DIEGO SANTILLI ON THE CITY
You said: “In Costa Salguero we’re developing the city, creating a new neighbourhood with green spaces.” But environmentalist sectors object.
The same happened with previous City projects. Puerto Madero, 25 years ago, was an area of obsolete shipping and dockyards where people had no access, without parks or housing. Today it’s the newest neighbourhood in the city – 65 percent public spaces, 35 percent housing, a view of the river and accessible to people who can choose to live there or spend some pleasant moments.
Why are environmentalists so critical?
What kind of free access to Costa Salguero does society have today or what view of the river? None. Costa Salguero is a lease. It will have three developed hectares and 11 of green spaces which it lacks today. It currently has an exhibition hall but no green spaces. This is integrating town planning, ecology, parks and green spaces to a new place in the city and giving it life. We’ve worked very hard to recover the coastline.
City Hall needs to continue offering a view of the river. That’s the aim, no other.
What happened with crime as from 2018 when recession set in?
That’s a very interesting question. Looking back over the crises in Argentina, the crime rate has risen in every one of them. But the murder rate in Buenos Aires has gone down from 7.26 per 100,000 inhabitants to 4.02 – the second-lowest murder rate in the American continent for a national or regional capital.
Has it got worse since 2017?
It even went down further until 2019, which was the best year, 3.36, and grew again last year. There are two central points of focus behind the rise. One is Zavaleta 21/24 where drug-traffickers began a mutual vendetta between their sectors, doubling the cases in that zone. In the rest of the city, it kept going down. Then there were situations arising out of the pandemic, perhaps psychiatric problems, but they remain homicides at the end of the day. Street people knifing each other.
Never due to economic deterioration?
There are vendettas among criminals which we did not see last year. When you look at the statistics for the crisis years after 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 went from bad to worse. Following the subprime crisis as from 2009 crime rose in the city between 2010 and 2012. The year 2019 was the best in the last 25. Last year, even with the pandemic, was much better than 2019 with crime 50 percent down, save the homicides. It is more volatile this year but still below last year. Those are the numbers which I look at every week. The precinct chiefs are accountable to me every week, crime for crime, neighbourhood for neighbourhood, situation for situation.