Comparing urban informality in an historical perspective. Analogous processes and divergent outcomes in Rome and Buenos Aires

The present study of informal housing in Rome and Buenos Aires aims to focus on the gradual transformation of the "informal city" into a "formal city", two realities that have often been interpreted as distant from each other. Nonetheless, observing the evolutionary dynamics of informal settlements through time, it is possible to identify the limits of a dichotomous perspective. The boundary line between formal and informal has proven to be extremely faint and permeable when considering their economic interrelationship and the not always distinct and definitive social diversification of their residents. "Regularisation" processes modify, more or less gradually, the legal status of informal districts, assimilating them into the rest of the city, even though a full and effective urban integration has not always guarantee