Urban planning and energy access in informal contexts: The case of ARA San Juan (Salta, Argentina)

Abstract

This paper examines how urban planning regulations in Salta have operated as a mechanism for producing energy poverty in the ARA San Juan neighborhood, an informal settlement with a community-managed informal electricity network. The analysis focuses on the transition between the previous Urban Environmental Planning Code (CPUA) and the CPUA 2025, identifying continuities and ruptures in the cartographic and regulatory treatment of the territory. A single-case analytical-interpretive design was employed, complemented by ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with residents, which enabled the socio-energetic reality to be contrasted with institutional discourse. Findings reveal that the neighborhood’s exclusion was not due to technical limitations but rather to its invisibility in official cartography and the enforcement of regulatory restrictions, such as the prohibition of urbanization above 1225 meters above sea level. Although the CPUA 2025 recognizes the neighborhood as an Area of Urban-Social Interest, questions remain regarding the framework’s capacity to ensure effective integration. The study concludes that land policy is, in essence, energy policy, and that energy poverty in contexts of urban informality is a phenomenon preceding access, conditioned by the normative legibility of the territory.