Villas under the carpet: throw out what doesn’t fit

I recently heard a renowned one Real estate developer with a disturbing naturalness to say that the solution for Villa 31 It would mean “gifting” the land to the ten biggest developers in Buenos Aires so that they could build houses in another area, thus freeing up land “overlooking Montevideo” that could be offered at astronomical prices.

He didn’t say it like someone putting a provocative idea up for discussion. He said it as if someone were describing a logical and inevitable step. As I listened to him, I understood that I was witnessing a mindset in real time City and above all to think about the people who live there.

There was a sentence that stayed with me: “Free houses? No, because then I’ll sell the square meter for twenty Lucas.” That line said it all. The order of priorities has been condensed there: the life that inhabits this area counts not in itself, but in proportion to how much its square meters bring in once what disturbs it is eliminated. The problem is not poverty or precarity, but rather that poverty arises exactly where there could be a million-dollar business.

It is an entire neighborhood that is seen as a failure, an aesthetic imperfection, an economic obstacle. The difference is annoying. “Poor things are ugly”

Modernity, says Enrique Dussel, always needs a victim. There is always someone who presents an obstacle to justify a project that is presented as progress. In this case it is not about a distant other, an abstract enemy or a colonized people, as was the case at the beginning of time modernity. It is an entire neighborhood that is seen as a failure, an aesthetic imperfection, an economic obstacle. The difference is annoying. Poor things are ugly. What does not fit into the market order must be removed in order to restore the aesthetic “harmony” of the landscape.

Antonio Berni, the artist who discovered poetry in the city

Under this logic, Villa 31 ceases to be a community with living history and networks that sustain daily life. A location error occurs. And the imaginary reaction is then a transfer that is carried out like a technical operation: move the inconvenient part and the problem is solved.

There are no questions for him roots? Does no one ask about the ties or the basic right to stay in the place where you have built your life? No. Because the only thing that counts is the calculation. His logic demonstrates his hierarchy of values. Housing is a cost. Eviction is a condition and laying a simple procedure. And the poor person? This is a token that enables another game. Everything human is summarized in commodities.

These lives, their bonds, their stories and their customs are considered irrelevant. They are mobile. Dispensable. You have to bet the villa under the carpet“

At this point the discussion becomes ethical. A city that thinks like this sees the people who live there not as citizens, but as a backdrop. Instead of integrating differences, it drives them away. The city becomes an unpleasant stain on the cityscape that must be erased so that the picture becomes clean.

In short, it is about cleaning up the city: ridding it of the poor, of the cardboard collectors, of the vendors trying to survive, of the neighborhoods that, in this view, spoil the view. The most disturbing thing is that this logic does not arise from individual evil, but from a mindset that has become hegemonic. A logic that views land as an asset and population as an adjustment variable. Economic calculation becomes an ethical compass, and when that happens, the other’s life disappears from the record.

It’s not like anyone openly hates anyone. It’s worse: these lives, their bonds, their stories and their customs are seen as irrelevant. They are mobile. Dispensable. We have to sweep the villa under the carpet.

The implicit slogan is to send these people to the periphery, or, in the real estate entrepreneur’s words, “to areas where people need to be settled.” The center is reserved for those who have money, property and status. Incidentally, the coasts. As far as possible out of sight.

That’s why the debate about Villa 31 cannot be limited to words like “integration”, “modernization” or “Renovation“The underlying question is different: Who defines what it means to live well and who decides who deserves to stay where they are?”

If the only possible answer is the profitability of the land, the result is a foregone conclusion: a city that expels what doesn’t fit and celebrates that expulsion as a sign of progress.