Transversal routes in the interior of the province of Buenos Aires: the Road Plan 1959-1963

Abstract

In the mid-20 th century, in the midst of the boom of developmentalism, in governmental and technical fields began to emphasized the need for decentralization road to generate sources of wealth and reverse the population, economic and political concentration of the province of Buenos Aires. This thought was reflected in the Road Plan 1959-1963, which, designed under Oscar Alende `s government, projected new transversal routes and the improvement of existing ones. In this framework, the work analyzes -with state sources, press and technical reports- the meaning and scope of a public policy that, while valuing the local territory, tried to reverse the regional asymmetry. For this, the problems that led to the formulation of the Road Plan, the concepts and the proposed scheme will be examined. The hypothesis is that the particular modality of state intervention in road matters was influenced by the developmental ideas. These ideas promoted the decisive role of the State in the provision of infrastructure, as well as decentralization, planification and private initiative as pillars of the modernization of the agricultural sector.