Participation in the decision making-making cities proces of regularization policies in Buenos Aires. The case of Villa 20 in Buenos Aires autonomous city
In Latin American cities informal settlements and insecure land tenure are the result of an exclusionary planning and urban management system which fails to provide legal and secure housing for lower-income groups. Against this backdrop, the State implemented land-title and urban regulatory policies, in order to improve the housing conditions of these neighbourhoods and integrate their residents into the legal regime. This paper proposes to address the conflicts implied in the processes of urbanization and regularization of the villas of the city of Buenos Aires during the first government of Rodríguez Larreta (2015-2019). In the official political discourse, the urbanization of informal settlements is considered one of the main axes of local management. Within this framework, institutional changes are being carried out, such as the creation of the Ministry of Social and Urban Integration. This report proposes to address the participation implied in the process of urbanization and regularization of Villa 20 in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. This process have raised many challenges in the interaction between government decision-making and the needs of inhabitants of informal settlement. These challenges are linked to a) the democratic participation of the inhabitants in the decision-making process at all stages, b) land management policies and domain regularization; c) the modalities and logic of relocation of inhabitants; d) the provision and access to infrastructure services and public spaces; e) the treatment of tenants and other more vulnerable groups. Based on the analysis of the case study, we propose to account for the limits and scope of the implemented urbanization policy as well as for the opportunities to expand the horizon of tools and intervention modalities promote the right to the city and reduce territorial inequalities