The problem of planning
If we consider a city to be a society packed into a transformed landscape which forms a physical continuum as well as a functional unit, then urban planning is the collection of socio-political and technical processes which guide the shaping and running of that city.
This planning is the result of the relationships established by the main players in the life of any city at any given moment in history. These include economists, driven by profit; politicians, motivated by the desire to accumulate power; and members of society, who wish to satisfy their own needs.
As a result, the way a city is shaped and run is a dynamic that emerges from two diametrically opposed situations: the best possible use of the city’s assets and services for the public sector (general well-being) or for the private sector (individual benefit).
The government sector responsible for the city (generally a municipal body) tends to be in charge of urban planning. However, ‘being in charge’ does not necessarily mean being the sole decision-making party. Instead, the function of city governments is increasingly to implement decisions reached by other sectors of civil society, using a variety of methods.
This description presupposes an agreement between the city and the local government. However, this is not the case with metropolitan planning.
Given that the process of metropolization implies the physical spreading of the population and various political and territorial activities, a metropolitan city has various governments, each responsible for part of the territory, with no single government body in charge of the whole. This process, known as metropolitan fragmentation, implies enormous difficulties in establishing norms and implementing the action necessary to ensure things like environmental stability or social integration.
As well as this political and governmental fragmentation, metropolitan planning is affected by what could be called technical sector fragmentation, which implies that the territory is served by a varied group of relatively autonomous sectors (such as those providing electricity or water), which are run independently and thus apply their policies in the same way.
This is a limitation which goes beyond daily life in a metropolis, affecting practically all the administrative processes in a city. It implies ignoring the unity and inter-connectedness of the urban environment, because the organization of government planning is fragmented by sector.
In metropolitan areas, political fragmentation strengthens the fragmentation of each social sector, if there is no territorial decision-making body to override sector-specific interests with a fully-integrated planning strategy.
As can be seen in the case of the Región Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (RMBA; Buenos Aires Metropolitan Region, there is a risk of double fragmentation: firstly, at a political and institutional (i.e. government) level; secondly, at a technical sector level, which hinders the development of policies appropriate to environmental metropolitan problems.
Metropolitan planning in Buenos Aires
The term Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (AMBA) (AMBA; Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area) refers to the “real” city area, that is, the urban continuum made up of the city proper, the Ciudad de Buenos Aires (CBA, city of Buenos Aires), and parts or all of each of the 32 districts that make up Greater Buenos Aires. In turn, the label Zona Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (ZNBA; Buenos Aires Metropolitan Zone) refers to the city of Buenos Aires and to 30 districts of Buenos Aires province. Finally, the Región Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (RMBA; Buenos Aires Metropolitan Region) is the city of Buenos Aires and 40 districts of Buenos Aires province. (See table.)
The metropolis is politically subdivided and governed by a variety of bodies. In the first instance, it is made up of two constitutionally federated bodies: the city of Buenos Aires (CBA) and Buenos Aires province (PBA). Since the constitutional reform of 1994 the CBA has been analogous to each of the other provinces of Argentina: it dictates its own constitution and chooses its executive authority (Jefe de Gobierno; Mayor) and legislative body (Legislativo de la Ciuidad; Legislative Council). It is also made up of municipal governments belonging to Buenos Aires province, which have limited autonomy.
Two factors compensate for this political fragmentation. Firstly, the possibility of jurisdictional centralization; that is, government bodies with greater authority (be they provincial or federal) than the local bodies are able to intervene directly or indirectly in matters of urban and environmental planning. Secondly, there are a variety of associative methods through which jurisdictions can come together and generate administrative scenarios on a metropolitan level. In some cases, these have brought together the provincial, federal and city governments; in others, municipal governments have formed what local legislation has termed consorcios municipales (municipal associations).
These interventions can improve efficiency and equity, operating throughout the area and using resources distributively. All the same, the presence of a higher jurisdictional level implies problems of political legitimacy, given that it depends on choices made in higher spheres, and entails difficulties in social participation and control mechanisms.
