The process of urban renewal in La Boca: neighborhood organizations between new uses and old places

Abstract

The work analyzes the perspective that the local actors have about the process of urban renewal that is developed in the neighborhood of La Boca and of its incidence in the preservation and transformation of the neighborhood cultural heritage. La Boca is a neighborhood in the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina) in which traditionally sectors of low income settled. In that framework, the points of view of three groups of neighborhood leaders are revised: those that head traditional social organizations, the referents of soup kitchens and the leaders of organizations of protesting background. The process that is developed in the neighborhood has installed, in places tied to its historical identity, new uses that re-shape the sense of those public spaces. Old places have now a renewed way of defining that typical use that was always the tourism in La Boca. In fact, a good part of those new uses have not been decided, nor do they involve people from La Boca, and they introduce new actors and logics in this neighborhood scene. In this context, some institutions are in favor of transformations; others are against, and a big part do not take on a clear voice in the debate.