Abstract

BESANA, Patricio Bruno; GUTIERREZ, Ricardo Alberto  and  GRINBERG, Silvia. Urban Poverty, Local Community and State-Partner in Argentina: The Provision of Public Services in a Shanty Town in the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires. Rev. mex. cienc. polít. soc [online]. 2015, vol.60, n.225, pp.79-102. ISSN 0185-1918.

While in the better-off sectors of the city public services (such as water, electricity, or waste collection) are provided through State-owned or private companies, in the poorest quarters their provision depends a great deal on community organization as well as on local leadership. Based upon the study of a Metropolitan Buenos Aires shanty town, we contend that both (community organization and local leadership) are two-faced mechanisms. On the one hand, they express the community's efforts to self-manage the satisfaction of basic needs when both private and State companies fail to provide them. On the other, they are the channels through which what we call the "State partner" secures the regulation of poor populations without getting directly involved in the provision of public services. Thereby, in this type of neighborhoods the day-to-day struggle over the right to the city encounters new forms of State action that are alien to better-off residents and that the notion of partner State helps to grasp.

Keywords : State partner; local community; public services; shantytown; urban poverty; right to the city.