Suburbs



After the economic crisis of 2001, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, called “villas”, a new cheap drug has entered. The “Paco” is a by-product of the cocaine industry, and it is sold at bargain prices in these suburbs. The social consequences lead to family violence, killings, thefts, deaths and a general climate of violence, degradation, abandonment and danger.

A suburb is a peripheral urban area, which are marginalized
and isolated from the rest of the city due to socio-economic criteria. Even if connected to the economical life of the city, they are like islands. An invisible border surround this areas, and a heavy stigma afflicts its residents. Latin American urbanization was not built on sustainable and balanced architectural basis but is the consequence of informal settlements, corruption, racial marginalization and unequal society. This wild urbanization creates a human and social environment that prevents change and reproduce vicious circles that perpetuates this very same problems. From Mexico to Argentina, problems are very similars, and in many cases is difficult to identify one city from another.

Informal settlements in Buenos Aires are distinguished by a total absence of
public services: the streets are made of mud, there are no sewers or water mains, mostly who live there are immigrants from Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru or Northern Argentina. In the neighborhood of Ciudad Oculta in Buenos Aires are the conseguences of Paco, an inexpensive drug by-product of cocaine, who cause most of the problems: dealing, prostitution, killings and thefts; in a spiral of despair and isolation that seems to know no end.