery shopping, games on the sidewalks and in the plazas, and the diverse local festivities that accompanied the rise of the middle class.

This infinite and inclusive scheme no longer serves to characterize the city in its entirety. Two other urban models are evolving from two completely different lifestyles in terms of forms of socialization and access to goods and services. On one end of the spectrum, there are emergency villages. Generally speaking, these are human settlements in precarious urban environments where the people live in conditions of poverty and crowding. On the other end of the social spectrum are the closed urbanizations that create a restricted quasi-suburban atmosphere (Fig. 2). Nevertheless, these differences can obscure the common denominator: both are extreme poles of segregation within the urban landscape, spaces of exclusion, meaning, at times, self-exclusion that is not always desired.

We want to examine these models of urban segregation both from the urbanist and social points. Both models are examples of closed environments, break with the urban scheme, privatize public spaces, discontinue surrounding areas, and alter the traditional human relations of an open city.

EMERGENCY VILLAGES: THE PAST AND PRESENT

Shortly after the disastrous 1929 economic crisis, industry began to grow in an orderly fashion, causing the relocation of many new firms, national and foreign, to the Greater Buenos Aires area.

While the industrial sector grew, the unemployment rate fell to a minimal level, and most people were employed. With a few fluctuations, industry growth continued for a few decades. Enormous masses of workers from all over the country immigrated to the capital city, where the demand for labor offered them opportunities not found in their regions of origin.

Around the 1950s, a new urban and social phenomenon appeared: the “misery villages" or "emergency villages,” a spontaneous and informal alternative to the lack of housing resulting from the rapid process of industrialization. It was those precarious and unhealthy housing developments in which the illusion of achieving improvements disappeared, giving place to a progressively degraded quality of life.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the misery villages continued to grow, more so because of the collapse of regional economies rather than the prosperity of the great city.  At same time, certain policies were put into motion to find a solution to those precarious housing developments. Certainly, the most extreme alternative was the eradication and forced relocation attempted by the military regime between 1976 and 1983.

Far from disappearing, these housing developments continued to be an increasing established reality in the Buenos Aires of the 1990s. The isolation of these marginal “islands” is even more noticeable today because they now border “archipelagos” of wealth: the private complexes, sometimes enormous in size, destined for the big winners of these years of economic growth – the middle upper and upper classes of the population.

The urban characteristics—morphological and social—of these precarious urban housing developments have retained their essence during the last thirty years. We can cite the following general features (Fig. 3):

    They are urban enclaves that break the urban scheme. The traditional grid, geometrically traced by the Spaniards, and continued throughout history is now interrupted.

    They are precincts, most of which occupy more than one block, appropriating, in many cases, public spaces, and generally causing a visual rupture of the neighborhood.

    The security of development's inhabitants depends on fragile and tacit internal codes of cohabitation. Public security is not present in  those precincts.

    The houses are constructed adjacent to each other, creating a true fence or barrier, real or virtual, beyond which outsiders have almost no possibility of access. Nonetheless, the sense of belonging is not strong in all the inhabitants because many do not construct their identity there.

    The internal circulation is almost labyrinth-like, a particularity that gives them a certain touch of “exclusivity.”

    It is a degraded environment in terms of population and sanitary conditions. Nature and greenery are present but with characteristics that are totally unhealthy.

    They are inhabited by people with a homogeneous socio-economic level, but not necessarily the same cultural viewpoint. Different personal interests and perceptions of life co-exist in the same space. There you can find three types of profiles: humble but honest workers, bums or those who live by “gigs” (informal and temporary unskilled work that is poorly remunerated), and thieves or delinquents.

    They are established on government or private property, and in their beginnings, lacked the most basic elements of public services. They are presently provided with basic service and a few now have streets.

CLOSE URBANIZATIONS: ORIGINS, EVOLUTION, TYPES

The first antecedent of the weekend house is based in the colonial era when upper class families chose neighborhoods like Belgrano, Flores, or San Isidrio to construct large houses for their retreats. A grave event— the epidemic of yellow fever in 1871— reinforced the already fashionable idea about the beneficial role of green spaces for physical and mental health of the population. Many families opted to leave their homes in the downtown district to go to zones that had more contact with nature.

By the 20th century, the creation or extension of some transportation systems gave a renewed popularity to weekend homes.  For example, the construction of the North Access Highway in the 1970s, helped the development of weekend homes in the more sparsely populated areas in the north of Great Buenos Aires for people with higher salaries (Fig. 5).

Problems caused by growing insecurity, the need to incorporate sports into the community, the search for higher social status, and the access to progressively more exclusive services, caused the transformation of the “villa” into what was called the country club or “country”—a  closed urbanization for the people of high economic standing, with multiple sports and social offerings. This country club evolved into a model based on its North American ancestor, the “gated community.”

The difficult economic situation of the 1980s also had negative repercussion on the owners of the houses in the “countries.” The increase in the cost of living and the loss of the currency’s buying power produced by inflation meant for many the real impossibility to economically sustain two homes at once. As such, many families opted to establish a permanent residence in the “country,” abandoning their urban home. The change in the residential pattern brought greater development of commercial and administrative areas around the new areas of permanent residency.

