Economías creativas y renovación urbana. Nuevos usos y usuarios en Parque Patricios, Buenos Aires

Abstract

In tune with the transformations of Postindustrial Capitalism, the management of more cities is reorganized following the lines of urban entrepreneurship; whose unappealable recipes, adopted by local governments in their policies for economic development, have been as follows: strategic planning, the “creative city”, and the clusters model. Such is the case with the City of Buenos Aries’ Technological District, created with the purpose of stimulating urban renewal through the establishment of Information and Communications Technologies firms (ICTs) in suburbs with a working-class and industrial past. The present work analyzes the recent material changes in land use, and the perceptions of the main social groups involved in the transformations of Parque Patricios neighborhood. The methodology, mixed, combines the analysis of the changes in land use with interviews with public workers, ICTs workers, real estate agents, and traditional residents. The results show an urban renovation that is qualitatively significant, but territorially constrained; an increase in land value; and a tendency towards gentrification in the patterns of usage. These results allow us to relativize the impact of the territorial transformation policies and the social-economical profiling of the new users, questioning the narratives about development that circulate around leading academic and urban management circles.