Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910-1942

Buenos Aires is Argentina's national capital and largest city. Throughout the twentieth century the capital and its surrounding suburbs have contained between one quarter and one third of the nation's population. It has served as Argentina's main economic and political center, and has dominated the rest of the country as few other capital cities have. This book traces the history of the city from 1910 to the early 1940s, a period of continued growth and expansion. It focuses in particular on the role of politics and municipal government in directing the city's growth, highlighting elections, party competition, and debates over important issues of public works, public transportation, and public utilities. The political story, in turn, takes place within the larger context of urban development over the course of these decades. Not only is it the first comprehensive treatment of this period in Buenos Aires history; it is also one of the few works to deal with the role of local government in the general literature on Latin American urbanization. In preparing the book, Walter worked extensively with the minutes of city council meetings, the national congressional record, the observations of foreign officials and visitors, popular magazines and newspapers, and a wide variety of other matenals.