Marginal mobility : public transit infrastructure for precarious settlements in Metropolitan Buenos Aires

Abstract

The human right to mobility is a primary, yet underdeveloped factor in the literature and practice surrounding urban infrastructure development, especially for those living and working outside of formalized legal, political, and economic arrangements. As harbingers of historical modes of production and the strain imposed by globalized, stratified urban environments, not only those living and working on the margins of urban communities, but the very institutional structures tasked with securing their livelihoods, continue to suffer from fragmentation and isolation. This work examines two case studies as lenses into the particular ramifications of these powerful historical currents: the Metrobús Bus Rapid Transit initiative, and the OPISU (Organismo Provincial de Integración Social y Urbana) informal settlement upgrading project, both of which converged roughly from 2017 to 2020 in and around the conjoined neighborhoods of Costa Esperanza, Costa del Lago, and 8 de Mayo.

Through semi-structured interviews with officials, experiential knowledge gained through site visits, and examination of source material from scholars and practitioners, this thesis reveals how the mode of life in these settlements, as well as the structures of transit service provision upon which they depend, represent the precarity of urban development in Buenos Aires. The responses of Metrobús and OPISU benefitted from renewed governmental efforts to integrate disparate geographies, jurisdictions, and funding structures, but struggled to overcome the barriers imposed by siloed foci. Invigorated by internal professionalism, knowledge-bases, and relationship building which facilitated impressive accomplishments, the failure to recognize common goals, and the insufficient separated mechanisms to evaluate the social terrain, resulted in restricted channels of essential knowledge-sharing.

To create truly inter-relative institutions capable of building a platform for a stable, equitable, and sustainable urban landscape, governments should strive toward integrated Communities of Practice in development projects, oriented toward the right to mobility as foundational for full citizenship.