Urban environmental conflicts due to elite urbanism in the east of the metropolitan area of Montevideo

Abstract

In recent decades, Montevideo has experienced a process of metropolization that has unique characteristics depending on the axis of access to the city. Part of the eastward expansion has been marked by residential mobility of high-income sectors towards gated communities and buildings around urban lakes. The renovation experienced has given rise to the emergence of conflicts between local authorities and organized neighborhood groups who oppose certain urban transformations. This article studies the conflict in the Botavara and Pesquero lakes in the Municipality of Ciudad de la Costa due to high-rise real estate development. Starting from a case study and using interview, observation and press analysis techniques, the article identifies the actors involved in the conflict, describes the claims, the main milestones of the conflict and the repertoire of actions followed. by the organized neighborhood group. The results of the conflict were unfavorable to the interests of the inhabitants of the lakes, the construction of high towers could not be stopped. However, returning to the focus on the productivities of conflicts, the article suggests a series of effects of the conflict that would have strengthened the inhabitants of the neighborhood in general and, in particular, the group of neighbors as a collective subject. They highlight processes of reflexivity and territorial production, the political construction of the group of neighbors as an actor willing to dispute the patterns of urban development and the critical appropriation by some neighbors of the legal instruments of territorial planning, used to argue their positions before power. political and business.