La cuestión de la vivienda en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (2003 - 2008)

Abstract

This article starts at an issue ever-present in Latin American debates on major projects: do these involve a grant to the real estate capital, private companies and wealthy consumers, at the expense of public assets or resources or the public sector can capture urban capital gains to redistribute them to society? To advance an answer, we first need to define the conceptual scope of major projects as tools for the creation and recovery of urban capital gains. Some examples from Argentina and Brazil, indicative of three management strategies by local governments, are then presented: one regressive, according to which new environments are financed at the expense of public assets and resources; another more redistributive one, which allows to subsidize the poorest areas with the resources generated in redevelopment areas, and a rather neutral third one that considers redevelopment as self-funded with funds generated by private investors and wealthy consumers.