ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to explore the course of development of self-built housing in the villas and settlements of the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires (RMBA). The first section reconstructs the principal characteristics of the expansion of the RMBA and contextualizes the origin of informal urban settlements. The next section describes some of the principal features of the various different informal settlements, and presents results obtained from the research conducted in Buenos Aires. A final section offers general housing policy implications based on people's case study of rehabilitation in the consolidated barrios of the RMBA. Although the RMBA is formed in three rings, they have left the third ring out. However, each must address the specific nature of the villas and asentamientos through meso and micro level policies, given the differences that they has described. A policy that does not take these inherent social conflicts into account, including those of the physical design.
