Resumen

PIREZ, Pedro. Buenos Aires: Metropolitan City and Governance. Estud. demogr. urbanos [online]. 2005, vol.20, n.3, pp.423-447.  Epub 20-Ene-2020. ISSN 2448-6515.  https://doi.org/10.24201/edu.v20i3.1206.

This article concerns to the lack of institutional response in Argentina, as a result of the failure to recognize the city as the real object of government. Metropolitan affairs are understood to be the result of the intersection between a territorial urban dimension (growth and expansion of the city) and a territorial, political dimension (the territorial organization of the state).

From the time when the processes of expansion characteristic of import- substitution industrialization began until the impact of restructuring and globalization was felt, the metropolitan configuration has transformed the territory by accentuating differences and inequalities, fragmentation and the exclusive zones which, nonetheless complement each other.

These inequalities are expressed in three fundamental contradictions: the first between the territorial sphere of problems and that of government and local management, the second between the territorial sphere of needs and that of political representation and the last between the territorial sphere of needs and that of resources. As long as these contradictions remain unresolved, they tend to configure inequalities that become territorially polarized.

The metropolitan issue becomes a matter of governance in the sense of the lack of government orientation or management, which leads to metropolitan problems such as “unlimited” urban expansion, unequal conditions as regards the quality of urban life and safety on the streets, the unfair distribution of financial resources, poor administration of services, difficulties in environmental management and the lack of a democratic exercise legitimizing the decisions that affect the metropolitan environment.

In order to deal with these problems, institutional alternatives have been created which, from fragmentation to consolidation, attempt metropolitan governance. Not all these methods, however, are linked to the actual conditions of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Zone. Its institutional and political complexity and its demographic, economic and political importance within the national context limit possible solutions to consolidation. Given these difficulties, processes of state centralization and the transferal of decisions to the market characterize urban management in this metropolitan area, reinforcing its contradictions and hindering governance.

Palabras llave : metropolitan configuration; governance; urban management; Buenos Aires Metropolitan Zone; metropolitan government.

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