It is worth pointing out that in 2005 the city of Buenos Aires approved a plan to decentralize the city government, forming 15 comunas (administrative sectors) which will soon elect their own authorities in charge of maintenance tasks, the control of certain services, and the development of social and cultural policies.
Esas intervenciones pueden mejorar la eficiencia y equidad, operando en toda el área y utilizando los recursos en sentido distributivo. De todas formas, la presencia de un nivel jurisdiccional superior implica problemas de legitimidad política ya que depende de elecciones resueltas en ámbitos mayores; supone también dificultades para la participación social y el control.
From their nationalization until the middle of the 20th century, metropolitan infrastructure services were mainly in the hands of enterprises belonging to the federal government. When they were privatized in the 1990s, the federal sphere became responsible for controlling and regulating them. To this end sector-specific bodies (for electricity, natural gas, transport, telephones, etc.) were created which, with varying levels of institutional autonomy, form part of the federal government system. These organisms are the private service-providing companies’ only formal interlocutor, as both municipal metropolitan governments and the CBA government are excluded from this relationship.
There is a relative exception to this organizational scheme: the Ente Ente Tripartito de Obras y Servicios Sanitarios (ETOSS)(ETOSS; Tripartite Body of Sanitary Works and Services) which was formed to regulate and control Aguas Argentinas S.A., the private company that replaced state-run Obras Sanitarias de la Nación and whose contract has recently been cancelled. In this case, representatives of the executive branch of Buenos Aires province and the city of Buenos Aires will participate in ETOSS, together with representatives of the federal executive power (the presidency).
There is also an organism in charge of the main water basins in the region: the Comité Ejecutor del Plan de Gestión Ambiental y de Manejo de la Cuenca Hídrica Matanza–Riachuelo (Executory Committee for the Environmental Administration and Management Plan for the Matanza–Riachuelo Water Basin). This is made up of federal representatives, the governments of Buenos Aires province and the city of Buenos Aires, which must carry out an environmental administration and management plan for the basin and implement the necessary institutional schemes. Its role, however, is more formal than practical.
Some metropolitan problems are being dealt with by organizations formed through agreements between the territorial jurisdictions involved, namely Buenos Aires province and the government of the city of Buenos Aires.
Another organization, the Coordinación
Ecológica del Área Metropolitana Sociedad del Estado (CEAMSE)(CEAMSE; State Society for the Ecological Coordination of the Metropolitan Area), was created by agreement between the city of Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires province in 1977 to concretize a common administrative policy regarding the disposal of solid waste. The municipalities that form the Metropolitan Area do not intervene in the running of the CEAMSE, but are obliged to use it as their sole service provider, and pay its tariffs.
An agreement between the federal government, Buenos Aires province and the municipality of the city of Buenos Aires created Corporación
del Mercado Central de Buenos Aires(Corporation of the Central Market of Buenos Aires) in order to plan, build and administrate a central wholesale fruit and grocery market. It is run by a directors’ committee that includes representatives from each of the above three government sectors.
Since the year 2000, four municipalities on the metropolitan north shore (Vicente López, San Isidro, San Fernando and Tigre) have formed an association known as the“Región
Metropolitana Norte” (Northern Metropolitan Region). This postulates itself as an instrument for coordination and cooperation between these different governments.
Similarly, in mid 2004, seven municipalities in the south of the metropolitan area (Almirante Brown, Avellaneda, Berazategui, Florencio Varela, Lanús, Lomas de Zamora and Quilmes) formed the Consorcio de Municipios del Conurbano Sur (COMCOSUR)(COMCOSUR; Municipal Association of the Southern Suburbs) with similar intentions. Apart from these cases, there are no other alternative administrative bodies responsible for the many issues and problems that are beyond the control of each of the local governments in each area.
