In March 2006, Fundación Pro Vivienda Social worked together with the Master’s degree of Urban Economy at the University Torcuato di Tella, to create a questionnaire named “neighbourhood development observatory” (“Observatorio de Desarrollo Barrial”) in order to produce a database aiming to improve our knowledge of our neighbourhoods.

We developped a questionnaire of more than 100 questions tackling various topics such as working and employment situations, health, education, socio-economic level, and social capital. The first questionnaire was completed by 750 families of the area of Cruce Derqui with the Poliarquía consulting company, in novembre 2006, and, in november 2007, the same questionnaire was completed by 400 other families.
The “neighbourhood development observatory” allows us to analyse and evaluate the impact of the programs implemented in the neighbourhoods, it helps us identify the need of other projects and permits us to have a better interaction with enterprises that do not invest in this area due to lack of information.

A map of the area of Cruce Derqui:

In zone outlined in blue is where our survey took place. The “conectados” area refers to the neighbors who are part of the gas network. The “No conectados aun” refers to the neighbors who have not yet joined the gas network due to the advanced stage of the installation.

The importance of information:

 

If we agree with the term “information is power”, then we will believe that having no acces to information is a considerable weakness.
Reality tells us that infomation on the neigbourghoods of the third cordon of the suburbs of Buenos Aires are still scarce and incomplete. The National Census provides a lot of data, but a lot of important topics are missing from it and moreoever, there is a substantial lack of precision as its datas are divided in 300 households’groups.
It is very difficult to develop a good understanding without relying on good information. A lot of the time people who previously believed to understand the situation are surprised by the details of the communities and discover hidden potentials and can improve our evaluation of the level of the problems.

Also, as we all know, that trusting in something you do not know is difficult. Without trust there is no investment. The economical paradigm says that the default of information increases the risk of any operation wich also increases the investment’s rate of return. Therefore, without information there is no knowledge and without knowledge there is a lack of investment.

Without information we would not know the results of what we have done. We could neither show what we have done right nor learn from what we have done wrong. Relying on our evaluation tools is fundamental, (i.e. better making sure you are not overspeeding by looking at the speedometer than judging your speed yourself)

The Neighbourhood Development Observatory wants to produce information with data generated by various actors: the neighbours that give it, the University that garantees the results and the Foundation that carries out its difusion. This team therefore has the same goal: to generate a tool to provide information from the disadvantaged neighbourhoods, to have a better understanding of them and to successfully attract investments that improve the quality of life of those living there.