You heard it on No Te Duermas
Federico Trofelli. On the radio program, we spoke with journalist Federico Trofelli, who analyzed the loss of cultural identity by the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and focused on San Telmo.
Tomás Modini
@ModiniTomas
Journalist Federico Trofelli wrote in the newspaper Tiempo Argentino an article entitled ‘Between gentrification, tourism and astronomical rents, the San Telmo Market loses its emblems’. He spoke about this on No Te Duermas and left an interesting contribution.
The explanation of the term
At the start of the telephone conversation, he indicated: “The note alludes to a phenomenon that is not only from San Telmo, but that occurs worldwide, which is when the original inhabitants of a place are replaced by others. This started, for example, in London, there are several theories that say that it begins there, when they were popular working-class neighborhoods. Then there is a financial and real estate speculation in which they take over those houses very cheaply, convert them into lofts and end up replacing that working-class society with the upper bourgeoisie.”
“And everything ends up changing, the businesses and adjusting to that new paradigm, which is a bit like what happens in large cities around the world. Here it has already happened with several neighborhoods, I think the clearest example is Palermo, which has changed a lot and it is even like it is taking things from other neighborhoods and renaming it as ‘Palermo Soho’ or ‘Hollywood,’ which happens a lot,” he explained.
As for the note itself, he assured “In the article, we started with the San Telmo market, which represented and has become today a food court when before it was a market where people bought antiques” and “that changed, it no longer exists.”
“Today it is all gastronomic and apart from that, the place with foreign food is not bad at all because it is touristy. But the identity of the market has changed, which at the same time is the identity of the neighborhood as well and that is where the contradiction begins to play a bit,” he stressed.
The relationship with tourism
Hand in hand with the latter, Trofelli pointed out: “Some specialists told me that gentrification in San Telmo is due to touristification. That is to say, there are so many tourists who come to know the identity of the neighborhood, which is the Cafetín, the antiquity, the tango, but finally that process ends up replacing the true identity of the neighborhood.”
“What they told me is that we are living through the last stage of this process, which is where the replacement of the original inhabitant who cannot pay what he used to pay for rent, for example, occurs,” he described.
Then he mentioned that “San Telmo was one of the cheapest areas of the City of Buenos Aires, bordering La Boca, Barracas” and that “in fact, by law, in the City, whoever builds a building or a tower in the north zone, which is the wealthiest area where more expensive properties are bought, is obliged as an investor to invest in the south zone. Everything changes. The neighborhood changes, the whole idiosyncrasy.”
The intervention of political activities
To close, he analyzed the roles of politics: “There is a great contradiction, I understand that the role of the state and of politics has to be to take care of the identity because if you leave it to the free market, what ends up happening is that, it destroys. There is a lot of political intention and will when the historical heritage is not taken care of.”
“By law, a building from before 1950 must be maintained unless the place has fallen down and then it must be demolished. What they should have done is work to maintain it. Experts in the field talk about an idea of letting things be done and then demolishing,” he concluded.
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