Opening streets between gated urbanizations. Simulation of an intermediate road network for the peri-urban territory of Mendoza, Argentina

Abstract

Gated communities are now one of the common forms in the expansion of Latin American cities. In Greater Mendoza area (Argentina), there are about 384. Their size and aggregation are causing the saturation of part of the peri-urban territory, thus fostering a landscape marked by large enclosures with specific accesses and a road structure with large block sizes and roads. This work considers that this is pathological for the future of peri-urban fabrics. A careful reading of their size and relative position demonstrates the dominance of laissez-faire, since the current regulations excessively allow possible locations. However, the study focuses on the absence of active thinking about the streets that structure the territory. As if it were an urban laboratory, a possible proposal for a new grid of intermediate streets is presented, which meets two purposes: (1) ensuring the urban quality of territories in extension through gated communities and (2) enhancing the existing grid. The work uses network analysis to evaluate the achievement of these two objectives, observing the proposal's capacity to multiply intermediate streets, to expand pre-existing local centralities, to promote the proliferation of new intersections, and to obtain a fine-grained block structure that safeguards peri-urban quality.