MSc Building and Urban Design in Development

Transforming Local Areas: Urban Design for Development

Approach to the periphery of Santiago of Chile

Lecturer: Camilo Boano

Student: Sebastian Troncoso Stocker

Date: 02.12.13

Words: 2961

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Approach to the periphery of
Santiago of Chile.
“The human condition has become the urban
condition”
(Ash Amin, 2006)
1. Introduction:
This brief essay aims to address-the good city-
without falling into the temptation of
staying at the level of urban utopias, but by
avoiding an immobilizer this prevents
pragmatism so we even think that other cities
are possible.
The right balance between utopia and reality
requires some ability to highlight the good
practices that exist today in cities and the
construction of theoretical frameworks that
addressed from various disciplines that work
for the city that help us to move forward.
It is well known that “For the vast majority,
cities are polluted, unhealthy, tiring,
overwhelming, confusing, alienating” (Amin,
2006, p.10). By 2050 the rates of urban
population growth indicate that almost two-
thirds of the world's population will be
concentrated in large cities, Amin (2006).
further untie these territories stigmatized of
society.
Through a conceptual battery and assuming as
a premise that “segregation is not a definitive
process” (Montaner and Muxi 2012, p.93), I
intend to reflect on the periphery, the centre
and the possibilities of re-connection in a city
divided and spatially fragmented particularly
as is the case of Santiago de Chile. Through
one urban intervention project I intend to land
on the urban look and make certain
phenomena visible described glances in the
direction and scope of the good city and the
possibilities to collectively finding ways to
push the boundaries of reality to more just
and inclusive cities.
2. The context:
In Santiago 2 just getting on a bus and
travelling less than 45 minutes to the north,
south or west3 and the landscape through the
window begins to transform. This modern and
well equipped city slowly starts to fall behind,
the scenery changes; it becomes more dense,
homogeneous and monochromatic.

Now we can see with concern different socio-

spatial phenomena that shape these unjust
cities, such as urban and residential
segregation that respond to neoliberal urban
planning systems designed to eradicate
sectors of society from the center and
accumulate in the periphery generating social
and physical problems associated with
concentration of poverty.
Fig. 1. Concentration of social class and services in
The urgency lies in the potential Santiago. Revista Foco76, Nº5, p. 51, 2007
"ghettoization" 1 of large areas of the
periphery that are increasingly being more
decoupled and can generate a sudden, as seen
in time, process that contributes to violence to 2
Capital of Chile. It has 641 km2 and almost 7 million
1
people.
“The –ghettoization- seems to be the last link in a 3
The East has been the sector of the city chosen by the
process that begins with reducing opportunities”. upper classes of society to focus and differentiate
(Sabatini and Brain 2008, p.10) however there are also pockets of poverty.

