This paper analyzes the urban development of Buenos Aires during the 1920s and 1930s. It focuses on the consequences of suburban expansion in the ways the threats to urban order are described. Using journalistic and police sources, it argues that during this period a new notion of a portenho order is born, opposing the regulated city to a diffuse sense of disorder located outside its limits. Finally, the article studies this process as it reflects on representations of specific areas of the suburbs, such as the northern towns, as well as the industrial southern city of Avellaneda.
crime; urban space; police; circulation