“SCENOGRAPHIC” AND “COSMETIC” PLANNING: GLOBALIZATION AND TERRITORIAL RESTRUCTURING IN BUENOS AIRES

ABSTRACT: The aim of the present article is to provide an account of the ways in which the impact exerted by globalizing forces on the territorial structure of the city of Buenos Aires has been mediated by local planning processes. After a brief review of the main trends and critiques found in the academic literature, the author examines how the territorial transformations that have taken place in Buenos Aires over the past fifteen years may not be simplistically related to—or blamed on—global pressures. It is argued that the determinacy imposed by long‐term historical tendencies, together with specific territorial planning arrangements characteristic of the Argentine planning system, have played a major role in the production of Buenos Aires' territorial structuring over the past fifteen years.