- Urban Policies, City Management and fast urban Growth in Argentine Cities    324 kb by    Bragos, Oscar & Gamba, F. | oscarbragos@express.com.ar    Short Outline The paper focuses on national and municipal urban and housing policies and its effects in Argentina during the last decade. Urban transformations are analysed within the framework of fast economic growth and low demographic growth. The study considers Rosario Metropolitan Area as main case, pointing out the impacts of city expansion. A proposal of a new integrated approach is discussed. Abstract The paper explains current trends in urban growth and city management in three recent moments of contemporary Argentina: neoliberal period, crisis and economy and state recovery. The first part describes briefly the main features in city planning during the 90´s, the last decade of a decaying and stagnant economy. It was the moment of the epigones of the so called neo liberal economy, which in Argentina meant de-industrialisation, state destruction and people impoverishment. Cities did not change very much since there were no significant investments, both private and public, mainly in housing. Two main outstanding facts particularized this period: • The construction of a new port system along Paraná River whose main centre is Rosario. With this, the emergence of the main soya oil industrial pole of the country; and • The construction of the new residential and service centre or Puerto Madero, a great urban renewal project on the ancient Buenos Aires port area. A mega project where the national state and municipal authorities were involved in a great real state operation where private entrepreneurs were the only benefited. The second part is the short period of economic crisis: the end of neo liberal rules with its corresponding economy blow up, political unrest and the sudden end of the elected national authorities. This was a period of three years of complete country stagnation. The third part goes from new elected authorities until actual situation. This means economic fast growth (at ¨Chinese rates¨), strong state empowerment and fast urban growth despite a low demographic growth. The main features of this period were: • Rosario waterfront, built in an opposite way as it was done in Buenos Aires that became a model of urban policies in Argentina • New ghettoes and social fragmentation of urban space as one of the effects of public housing • City expansion according to the expansive city model and its results in an un-sustainable city The paper explains also the implementation of new instruments, such as plus-values recovery, special plan and public – private agreements and the features of a new comprehensive urban policy within the framework of social inclusion and sustainable urban development. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2012: Fast Forward: Planning in a (hyper) dynamic urban context   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper