The management of urban services in the city of Buenos Aires reviews the changes in the management of urban services in Buenos Aires over the last 100 years and discusses the implications for the quality of service provision in recent decades and for the future. The author looks at how management principles and capacities have changed since the late nineteenth century when provision for infrastructure and services was of a quality comparable to cities in Europe at that time. Today, there are poorer quality services and increasing numbers of unserved inhabitants but the present system still does not enable users to have political influence and representation, and the companies responsible for service provision assume no responsibility for those people who are unable to afford the prices they charge.