The real estate development called “Colony Park” aimed to create a private neighborhood regardless of the displacement of local populations or the effects it might cause on the wetland and ecosystem of the area.

Only the resistance of neighbours and social organizations stopped the project. The company did not hesitate to expropriate land, evict the local residents, burn down houses and deviate the water streams. However, the struggle continues: tens of “private organizations” are resisting to protect the ecosystems.

The Parana River Delta is a large mosaic of wetlands, which contribute to supplying the aquifer, controlling floods, regulating the climate. The construction of private suburbs in such an ecosystem has a big impact.

In 2004 and 2005 there was a greater expansion of private boroughs in Buenos Aires province, partly as a result of a “model of neoliberal urbanization” that leads to appropriation and displacement, says sociologist Maristella Svampa in an interview with Friends of the Earth Argentina.

She called the attention about the establishment of tens of “private organizations” on Lujan River, one of the main subsidiaries of the Parana River. Svampa links the neighborhoods with the retraction of wetlands.

Friends of the Earth Argentina says there is a real estate boom in some parts of Buenos Aires province and in the city, especially in the coastal areas. There is then a conflict “between the community model and the neoliberal paradigm that considers private property as the only value and commodification of nature as the result of it”.

Svampa says this model is very much related with real estate concentration and speculation but it basically is the result of the appropriation and plunder.

“There are no controls, all laws in force are violated and the complaints and demands of the local populations are ignored”.

The sociologist explains that the relation between traditional residents and new buyers “is nonexistent and it becoming more and more rare.
Private developments are characterized by placing visible limits, like wired-fences. There is a distance from the most vulnerable sectors that are seen as dangerous. There are rich constructions in areas of large concentration of poverty”, she said.

Photo: bajandolineas.com.ar