Gentrification Processes in the City of Buenos Aires: New Features and Old Tendencies

Abstract

This work reviews the course of gentrification in the city of Buenos Aires, its milestones and modalities, focusing on the conditions in which the gentrification process advances over informal urbanizations, in general, and on Villa 31, in particular. So far, gentrification in Buenos Aires has not advanced throughout all the villas. Instead, gentrification has happened in former working-class neighborhoods which were fully integrated into the structure of the city. However, in the context of full renewal of the north-south riverside axis, the villas along the riverside axis, and very close to the central area, began to be integrated into urban transformation initiatives. Although since the founding of Buenos Aires, there have been plans to completely transform the riverside axis, it was not until the twenty-first century, under the aegis of the development of the new Puerto Madero neighborhood with the intention of extending its benefits that, the threat of gentrification reached into the slums of the city.