Villa 31

Houses of Villa 31 opposite the Retiro bus station

The Villa 31 is the most popular informal settlement ( Villa Miseria ) in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires . It is located in the Retiro district in the city center on a property that belongs to the area of the Retiro train station and is therefore subject to the state.

Villa 31 is the largest single slum in the city; there is, however, a largely grown together complex of three villas in the Barracas district , known as Villa 21 - 24 - NHT Zavaleta , which is even larger with 45,285 inhabitants. The quarter's population growth is high: according to a study, between 2001 and 2009 the population increased from the 12,204 inhabitants counted in the 2001 census to 25,987 by 2009.

history

The slum has existed since the 1930s, when numerous poor railway workers settled there as a result of the Great Depression in 1929. The priest Carlos Mugica , who was murdered in 1974 by the right-wing extremist paramilitary group Alianza Anticomunista Argentina and is still venerated by the population, became known for his social work in the neighborhood .

During the military dictatorship of the National Reorganization process , the area was forcibly evacuated and the residents were relocated to the periphery of Gran Buenos Aires . After 1983 families started to settle in this area again. In particular, the increase in rental prices in the city center led to an explosion in the number of residents. In 2006, a second slum area, Villa 31 bis , was built on an adjacent area on the railway lines of the Retiro station that were no longer in use .

Since Mauricio Macri took office , there has been a controversy between the mayor's office of Buenos Aires and the national government; While Macri initially advocated the relocation of the entire slum and later at least Villa 31 to the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the national government stuck to the plan to convert the informal settlement into a regular district without relocating the residents.

After Macri gave in to the dispute in 2009, it was decided in December 2009 to urbanize Villa 31 including 31 bis . The plan for this was drawn up by the University of Buenos Aires .

population

According to a survey carried out in 2009, 50.6% of the residents are foreigners, the majority of whom come from Paraguay (23.9%), Bolivia (16.6%) and Peru (9.8%). 29.6% of the residents come from Buenos Aires, while internal migrants from other provinces make up 14.3%. 70% of residents live in apartments that they have bought and consider to be their property; and 19% live for rent; only 1% are squatters .