Urban policy and land management in the RMBA during the 2010s: urban law, public real estate auctions, and habitat access

Abstract

Land price inflation, a mechanism for wealth transfer and accumulation, has become increasingly decoupled from the population’s income. This is a multi-causal process where diverse instruments of land rent generation intervene, and in which public power plays a key role in appropriation and destiny. In the context of deregulated real estate markets, such as the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Region (RMBA), the use of real estate as a financial asset tends to prevail over its use value thus restricting habitat access. Actors related to the real estate development sector are continuously innovating their strategies and products seeking profit maximization, whilst the state adjusts its urban public policies to guarantee such enterprises, disregarding the socio-urban exclusion processes foster by such dynamics and relinquishing a strategic and inclusive management of urban land. The purpose of this article is to trace some land policies implemented over the last five years in the RMBA, both in the central district and in the sprawl area, by answering the following questions: How are such policies validating this wealth transfer mechanism? How do they affect dignified habitat access? To which extent are there any initiatives to counter the resulting urban exclusion processes?