Abstract
The economic and social crisis in Argentina at the end of 2001 ended a decade of explicit free-market or neoliberal policies that had their roots in the country’s last military dictatorship (1976–1983). The current challenges facing the city, along with legacies of this recent past, include increasing social inequality, crime, poverty, and the difficulty of managing public services that were comprehensively privatized during the 1990s. State responses to these challenges have been more effective with regard to employment than with regard to their impact on housing and security.