Gated communities in flood-prone areas of the Tigre municipality: the production of urban spaces of high environmental quality?

Abstract

From the last decades of the twentieth century, private economic agents began building gated communities over flood-prone areas of the periphery of the Greater Buenos Aires Agglomeration, via the incorporation of labour, major investments and specialized technology. This process of private production of urban space, which brings together public and private interests, has been legitimated through discourses relating to "sustainable development" and "environmental recovery". As a consequence, 'urban business' is generated that, in contradiction to what it claims, alters environmental functionality in an unprecedeted way. In this article, the contradictions that emerge in the processes associated with the production of'high environmental quality' urban space is addressed. This is pursued in terms of the conflict between the discourses and practices of thesocialactors that intervene, based on the paradigmatic case of the gated communities of the Tigre municipality.

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