Since the 1990s, another figure emerged from the real estate “boom”: the closed neighborhood. This came to satisfy the demand of a population that was well-off but not capable of confronting the economic and social costs of a “country.” They were given certain communal services, sports and cultural areas of a smaller size than those of the “countries.” Another variation appeared, the “chacras clubs,” feeding the fantasies of those lovers of landscape and rural life, privatizing and dividing the endless plains in enormous lots with the dimensions of small ranches.

Towards the end of this decade, “mega-emprendimientos” or huge urban housing complexes emerged as a response to the demand of greater urban life made by potential residents. There, one has the option of realizing a certain series of daily errands without leaving the limits of what is now a “pueblo” or even a private “city.” Inside these “private cities,” the ideal society is territorially recreated, and inhabits the imagination of those who command these housing developments (and eventually those who inhabit them). This is a society neatly divided by the buying power in distinct “barrios,” where every neighbor lives next to an income peer. The nucleus of each neighborhood is the sports club or “club house” where each person can socialize with his neighbors of his barrio but not with the people of more affluent neighborhoods. The “private city” reflects the illusion, sometimes obsessive, of the affluent classes to clearly differentiate the spaces and social environments of distinct social classes.

We will enumerate several intrinsic characteristics that belong to these closed housing developments following the model used in the case of the emergency villages (Fig 4).

    They are urban enclaves that break the traditional urban scheme.

    The majority occupy more than one block, in general, appropriating public spaces and giving place to a visual rupture of the urban landscape.

    Within them, priority is given to the safety of the development's inhabitants, with limits clearly delineated for the entrance of visitors, and at times, for the incorporation of new neighbors. Implicitly, those that are within the barrier are winners, leaving those who are left outside as the losers.

    They have a perfectly explicit limit, materialized with walls or fences, beyond which no person is granted access. A sense of belonging  is developed, which emphasizes the identity of the neighbors, and also makes the differences of others more obvious, that is, outsiders.
   
    The internal circulation is almost labyrinth-like, which gives the place a touch of “exclusivity.” Many streets end in a “cul de sac” giving the place greater privacy (Fig 6).

    They have access to many services which “target” users are likely to pay for.

    They have a peculiar relation with nature, giving to this relation an importance that become synonymous with quality of life.

    They are inhabited by people with a homogeneous socio-economic level, with interests and visions of life which coincide, or are at least respected.

    They are subject to the Law of the Province of Buenos Aires 8912/77 of Territorial Order and Land Usage. The majority of the housing developments have adopted the regime enunciated by the Horizontal Property Law 13.512/48. A few have adopted the division by Geodesia. The “private cities” coincide with the apparition of the so-called “master plans.” That quantity of norms conveys the absence of a common criteria applicable to these closed housing developments.



By comparing these two examples, we see that urban life permits interaction with others in innumerable aspects of social, cultural and political life. Without this interaction, we couldn't conceive of urban culture, of this open space for the exchange of personal capacities, goods, and services. The flight of middle and upper class people towards the closed neighborhoods places into question the very conception of the city and its virtues.

The segmentation of the city caused by the presence of these closed environments –—emergency villas and closed communities—is transformed into processes of exclusion and contrast that manifest themselves in other spheres. The limits, as we have described in the urban forms we have analyzed, are used in order to make clear who is inside and who remains outside. Those who are inside are identified as “us” and those who are outside as “the Other.” They are very real pieces of the city that are presented to us as fenced-in and separated from the rest. Behind those limits, in addition to the homes themselves, are an accumulation of spaces that would be public spaces: sidewalks, streets, plazas, parks, river banks and beaches, to name a few. Without those public spaces, there are no more opportunities for casual encounters and interactions with others. They are a different manner of community living and of living in society or, stated differently, of reinforcing a cultural identity.

But even worse, the limits that close off the inhabitants of the emergency villas exclude them from minimum services, an adequate education, indispensable health services, and the dream of creating a dignified life in the present and future.  The inhabitants of the gated communities, on the other hand, have access to all types of services, nature encapsulated in prefabricated images, a relative “security” that lasts as long as there is no trespassing from outside the wall, a sense of belonging as seductive as it is fragile, and a lifestyle that is almost like an optical illusion.

Without a doubt, characteristics and feelings begin to appear among the inhabitants
of both models that are interesting to analyze: those that reside in the “villa” coexist
with  sentiments and realities such as poverty, desperation, marginalization, informality, illegality, disability and the weakness before social contentions, violence, crime, and powerlessness, among others.  Those that live inside the “closed urbanizations” intensify their own necessity for enclosure considering that those living there in an  encapsulated atmosphere  want to move, work, consume, and enjoy recreation in environments that are also enclosed, in environments that we now call “not places” for their lack of identity. They succeed in negating the idea of “the others" – with all the implications of differences, particularities, dangers and misery that this presents – as long as one is inside, only to feel oneself more vulnerable before the threat of violence and crime when one is outside. A moral hedonist is conceived only leaving “outside” of one’s privatized consciences all that which does not coexist with pleasure, wellbeing, or good living; sentiments of tediousness, boredom, monotony, and fear of losing the achieved status may appear as well.

We definitively believe that these models are neither sustainable nor desirable. It would be necessary to seriously re-plan many of these aspects in order to ensure a social peace, so necessary in our beloved Argentina of today.

Mariela Marino is an architect and a professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in History of Architecture, and Professional at ProAtlas, National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET). This article is based on a co-authored study "Enclaves urbanos atípicos en el área metropolitana de Buenos Aires: su impacto socio-territorial" (OIKOS, Buenos Aires, 2000).