Rafaela 7.11

Rafaela is a city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, about 96 km from the provincial capital. It is the head town of the Castellanos Department. It has a population of 99,150 per the.The town was established in 1881 by Guillermo Lehmann, and officially became a city in 1913. The city has grown 22.2% between 1991 and 2001, and 18.6% in the last census period (2001-2011) according to the official data of the Population Census (INDEC). The city is almost the exact antipode of Wuhu in China.Zoning of the cityThe city is located in the western-center area of Santa Fe Province and has an area of 156 km2 . The design of most of the urban area of the city has a shape of a checkerboard with the main plaza in the middle of the city and four main boulevards coming from there. The street grid of the city is composed by square blocks in most part of the neighborhoods, mainly in the historical and older part of the city.The city has 37 neighborhoods and the downtown area as the map of the city shows.Urban CodeIn 2008 the government approved the Urban Code of Rafaela, and since that the planning of the city became more organized and institutionalized. The Urban Code of Rafaela is the regulation that manages and controls the development of the city. One of the main changes was the transition from a zoning approach, that was based on the classification of the land use, to an approach that evaluates the levels of complexity and impact of the economic activities in the city and the environment.