ABSTRACT
Since the 1950s, the annual population growth of the city of Buenos Aires began to decline, while one of its urban metropolitan areas began to accelerate. This chapter provides a background of metropolitan Buenos Aires from the perspective of housing production. It describes the dynamics of housing production in line with the proposed model in which the State enables investments through its institutional practices within certain spatial constrains. The lack of a planning framework guiding the growth of Buenos Aires is particularly evident in production of housing, which is managed by conflicting interests. The magnitude and the persistency of the housing deficit in metropolitan Buenos Aires is an indication of the difficulties to close. In addition, while sprawling patterns have been identified in the majority of metropolises, Buenos Aires’s agglomeration experienced a steeper decline in population density than comparable cities. The chapter concludes with a critical analysis of current housing policies and their role in the third wave of sprawl.
