2023 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
17th Edition
Buenos Aires: The methodology of Participatory Planning in the Processes of Socio-Urban Integration of Popular Neighborhoods: the case of Barrio 20
In 2016, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires decided to prioritize the integration of vulnerable neighborhoods to the city both urbanistically and socially, reversing any situation of segregation. As a long-term policy, the process encompasses all the dimensions traversing a household: housing, health, education, work, among others. In line with the magnitude of the policy, processes were initiated in four neighborhoods, most notably in Barrio 20, located at the southern end of the city.
Coordinated by the City's Housing Institute, the process has an innovative approach that guarantees future sustainability and attests to its political, technical and social legitimacy: the deliberative-participatory approach. Citizen participation is at the heart of all implemented measures. Thus, participatory spaces were developed, where neighbors participate in the diagnosis and decision making about the design, the affectations of each sector and each block with the consequent changes to achieve consensus for the works execution.
From the beginning, the process was articulated with all areas of government, the private sector, social organizations and neighbors. The first step was a census to determine the number, age and housing conditions of the neighbors living there. Then a law was passed (with the unanimous support of the Legislature) that contemplates 3 main areas of integration:
- Housing: access to decent housing with basic services through different habitational solutions: housing improvement, relocation to new housing or relocation out of the neighborhood.
- Urban: connecting the neighborhood to the city and the city to the neighborhood through the opening of streets to facilitate transit; access to basic infrastructure services, waste collection and public spaces.
- Socioeconomic: overcoming the barriers of the informal economy by boosting productive activity through training and job promotion,
The law provides for the formalization of participatory bodies (Mesa de Gestión Participativa) with the participation of neighbors, community organizations and institutions, and the public and private sectors.
The project is innovative in relation to the historical practices of intervention in informal neighborhoods, since the "process-project" planning paradigm was used in a bidirectional relationship of both elements, consolidating a complex and consensual decision-making process.
The strategic objectives are:
1) Incorporating the totality of the families living in the Neighborhood to the urban and housing benefits resulting from the Socio-Urban Integration Program through a "process-project" planning model of dynamic and collective construction through institutionalized participatory governance implemented with various devices at the service of generating sustainable consensus.
2) Articulating with neighbors, public sector, private sector, and social organizations in the implementation of integration policies.
The participatory strategy is based on a "process-project" planning model that implies that the result is not pre-defined in an office with a technocratic approach, but on the contrary, the product and results come from the construction of a process of dialogue and consensus building.
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