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This view that a tourist from the airport to the
hotel or a motorist travelling along the
highway at high speed is a scene that lasts a
second but for many it is the daily reality of
poverty and marginalization.
According to the Global Liveability Ranking
(2013) of The Economist Intelligence Unit 4
(EIU), Santiago is the second best city to live in
Latin America and No. 31 in the world, giving a
strong international signal of progress and
development. However this data, which is
certainly true for a very small percentage of
the population, hidden what you see every
day through the bus window: highly
segregated city, very unfair in terms of public
infrastructure and green areas and with high
levels of daily violence.
Fig. 2. Studies indicate that there is 4 m2 of green
areas per person in Santiago, far from the minimum
WHO standard of 9m2.
Atisba, (2013)
Some years ago an article of CIPER5 created a
lot of media attention, showing the public
4 7
The Economist Intelligent Unit,
http://pages.eiu.com/rs/eiu2/images/EIU_BestCities.pdf
5
Chilean investigation center,2009
http://ciperchile.cl/2009/07/20/vivir-yo-morir-en-una-
zona-ocupada-de-santiago/
4
opinion that there are vast areas of the capital
that are absolutely segregated, socially
homogeneous out of the network of services
provided by the state, such as transportation,
schools, hospitals and police surveillance,
becoming islands, outside of society
controlled by drug gangs.
Part of the explanation of the current reality
of Santiago were the measures taken by the
military dictatorship in 1979 as it decided to
liberate land use and open the market to the
private sector to locate / build new housing
projects. The result of the retreat of the state
has resulted in a profoundly unequal city with
a periphery that keeps growing and
reproducing poverty.
Urban cleavage caused by the privatization of
housing and social policies that have favoured
the number of households and not the quality
of these. "With Roof"6 (Rodriguez y Sugranyes,
2005) addresses that between 1985 and 2005
Chile decrease 7 the housing deficit
importantly, that’s why is considered a very
successful country in housing policies but this
process become the start of the ghettoization
of the city.
Today it is also necessary to state that
progress has been made by the State in the
sense of understanding that this way of
building a city is not sustainable and has
generated policies that seek to repair,
regenerate and rehabilitate neighbourhoods
built over the past 25 years, in some situations
make a clean sweep8.
A couple of weeks ago the expansion of the
urban area of Santiago was approved (PMRS
100) 9 , delivering more areas to continue
6
Translated from Spanish by the author.
Almost 50%, building 500.000 houses.
8
For example the village called “El Volcan” in the district
of Puente Alto is now being demolished.
9
Modification Nº 100 of Santiago Master Plan
speculating and extending the periphery
leaving open the possibility that these
reported phenomena acquire or achieve
greater complexity and restrain .
The realities of the periphery have acquired
notoriety through the press from time to time
with events like fires or clashes between drug
gangs, but despite of those conditions we can
find interesting processes of resistance and
resilience, in the everyday life, invisibles, that
it is necessary to understand and address it.
3. Concepts to illuminate the path.
Next I try to generate a set of concepts that
allow the periphery to be looked at again
within a critical analysis so you can browse
urban alternatives that are able to make a
difference and try to reverse the processes of
impoverishment that are there.
My intention as a practitioner that has being
involved in urban development issues is
bringing together concepts and ideas about
this urban exclusion, mix them with my
experience in the city and try to visualize
possible paths to re-view and re-think the
relation between the periphery and the
center.
3.1 Periphery and centrality
“The essential aspect of the urban
phenomenon is its centrality, but a centrality
that is understood in conjunction with the
dialectical movements that creates or
destroys it.” (Lefebvre, 2003, p. 116) It is
interesting to understand the centrality as an
urban centripetal force “…a place of
encounter, assembly, simultaneity. This form
has no specific content but is a center of
attraction and life” (Lefebvre, 2003, p.118).
Nevertheless also have the capacity to
separate through a centrifugal force.
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The center is a place that concentrates the
assets of the city and the exchange and
provision is in relation with distance. Distance
and proximity defined as the ability to access
goods and services of that centrality. In that
sense, this dialectic is a constant struggle of
actors in the periphery to weaken the
centrifugal force that marginalizes. "(Social)
Relations continued to deteriorate based on
distance, time and space institutions and
separate groups. They are revealed in the
(virtual) denial of distance" (Lefebvre, 2003,
p.118) to accede, to be part of.
This distance also has the ability to produce
invisible areas, and this is not a casual action.
The distance is directly related with the ability
to negotiate. More distance vanish the
responsibility that lies at the centre on the
other side. In this case it is understood as the
responsibility of the state to the margins.
“The right to the city becomes the right to the
centrality, the right to not be excluded from
urban form” (Lefebvre, 2003, p.194) so this
reclaim to centrality means the need of the
urban right to be guarantee for those who are
at the periphery.
In the case of Santiago de Chile there is a ring
road called Americo Vespucio which originally
was designed to contain the city, 50 years ago,
Fig.3. Image by author
but with the rampant growth of recent years it groups of football teams, defining non
has become a clear space limit set early in the trespassing areas through painting post.
periphery. This belt clearly marks the modern
struggle between inclusion and urban
exclusion, where what's on the other side is
pressed in and the center is protected through
the deregulated market and land policies.

3.2 The notion of a border.

In a society dominated by a sense of insecurity

and fear of the other, the divider wall, the
"hot border" (Montaner & Muxi, 2012, p. 12.),
is an essential part of everyday spatial
experience, particularly within peripheries.
These highly segregated spaces show “a
paradoxical condition where boundaries
Fig.4. Football areas defined trough post painting.
simultaneously include and exclude” (Boano &
Martén, 2013, Gazit, 2010, p.8). Within “the Picture of Fotolog: pakeos_madres_2, 2008
weak a diffuse city” (Morrow & Abdelmonem
2013, p. 90) as Branzi called the forgotten “But the borders sometimes also acquire a
territories, the city continues its process of territorial character of their own: when highly
fragmentation. contested and dynamic, it becomes a third
space" (Soja, 1996; Luke &Luke, 1999,
“Although the border represents the margins Cenzatti, 2008, Boano & Martén, 2013).
of the sovereign´s authority” (Boano &
Martén, 2013, Gazit, 2010). Here on the edge Here is where the border also becomes a
is where the state and control ability is space is when the possibility emerges. When
removed. At the other side control devices are the division also became encounter through,
different (indirect) operates rather the logic of “blurring the established limits and by playing
self through fear and repression; however this within the margins situations” (Morrow and
space also gains power and territory. Abdelmonem, 2013, p. 99)

