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Faced with the urbanization process, the association between economic actors who carry out real estate businesses in different areas of the city and actors of political power produces a great urban metamorphosis. The territory is fragmented, sold in parts, and occupied, associating the production of urban space with the logic of surplus value. In particular, the metropolitan waterfronts were the object of these logics, and for their habitability and commercialization, they required different modifications, mainly from political logic. The objective of the article is to understand the strategies adopted by the municipal State of the districts of Avellaneda and Quilmes (southern of the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires) in the production of the River Plate waterfront. Mainly, those projects and strategic plans that involve territorial rearrangements, modifications to urban regulations, and that condition the area through infrastructure works to facilitate access, under the motto of modernization and revitalization, will be reviewed. The methodology used consists of the analysis of specific bibliography and regulations on the territorial planning of the parties (strategic plans and projects). Newspaper articles are also collected, and semistructured interviews are carried out with officials from each municipal administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times when the role of the State is under question and the national government of La Libertad Avanza reduces its interventions to the lowest of levels, it seems important to recover some interventions made in popular settlements to shed light on the importance that the State’s involvement has regarding habitat issues. Therefore, this paper aims to show how the logic of necessity and the logic of the State interact and articulate with each other to attend to demands made in four popular settlements located in La Plata, Argentina. It is through consulting and analyzing different databases (ReNaBaP, Secretary of Social-Urban Integration), the analysis of legal documents, and interviews made with key informants that this paper inquires into interventions made by the State in the selected popular settlements. The results show that the presence of the State manifests in numerous and varied interventions with diverse complexity. Even though these might be resisted and questioned by some actors, these interventions aim to improve the habitability situation of millions of people who need it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the adoption of neoliberal policies since the 1990s in Brazil, the impacts of economic policy on the production of the Brazilian urban and housing crisis have increased. Through the critical analysis of bibliographic sources, we sought to discuss the production of urban space, the appropriation of space by the ruling class, the housing crisis and public housing policies. In a context of inequality in access to urban land, the struggle for the right to the city is of utmost importance as a means of resistance and overcoming the neoliberal paradigm. The article contributes to the debate on the relationship between economic policy and the production of urban space, pointing out challenges and possibilities for the construction of a fairer and more democratic city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]