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In Argentina, many Protected Natural Areas are going through conflicts linked to urbanization. The Parque Atlántico Mar Chiquito Biosphere Reserve (Buenos Aires, Argentina) is no stranger to this process. In 2012, the construction of a gated community began in a sector of the reserve, which led to a series of claims and lawsuits by the local community against the firm in charge of the real estate project. Considering that the media is one more actor in environmental conflicts, the objective of this work is to analyze the discourses on the conflict in three digital media during the period 2015-2021. The methodology consisted of news analysis from Critical Discourse Analysis and he analysis of photographs. Among the results, languages of valuation about the conflict and the protected natural area characterized by cultural aspects were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay develops the concept of protective arrangements (a socio‐material relationship between house architecture, objects and human practices) in order to develop a new understanding of urban social segregation. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in La Plata (Argentina) I compare the protective arrangements of lower and upper middle‐class residents against the background of the commonly sensed need to self‐organize protection. While in the gated communities of the upper‐middle class walls and fences enclose an 'open interior space', members of the upper‐middle class who live in or close to the city centre protect their homes with individual security systems. In contrast, people at the poorer end of society attune their repertoires of protection towards the constant threat of eviction and burglary with dogs and improvised fences and by guaranteeing the permanent presence in the home of at least one household member. The analysis of these strategies at the house scale shows an increasing process of socio‐spatial fragmentation in the city as a product of the materialization of discursive‐material practices deployed in search of protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods are one of the most common natural phenomena and represent a serious hazard when they affect human activities. Structural measures are commonly used to mitigate them; however, these do not always give good results, mainly in plain areas with scarce slope. In this sense, the generation of a flood hazard map contributes to adequate hazard management and disaster prevention. The aim of this work is to evaluate the flood hazard areas in hydrological plain basins with scarce slope, taking as a case study the Samborombón river basin located in the Pampean Plain, Argentina. For this, a flood hazard map was made based on the analytical hierarchy process and using a GIS, taking into account physical aspects of the terrain, observations, and field measurements. Likewise, the map was validated using satellite images and the inhabitants in danger in the basin were quantified. The results show that the flood hazard areas correspond mainly to the floodplain of rivers and tributaries, while the main and secondary divide zones have low flood hazard sectors. On the other hand, numerous urban settlements were identified within flood hazard areas, these being urban settlements in the vicinity of old urban centers and new gated communities with high value homes, quantifying 1961 inhabitants at flood hazard and showing poor territorial planning. The methodology proposed gives to the management agencies the possibility of generating land use maps, as well as designing mitigation and contingency plans after a large rainfall event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the geographical, economic and spatial transformations in suburbia as a consequence of the arrival of gated communities. The latter are fostering splintering (sub) urbanism, changes in land use and increasing spatial and social inequalities. The article provides evidence supporting this argument through the examination of the transformations occurring in Chacras de Coria, a suburb in the Metropolitan Area of Mendoza (MAM), Argentina. The analysis is based on primary and secondary data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last two decades, the metropolitan residential expansion in Argentina became the domain of gated communities. Peripheralization of the middle and upper-middle class population followed that of the poor and working class, establishing a scenario of uneven competition between both ends of the social spectrum for the available land in the metropolitan periphery and giving rise to new forms of urban segregation. Drawing on contemporary debates on socio-spatial segregation in Latin America and based on the cases of Nordelta and Las Tunas (municipality of Tigre, Buenos Aires Metropolitan Region), the paper explores the multiple articulations underlying how relations between neighbouring areas in these contradictory spaces are managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The floodplain of low Luján river basin - in the context of peripheral Greater Buenos Aires (AGBA) - has been abruptly transformed in recent decades. Where in recent years we found scattered urbanized areas alternated with orchards that adapted to these natural physical conditions; forest business; and especially, large extensions of vacant land (mostly under private ownership and without a defined productive use), it emerged from the sludge of these floodplain: gated communities, marinas, lakes, canals, corporate office complexes, luxury hotels, shopping malls, new access roads, among other "artefacts of globalization." This work aims to "check" and call attention to the development phase of the globalization processes, in which the market economy has consolidated the progress of gated communities on landfills in flood plains, which finds no solution within the current development framework in the Argentina [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pilar is a city located in the third ring of the Buenos Aires metropolitan region (Argentina). Over the past 30 years, the widespread development of gated residential communities has seemingly gone hand-in-hand with an urbanisation of this outer suburb signalled by the arrival of new populations, enterprise, retail and other services. The growth of the ‘private city’ of these gated communities therefore has important implications for the ‘public city’ of the wider suburban municipality. Drawing upon original research based on the opinions of key informants, this paper considers how the growth of the ‘private city’ has contributed to the economy of, processes of community-building and social cohesion in Pilar. In conclusion, it is suggested that gated residential communities have been a major factor in the emergence of the dual suburb that is Pilar today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the development of gated communities that changes the image of suburban areas in Latin America. It says that local governments in Argentina and Mexico, developers, and gated community residents are engaged in urban development. It states that there is a contradiction in the development based from local government staff's opinions for it seems to be an anti-urban and a solution for individual security. It mentions various factors affecting the decisions of local governments for the approval in constructing gated communities which include planning regulations, land availability, and poverty condition. It cites the trends that resulted from the growth of gated communities such as the attitude of local government for its expansion and acceptance of residential option.

