Uneven spatial development at the end of the world : Production of space and urban inequalities in Ushuaia and Río Grande

This thesis addresses the process of uneven spatial development (USD), resulting from territorial expansion of capitalist economic activities (Smith, 2020). As long as new territories are incorporated into the accumulation process, simultaneous dynamics of equalization (of productive forms) and differentiation (of spatial forms) are generated in them. As a result, specific patterns of spatial inequality emerge, acquiring particular characteristics in the different scales and geographies (Smith, 2012; Brenner, 2009). Considering a Latin American approach, urban inequalities remain particular interest, given the fact cities concentrate most of the resources and the population. The State is crucial in defining the precise patterns that USD acquires through its economic and urban-territorial policies.
This research frames the study problem in the context of national territory of Tierra del Fuego (TDF), Antarctica, and the South Atlantic Islands, constituted as a province of Argentine Republic in 1991. Due to geopolitical issues related to its strategic location in the South Atlantic Ocean, the Argentine government promoted specific policies in order to encourage its population. To accomplish this purpose, this territory was defined a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in 1972, and tax advantages were given to any productive activity. This resulted in the establishment of industries, dedicated to consumer electronics-specific sectors, which demanded a significant number of new labor. The industries settled in the only two existing urban centers on the Isla Grande of TDF at that time, Ushuaia and Río Grande. Consequently, these cities grew rapidly and continuously as a result of significant internal migratory dynamics. However, economic impulse was not accompanied by urban planning regulations and housing accessibility policies.
As a result of urban sprawl under scarce state management, and the lack of available housing, informal production of the city began to grow. Informality is a characteristic modality of Latin American urbanization, in which the inhabitants generate their own living conditions, outside formal channels. Informal settlements expanded, within worse habitability conditions than the formal city (Clichevsky, 2000, Cravino, 2006). Numerous problematic issues can be mentioned, related to their irregular land tenure situation and their location in undeveloped areas. Among them, the following stand out: lack of access to essential services, localization in environmentally hazardous places, and more precarious housing. Moreover, symbolic distinctions and social stigmatization processes in addition to the mentioned physical problems. Over the last fifty years, USD patterns within and between Ushuaia and Río Grande have been directly affected by linkages each city established with industry, by rising real estate speculation, and by new forms of space valorization related to international tourism. The emergence of new land and housing commercialization dynamics since 2003, as well as the role of urban housing policy, increased informality.
Given to the impact caused by productive extra-urban dynamics (industry and tourism), as well as the ones caused by internal dynamics of mercantilization and decommoditization (including state and informal urban-housing production), inequalities consolidated in the cities, particularly between the formal and informal areas. The State played a central role in defining the spatial patterns of inequality. On one hand, through the promotion of economic dynamics. On the other hand, through its direct urban actions in the cities: as a planner, as a producer of housing solutions, as a regulator/facilitator of the urban mercantilization process and through policies that addressed (or not) informality (Reese, 2006, Fernández Wagner, 2009). Therefore, the research object focused on the causes and patterns urban inequality acquires in Tierra del Fuego cities under particular USD dynamics, from a multi-scale perspective. The general objective is to analyze the USD dynamics that have intervened in the production of cities and of urban inequalities in Tierra del Fuego, since its definition as a Special Economic Zone in 1972, until 2020.
The particular objectives are:

1) to identify the territorial structuring, conditioning factors and occupation patterns of the fuegian urban space, prior to 1972;

2) to analyze the productive and sociodemographic dynamics fomented at the extra-urban level that influenced the transformation of the fuegian productive-territorial structure (1972- 2019;

3) to analyze the intra-urban dynamics of expansion, mercantilization and demercantilization of Ushuaia and Río Grande (1972- 2019);

and 4)
to identify the patterns of urban inequality in Ushuaia and Río Grande (2020).
In summary, the major differences between formal and informal cities in Ushuaia and Río
Grande, respond to a specific form of USD, which exhibited typical characteristics of Latin American urbanization processes. Nevertheless, peculiarities of the considered cases might stand out, related to a double condition; even though being in a remote and periphery geography, they are simultaneously situated in a region of important geopolitical value. According to the argument, production of urban space in TDF is influenced by fragmented local and federal policies. This led to an economic and special decoupling at various scales with unequal, combined, and conflicting territorial and social effects. A comparative historical research using spatial analysis is proposed as a methodology, along with qualitative and quantitative approaches.