In some parts of the Buenos Aires, residents are fighting to retain the history and character of their beloved barrios.

1. Development in City prompts debate over gentrification,
cultural heritage
In some parts of the Buenos Aires, residents are fighting to retain the history and
character of their beloved barrios.
Saturday 28 April, 2018
Jayson McNamara
• @JaysonMcNamara
Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires Foto:CEDOC
Susana Cáceres is a retired concierge. She moved to Buenos Aires almost 40 years
ago from a rural town in the Pampa. The neighbourhood where she lives, Palermo, was
a very different place back then, she says.
“There were a lot of garages and mechanics but you also had these lovely little homes,
down each and every street,” Susana recalls, referencing the early-20th-century

2. constructions known to locals as casonas or petit hotels as she gestures at the
surrounding buildings. “You never know when the next one will be demolished.”
Today, Palermo is one of the capital’s most cosmopolitan neighbourhoods, a melting
pot of cultures and lifestyles. But it was not always that way.
Susana’s area, just a few blocks from Godoy Cruz street, is well-known among
porteños as the old red-light district.
“It used to be dark and gloomy, and it was far too quiet at night,” she tells the Times.
Change here came, in part, from the City government. Buenos Aires City Hall passed a
Misdemeanours Law in 2001 that pushed most sex workers into the Palermo forests.
Most are gone, but some still live in the neighbourhood in a pension known as Hotel
Verona, just a few blocks from Susana’s front door.
“That really transformed our part of the neighbourhood, many more people wanted to
live here,” Susana says.
TRENDS
Gentrification in Buenos Aires, with Palermo a case in point, has followed similar
trends in other major cities like London, Berlin and Brooklyn. As the barrio’s profile
changed from working class to artistic and trendy around 20 years ago, property
developers looked to housing projects that would appeal to middle-class home buyers
and young professional tenants.
The slow but steady influx of both has nudged property prices up and pushed many
longterm working-class residents out, Census data extrapolated by Argentina’s
CONICET research institute suggests.
“From the 1980s to today, it is clear just by walking around the neighbourhood how
new economic activity in Palermo has displaced the old,” says Dr. Gonzalo Rodríguez, a
CONICET researcher specialising in gentrification at the Centre for Urban and
Regional Studies (CEUR). “The change is particularly noticeable in the sub-
neighbourhood known as Palermo Hollywood.”

3. Rodriguez’s research is based on Census data that shows sharp growth in the
educational levels of heads of household in parts of Palermo, Saavedra and Villa
Urquiza.
“Historically, educational levels have increased all across the country, but in these
neighbourhoods the growth is far superior to trends in other areas,” he explained in
an interview.
In Palermo, Rodríguez says “investment is predominately on an individual-private level,
as opposed to being part of a broader urban development plan” which may have
placated some of the impacts of gentrification in the neighbourhood, including
displacement.
“There are other examples, like in Saavedra where a megadevelopment plan that
demolished the homes of low-income residents who had been living there for 20 or 30
years was required to include homes for the displaced,” he notes.
ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE
Problems surrounding norms and regulations run deep in Argentina’s capital city. One
of the sore points gentrification has caused among Buenos Aires’ residents is its
contribution to the destruction of the city’s architectural heritage.
The ‘Paris of the South,’ as Buenos Aires is sometimes known, had its architectural
boom in the late 19th and 20th century when the cashed-up elite could afford to hire
the hands of European architects. Today, a large part of that heritage – specifically
smaller, unprotected buildings ¬– is under threat because of real estate development.
“Argentina lacks the wideranging protection mechanisms that exist in other
countries, where the criteria is the year or decade when the building was
constructed,” Marcelo Magadan, an architect specialising in the restoration of
historic buildings, told the Times.
Magadan’s firm, Magadan y Asociados, has worked on the preservation of iconic
Buenos Aires buildings like the Galerías Pacifico and the Palacio de las Aguas
Corrientes on Córdoba Avenue.

