Villa 20
Villa 20 is located in the Villa Lugano neighborhood, Commune 8, in the southwest of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, a region that includes most of the city’s villas and has the second highest concentration of green spaces, among which Parque de la Ciudad, Parque del Bicentenario and Parque Indoamericano stand out. The latter was occupied by thousands of people in 2010 to protest and demand better housing conditions.
Located about 16 km from the central area, it occupies an area of about 48 hectares, where almost 30,000 people live, resulting in a population density of 625 inhabitants per hectare, which is four times higher than the average density of the city. It is easily accessible by bus and is served by two Premetro (light rail) stations – Escalada and Pola – but there is no subway station nearby. Villa 20 has health, education, sports and leisure facilities, as well as a good range of shops and services in its perimeter and immediate surroundings. Today, the main problem of Villa 20 is still sanitation (mainly water and sewerage), although parts of the neighborhood have already received public interventions in the last decades and since 2016 it has been undergoing a comprehensive “reurbanization” process led by the Instituto de Vivienda de la Ciudad (IVC).
Villa 20
Its origins date back to the late 1940s, making it older than Heliopolis and the neighborhoods of Comuna 2, which somehow reflects the older urbanization of the city of Buenos Aires in relation to Sao Paulo and Medellin. In contrast to the continuous population growth and densification experienced by Heliopolis and the neighborhoods of Comuna 2, Villa 20 was virtually eradicated in the 1970s, during the last military dictatorship, and gradually repopulated after 1983, during the re-democratization process. Since then, leaders, residents, social organizations, and civil society institutions working in the area have fought to improve living conditions in the neighborhood, with important achievements such as the reopening of the health center in 1986, the approval of the first “reurbanization” law in 2005, and the start of “reurbanization” works in 2016, following the occupation of the area that is now the Papa Francisco neighborhood in 2014 and the creation of the Mesa Activa por la Re-urbanización in 2015.
Its territory is divided into 30 blocks, whose redevelopment, from 2016, has involved the provision of new housing units in a large area of about 12 hectares, the Papa Francisco neighborhood.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VILLA 20 AND ITS LANDMARKS
VILLA 20 TIMELINE
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Visit the Villa 20 Popular Memory Archive
The Villa 20 Popular Memory Archive is a space for the collective construction of the neighborhood's memory.
ARCHIVO DE LA MEMORIA POPULAR VILLA 20
"to generate spaces for exchange among neighbors as a way of confirming that memory is a collective and active act, which we build by producing stories of history and the present."
Visit the ArchiveVisit Taller Libre de Proyecto Social – Reconstrucción colectiva de la memoria histórica de la Villa 20
