Villa Lugano

Villa Lugano
Barrio
The General Manuel Savio Housing Complex, one of the largest public housing works in Latin America
Location of Villa Lugano within Buenos Aires
Country	Argentina
Autonomous City	Buenos Aires
Area
• Total	9.2 km2 (3.6 sq mi)
Population
• Total	114,253
• Density	12,000/km2 (32,000/sq mi)
Time zone	ART (UTC-3)

Villa Lugano is a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, located in the south of the city. It has a population of approximately 114,000 people.

It is delimited by Avenida Eva Perón, Avenida General Paz, Calle José Barros Pazos, Avenida Lisandro de la Torre, Avenida Coronel Roca and Avenida Escalada.

Villa Lugano was founded in 1908, when Swiss citizen José Ferdinando Francisco Soldati (founder of Sociedad Comercial del Plata) established a settlement named for his hometown of Lugano.

Soldati was born on 30 May 1864 in Neggio, Canton of Ticino, Switzerland, near Lugano. He bought a farm near the current location of Calle Murguiondo and Avenida Riestra. The lots were subdivided and with the sale of the first parcels, Villa Lugano was founded on 18 October 1908.

The Villa Lugano station of the French-owned Ferrocarril Compañía General en la Provincia de Buenos Aires was inaugurated in 1910; about 40 families lived in Villa Lugano by 1912. The low-lying area, known originally as the Bañado de Flores ("Flores Wetlands") grew slowly until flood-control works were completed along the Cildañez Stream in the 1960s. It had developed a working class profile by then, and became the site of one of the city's largest villa miseria slums. Villa Lugano was chosen as the site of the General Manuel Savio housing development. Built by the Municipal Housing Commission between 1970 and 1973, the complex was the largest public housing development built in Buenos Aires, including over 12,000 housing units and becoming home to nearly 30,000 people. Bordering Villa Soldati to the east, Villa Lugano was separated from the former by municipal edict in 1972. The district was connected to the Buenos Aires Subway by the Pre-Metro, inaugurated in 1987.