4. “From a policy perspective, there has been no firm attitude toward the destruction
of our heritage,” he said. “The existing regulations have only been applied to buildings
that are specifically protected.”
In some parts of the city, residents have taken action into their own hands, forming
activist groups to stop what they see as City Hall’s disregard for community living and
heritage, either by granting demolition permits or selling off public land. One of the
most recent bouts ended in a win for residents of the Colegiales neighbourhood, who
successfully blocked the construction of a shopping centre over parts of Plaza
Clemente.
“Many people were noticing what was happening. But they perceived it as a natural
evolution in the City’s development. But this is not a natural process, it is a
consequence of a lack of awareness and legislation,” says resident activist Santiago
Pusso.
PUSHBACK
Pusso is a a member of Basta de Demoler (“Stop the Demolitions”), an activist group
whose intervention against plans to develop a subway station at Plaza Francia — a
protected historic area — saw City Hall sue two of its members: Pusso and Sonia
Berjman, an expert in urban landscaping and art history.
In 2012, Berjman and Basta de Demoler lodged a request with the courts for an
injunction to block the station’s construction. Plans for a new Subte stop were later
moved to the Law Faculty where the station will be inaugurated on May 25 this year.
City Hall is still seeking 24 million pesos in damages against the three activists, Pusso
explained in an interview with the Times.
“Among the people approving [demolition permits] are people who respond to the
pressure of real-estate interests and other political interests,” he claimed. “The
result of our intervention, in specific cases because of the symbolic nature of certain
areas, has been positive and we have seen bills passed to protect certain
neighbourhoods. But the government does not respect the very law it passes.”
Consulted about the strength of market forces in the process of gentrification,
CONICET researcher Dr. Rodríguez said that urban development presented a huge
“dilemma” for societies. Like Pusso and Magadan, he emphasised the need for

5. improved regulations. “One of the points we make is to avoid condemning renovation
or investment from realstate capital,” he says. “The problem is when the enormous
profit from capital gains resulting from changes to building codes are not distributed
to the rest of the society or to areas in most need.”
HISTORY
Back in Palermo, Susana points to scaffolding at the end of her street. It surrounds a
beautiful teal-green mid- 20th-century home. It is due to be demolished and replaced
with a residential apartment building.
In a somewhat typical tale of gentrification, the building had previously been divided
into smaller apartments; a makeshift cultural centre operated in the garage; and a
young New Yorker had been using one of the building’s old kitchens to make the
bagels he sells every Sunday in front of a speciality coffee store a few blocks away.
As the neighbours tell it, the elderly owners died and their relatives decided to sell
the property to a developer.
“It’s a shame because that casona was were the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from
Palermo went for psychological support. The owners were among the first
psychologists to treat them,” Susana explains as she recalls a moment in time.
“There goes a little piece of our barrio’s history.”

6. improved regulations. “One of the points we make is to avoid condemning renovation
or investment from realstate capital,” he says. “The problem is when the enormous
profit from capital gains resulting from changes to building codes are not distributed
to the rest of the society or to areas in most need.”
HISTORY
Back in Palermo, Susana points to scaffolding at the end of her street. It surrounds a
beautiful teal-green mid- 20th-century home. It is due to be demolished and replaced
with a residential apartment building.
In a somewhat typical tale of gentrification, the building had previously been divided
into smaller apartments; a makeshift cultural centre operated in the garage; and a
young New Yorker had been using one of the building’s old kitchens to make the
bagels he sells every Sunday in front of a speciality coffee store a few blocks away.
As the neighbours tell it, the elderly owners died and their relatives decided to sell
the property to a developer.
“It’s a shame because that casona was were the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from
Palermo went for psychological support. The owners were among the first
psychologists to treat them,” Susana explains as she recalls a moment in time.
“There goes a little piece of our barrio’s history.”