Architecturally, the city can be divided into four residential styles. The most common is a structure that began as a single-family dwelling along the street, with an interior patio or garden and rows of small rooms down either side that lead to a kitchen. These houses are attached one to another to form an unbroken facade at the sidewalk. As population density increased in the early 20th century, this basic house was broken up into smaller units and gave rise to a second style, a two and three-story version known as the petit hotel, which was neither as wide nor as deep as its predecessor. The lots on which these houses were constructed defined the size of the first generation of high-rise apartment houses that now dominate the middle-class sections of the city, including Palermo, Recoleta, and Retiro, which, together with other neighbourhoods, are collectively called Barrio Norte. These high rises, representing a third style, were built one next to the other, stretching for block after block in the northern sector of the city. In Belgrano, just north of Barrio Norte, these apartment houses are freestanding; many are as large as city blocks, with their own gardens, because they were built on the lots of single-family detached houses that were common in outer districts of the capital and in the suburban partidos.
The fourth residential style is the corrugated metal shack, typical of the shantytowns that have come to constitute about one-fourth of the homes in the metropolitan area and house about 30 percent of the population. These settlements are characterized by their precarious tenure and the absence of basic public services. While such settlements are common to large cities, they have become a significant aspect of the urban landscape in Buenos Aires only since the 1960s. These villas miserias, or "popular settlements" as they are called officially, are largely inhabited by rural migrants who felt that they could improve their condition by moving to the city. Because these migrants were utterly without resources, they had little choice but to move onto unoccupied land that was otherwise undesirable.
Soler 3820, Capital Federal 1425, Buenos Aires
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