Description
Book SynopsisAn analysis of what the history of epidemic diseases can reveal about urban planning. In the 1860s and 1870s, Buenos Aires was hit by a series of dramatic cholera and yellow fever epidemics that decimated its population and inspired extensive debates on urban space among its elites. The book takes readers into three intriguing spaces—the slaughterhouses, the tenements, and the park of Palermo—which found themselves at the center of the discussions about the causes of epidemic disease. The banning of industrial slaughterhouses from the city, reform of tenement houses, and construction of a major park promised to tackle the problem of disease while giving rise to new visions of the city. By analyzing the discussion on these spaces, the book illuminates critical spatial junctures at the crossroads of both local and global forces and reconstructs the interconnection between elite imaginaries and the production of space.
Park, Tenement, Slaughterhouse reveals that the history of epidemic diseases can tell us a great deal about urban space, the relationships between different social classes in cities, and the articulations of global and local forces.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Liberal Elites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Hygiene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Urban Space and Imaginaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Critical History of Elites through Urban Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Critical Junctures of Globalization: Park, Tenement,
Slaughterhouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Slaughterhouse: The saladeros and the Discussion on Industry . . . . . . . . 29
Hygiene and Medicine: Disease and Industrial Pollution . . . . . . . . . . 31
Saladeros between City and Country, Civilization and Barbarism . . 47
The saladeros and the Question of Industrial Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Slaughterhouse: Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Tenement: The conventillos and the Question of Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
The Invention of the conventillo: Hygiene between Private and Public 94
Visualizing the City: Conventillos, Panoramas, and Urban Desires of
Orderliness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
City of Neighborhoods, City as Totality: Concurring Imaginaries . . 120
The Social Boundaries of the City: Philanthropy and the Elites . . . . . 140
Tenement: Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6 Contents
Park: Palermo, Elite Utopia for Buenos Aires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
The Park of Palermo: The City, the Nation, and the World . . . . . . . . . 166
Palermo, a Healing Democratic Spectacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Park: Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Main Archives and Libraries Consulted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Main Newspapers, Journals, and Periodicals Consulted . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Primary Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Secundary Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
