It's kind of funny to watch people on both sides talk about this like there is some kind of "definitive" Buenos Aires, either beautiful or ugly.
There are some really crappy places here. They exist in Recoleta, Palermo, Centro, and any other place in the city.
There are some really nice places here. They exist in Recoleta, Palermo, Centro, and any other place in the city.
The places that I like are the parks, the tree-lined streets, some of the cool buildings that are really unique and usually that are not surrounded completely themselves by other buildings, so on and so forth.
The places I think are ugly are streets without trees (or few trees), sidewalks filled with dog crap, garbage strewn about from carteneros, busses throwing off unimaginable amounts of carbon monoxide, etc. To me, without saying, it's also the poor places of the city, but all cities have that.
Anyone who doesn't see BOTH sides is blind in my opinion.
But just because someone doesn't like the city itself (whichever part) and thinks it's ugly doesn't mean it's an insult, Cabrera. Personally, I don't like big cities at all. It's why I moved out to the suburbs. I find the city itself to be overwhelming, at times even oppresive. Kilometers and kilometers of buildings with large and small streets. Concrete canyons, no matter the architecture, in many places. But that's MY take, and I am not targeting anyone and saying that person should be insulted because my tastes are different.
I'm a country boy. It shouldn't be an insult to anyone that I find most of Buenos Aires to be at best a not-very-pretty-city. But that also doesn't mean that there are not some decent places as well.
But then, I'm not an architect, nor an architectural afficionado, and that's not why I'm here.