Four decades of property regularization policies for informal settlements in Argentina

Abstract

This article aims to analyze national policies in relation to popular settlements in Argentina between 1983 and 2023, that is, the democratic period after the last military dictatorship (1976-1983). These are reflected in regulations that were approved by the National Congress and others based on presidential decrees. For this we will focus on: the contents and meanings of addressing the issue of urban “informality”; the context in which they were sanctioned; some aspects of its implementation and some tensions thereof. The methodology used was qualitative, focused on documentary analysis, mainly on the regulations in relation to ownership regularization and complemented by interviews with key actors in policies or parliamentary initiatives (public officials at the national and local level, leaders neighborhoods and territorial organizations that promoted laws, neighbors, etc.) and newspaper media sources