Public policies and access to habitat in Cipolletti (2003-2015): urban policy and repressive policy in the criminalization of land seizures

In this article we address the modes of State intervention in the problem of access to urban land by popular sectors in the city of Cipolletti, Rio Negro, during post-convertibility. We analyze some of the main public policies aimed at urban planning, the production of urban land and housing, access to credit and also policies for the eradication and relocation of informal settlements. In addition to the analysis of various documentary sources, we conducted interviews with officials, leaders of the real estate market and leaders of land occupation, which allowed us to notice that criminalization processes are systematically deployed against those who take land to inhabit them. In this way, the criminalization of land occupation is presented as the reverse of urban policy. Despite this combination of urban politics and repressive politics, half of the city's neighborhoods remain under precarious housing conditions. Periodically new takes appear, revealing that public policies take the form of a trial and error process under a limited rationality, which only makes it possible to get out of the way without being able to solve the problem of access to housing and the city.