Changes in land use in the periphery of Buenos Aires metropolitan area. Contributions to a peri-urban rent gap theory

Since the mid-1990s, a strong expansion of gated communities has been observed in the metropolitan peripheries of Buenos Aires, advancing on environmentally fragile areas, such as wetlands and soils damaged by extractive activities. The difference between the real ground rent and the high potential ground rent associated with residential use for high-income sectors tends to be captured as an extraordinary profit, and thus represents a strong stimulus for capital (re)investment and real estate development. through satellite and geostatistical analysis, the present article problematizes some of these dynamics, with the hypothesis of a cycle of sequenced changes in land use tending to form a peri-urban rent gap (or peri-rent gap), drawing a parallelism with the well-known theory by Neil Smith.