Epidemics, the issue of control and the grid: a nineteenth-century perspective from Buenos Aires

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article uses several epidemics that beset Buenos Aires between 1867 and 1871 as a lens through which to investigate a period in which urban elites registered with both anxiety and exhilaration the changes that their city was undergoing. In an effort to limit the spread of disease, elites noticed that the growing number of inhabitants and the connected anonymity had rendered their traditional system of social control obsolete. One of the main features of this traditional system consisted of a usage of space that relied on the city's grid plan. During the epidemics, some among the elites protested against the ineffectiveness of this system, which in their eyes pertained to the older ancien régime tradition. Notwithstanding their efforts, they failed to implement concrete alternatives. They were nonetheless able to express a new urban imaginary, which they viewed as more apt to respond to the new challenges engendered by the new big-city dimension. Connecting these findings with the wider debate on the history of grid plans, the article argues that this imaginary was related to a new conception of the grid that did not replace previous conceptions and practices of urban control, but rather overlapped and intertwined with them.