A Historically Poor
Choice Of Capital 

History

Self Serving Interests Won The Day

Buenos Aires became a capital to serve the few, rather than the many.

Buenos Aires is a very old colonial city, unsuited to being a capital, and facing environmental challenges stemming from its low-lying coastal location putting it at risk from floods, storms, and rising sea levels. But its location on the east coast of the country made it a historically strategic port city with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean, driving trade and commerce in the city, making it much wealthier than the other provinces of Argentina.

During the early years of independence, the city managed to succeed in asserting its rights above those of other Argentine provinces, enabling the city to play a leading role in shaping the country's political landscape in its own interests. After becoming the capital, and for the next two hundred years, the city's elite selfishly concentrated political power and resources in the city and surrounding region, exacerbating provincial disparities, promoting regional inequality, and hindering national development across their enormous country, fostering social inequalities and regional tensions. 

Beyond being a strategic port city with a wealthy merchant class, Buenos Aires didn’t really have much else to offer post-independence. During the colonial era, the city of Cordoba was the de facto cultural, educational, and economic capital of the country, and Cordoba emerged as a capital contender during independence because of its geographic centrality to every other region of the country, and status as a historic urban centre. 

The Argentines have tried to move their capital before, in the late 19th century they built the city of La Plata, intending it to become their new national capital city. The decision to move the capital was influenced by overcrowding and infrastructure limitations in Buenos Aires, as well as a national desire to decentralise political power, and have a central, well-planned and modern city to accommodate the newly independent countries' needs. 

The new Argentine capital city was meticulously planned, and designed by renowned urban architects, and features incredible architecture and iconic buildings, such as the La Plata Cathedral, the Teatro Argentino, and the Palacio Municipal. But after spending so much time and money building a new capital city, the politically connected merchant class in Buenos Aires connived to keep the capital in their city, contrary to the national interest and in direct opposition to the greater good. But his wasn't the only time that Argentina has tried to move its capital, they tried again in 1986.

The Patagonia Project (Proyecto Patagonia y Capital), at the order of the President, began preparing to move the capital away from Buenos Aires to newly federalised lands in the Patagonia region. The Patagonia Project was a big part of the plan for the foundation of the 2nd Argentine Republic, and it was launched by Argentine President Alfonsín in a famous speech in famous speech where he called on Argentines to "march towards the south, towards the sea and towards the cold".  The move was meant to meant to solve the Argentine demographic problem, develop the interior, and decentralise political power to separate it from the economic power of the country, which were both excessively concentrated in Buenos Aires. 

They also created the a new state enterprise, called the Entity for the Construction of the New Capital (ENTECAP), with vast powers to expropriate land, design the new urban layout and develop the various infrastructure works to fulfill the project, among other functions. It was based on NOVACAP, a Brazilian organisation that in the 1950s built the city of Brasilia and its new Federal District for Brazils new capital city, providing an ideal template.

Although the law to move the capital had been approved, had the necessary planning, funding, and the organisational structure put in place to facilitate the move, a newly elected President under massive pressure from the Buenos Aires media and powerful groups linked to the political and economic interests of the city of Buenos Aires, dissolved ENTECAP while liquidating all its assets and materially killing the project. 

There have been multiple attempts to revive the initiative in Argentina, but so far none have been successful. We at BACRA believe that it is in the interests of all Argentines to finally correct this historic geopolitical mistake, and believe that where the Argentines have failed the British will succeed.