Dichotomous Delta: Between the Natural and the Metropolitan: The Case of the Parana Delta, Argentina

摘要

The Parana Delta remains within the wild condition of its islands and the growing urbanization of its edges. These contrasts intensified in the Lower Delta due to the proximity to Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, the major conurbation of the country. As in other Latin American cities, the metropolitan expansion of Buenos Aires was characterized by an acceleration of the economic and territorial processes leading to spaces of instability and increasing the historical socio-spatial polarization. In contrast to years of low intervention of the State and legal voids at the metropolitan level, private capital has shaped the territory overwhelming any local capacity of regulation and impacting the environment in a negative way. The result was an increase in social and spatial segregation together with an unsustainable use of the land and an unplanned advance over the delta. In this paper, the dichotomies within this case will be presented in order to transcend a mere ecological-demographic perspective of the metropolitan growth in relation to the natural environment. Finally, a discussion will be set to analyse the possibilities of spatial planning strategies as an integral approach to the management of the system taking into account the specificities of the context.