Buenos Aires at 50 Years: Urban Policies of the 1976 Dictatorship

A new analysis examines the urban transformations imposed on Buenos Aires during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, fifty years after the coup. The study, published by the Observatorio AMBA, argues that policies such as highway construction, zoning changes, and forced relocations of slum dwellers were enabled by the authoritarian context that suppressed public debate. The 1978 building code promoted free-standing towers, ignoring Buenos Aires' traditional morphology, while the lifting of rent controls coincided with its enactment. The dictatorship's 'relocalización' programs expelled residents from informal settlements to empty land in the province without housing or services. At the same time, heritage protection (District U24, 1979) and environmental initiatives (CEAMSE for waste management) emerged as new urban concerns. The 1981 Central Area Expansion Project, though unrealized, anticipated the later redevelopment of Puerto Madero and the formation of the Ecological Reserve. The analysis draws on Oscar Oszlak's 1983 book 'Merecer la ciudad,' which argued that these policies aimed to create a homogeneous city without poor or indigenous populations. The legacy persists in contemporary representations of Buenos Aires as a city for the privileged, contrasting with a stigmatized periphery.