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The present article discusses the new issues caused by the growth of private urban developments in America - particularly focused in Argentina - and proposes as a thesis: how the present regulation is insufficient to meet the complexity of the new legal relationships, particularly among the neighbors and entrepeneurs. The text builds its bases on the analysis of comparative law and various court cases, which manifest that such regulation should come primarily from public law, which would give superiority to the administrative, municipal and city-planning in the regulation of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gated communities have usually been studied from the perspective of the residents--their proclivities, economic status, and social ambitions. Moreover, these communities have also been associated with weakening states and market-led urbanization. What role do public institutions play in the development of gated communities? This article examines the case of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where impoverished suburban municipalities have relied on gated communities as a local development strategy. Taking advantage of the decentralization of land use planning, municipalities with a high percentage of poor households have facilitated the development of gated communities as a way to increase local employment and real estate investment. As a consequence, these communities have been clustered in the poorest suburban municipalities, thus increasing social polarization within municipal boundaries and calling into question the effect of decentralization reforms on the formation of an inclusive, participatory polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1970s, gated housing areas of the privileged have been spreading in Latin American cities. They have to be seen as a visible consequence of the deepening social disparities within Latin American societies and the resulting fragmentation of urban space. Condomínios fechados (Brazil) or barrios cerrados (Argentina) can be typified following different criteria, such as formation, location, size, fittings, construction typology, as well as social structure. Three groups of actors influence the process of their expansion: the real estate companies, for which the new form of living offers an attractive market segment, the target groups, whose increasing expectations regarding security and living comfort need to be met, and the public authorities, who have to find adequate responses concerning the further orientation of urban development. Based on case studies from Brazil, the paper will discuss the different phases of gated community expansion and the reasons why this is happening. Their internal structure and differentiation, as well as consequences for socio-spatial development and urban planning will also be dealt with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social anthropology alows us to have a good look at the most recent urban transformations which took place in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. More specifically, we concentrate our attention on the urban renewal process which takes place in the suburban areas of this city. This urban regeneration process is connected with the sub-urbanization or peri-urbanization of middle / upper class groups in residential neighborhoods with security systems. Focusing on the process of growing and development of these "gated communities", this paper explores one of the most recent urban changes which are clearly seen in contemporary cities. We elaborate some statements about the phenomena under discussion based on a fieldwork experience carried out among residents of these particular residential products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of EURE is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The massive growth of gated communities was one of the major urban changes during the 1990s in the Buenos Aires suburbs, but urban planners face many problems because of such developments. These upper-class enclaves, using large tracts of land, spring up at the periphery of cities, which are, in developing countries, lower-class residential areas, creating striking urban contrasts. The municipalities of the second suburban ring of Buenos Aires, with high population growth rates and the poorest inhabitants of the whole metropolis, often have limited resources and great difficulties controlling their own urbanisation. Focusing on the example of the municipality of Pilar, 50 km north of Buenos Aires, an epicentre for the gated communities' boom, this paper shows that planning regulations, often obsolete, are poorly applied. If gated communities generate some economic development, it appears that suburban municipalities and the majority of their residents actually take very little advantage of the arrival of closed affluent neighbourhoods in their localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gated communities represent an urban phenomenon that is spreading all over the world. This paper presents evidence of what the literature says about the link between gated communities and urban social segregation, showing that the development of gated communities contributes to segregationist tendencies in the city. It suggests the use of structuration theory as a theoretical framework to study the link between gated communities and segregation. A case study from an intermediate city in Argentina is presented. The paper provides the perceptions and opinions of the residents of the gated community as well as the outside community and shows that this segregationist process has two sides and that both groups of people feel segregated and discriminated against. Therefore, urban social segregation is addressed in relation to gated communities, considering the opinions and perceptions of the people living there as well as in the surrounding community, to answer the main question of the paper: who segregates whom? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]