“Borders and boundaries may also be 3.3 Anti-Ghetto.

constituted in symbolic, less visible or material
ways, though equally powerful in their effect”
(Bridge and Watson, 2011, p. 505) Also
“…walls in cities not only act as boundaries of
exclusion, they can also act to protect”.
(Marcuse, 2000, Bridge and Watson, 2011, p.
505)
Identities locked, can reinforce both in
positive or negative ways. An interesting
example in spatial and psychological terms is
what happens in the slums of Santiago and
the markings made by different supporter
The cell is the final collective division of the
city before the house. This group of small
units are the example of the unjust city:
Scarcity, lack of space, homogeneity,
insecurity and social vulnerability.
This cell “is not a natural area”10 (Wacquant,
2010, p.15), shaped by migration it is a “socio-
spatial system of segmentation and ethnic-
racial control” (Ibid), that proliferates in the
periphery because of the spatial condition,
10
Wacquant all quotes were translated from Spanish by
the author.

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however the recent ethnic concept begins to
acquire spatial dimensions to the Chilean
reality, so the Anti-ghetto and "its ethnic
heterogeneity, porous borders, decreasing
institutional density and the inability to create
a shared cultural identity matches better…“
(Wacquant, 2008, p.6)
This concept contemplates four ideas:
"stigma, constraint, spatial confinement and
organizational confinement" (Wacquant,
2010, p. 15), and ” is an efficient means of
subordination to material and symbolic
benefit of the dominant group, but also offers
the subordinate group a protective armour
based on parallelism and organizational
cultural autonomy "(Wacquant, 2010 , p. 16).
If there is anything that survives despite the
marginality of neighbourhood life, is some
kind of extreme solidarity expressed in
situation such: funeral, economy assistance,
urgencies and also in some everyday life
simple issues like childcare. These opposite
ends must be considered in the intervention
policies
There are experiences of public policy
approach to these realities that have sought
to strengthen ties with the territory and have
been successful.
4. Steps to making the city: Love my
neighbourhood policy
The policy “Love my Neighbourhood” began in
2006 at the Ministry of Housing of Chile to
regenerate slums from a social and physical
perspective. This program broke the paradigm
that had been working on such interventions
(Upper-Bottom) and includes the community,
as a pillar in the improvement process
(Bottom-up).
This radical step introduces four key variables
to approach to the good city:
1- Direct inclusion of the citizens in decision-
making, understanding it as a long-term
process. Overall levels of social organization in
the neighbourhoods are disintegrated, so this
type of participatory dynamics is difficult to
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incorporate, resulting in much loss of time in
the development of trusts.
2- Focus on the intermediate size of the city-
the neighbourhoods- as a spatial unit capable
to generate centrifugal forces that propagate
upward, through detonating projects,
designed by the community, that regenerate
the immediate context.
3- Platform of professionals working directly
with marginal realities could make the
difference in the long term; seen in a socio-
political manner.
4- Social empowerment processes in different
neighbourhoods and links with local and state
authorities.
The program is based on the improvement of
public space dilapidated districts,
understanding that this is where processes of
change may be implemented in a community.
Initially 200 districts participated in a time
period of 2 years and currently are working
with other 168.11
Constructive criticism:
1.-The program is designed from above so
complicates the penetration in the territories,
because there is no concern for the specifics
of each place.
2. - There is no real coordination between
central government, local authorities, local
leaders and executant teams, so the initial
implementation is very slow and sometimes
determines what follows.
3.-In general the professionals do not seem to
have the tools and skills needed to function in
these environments, so time is lost, also a
huge barrier exists between the locals and the
performers.
4.-The state bureaucracy is slow, that
undermine the bonds between the different
actors. This is a major problem that has
relation to the functioning of the state and its
ability to reaction according to the policies it
implements.
11
http://www.minvu.cl/opensite_20070212164909.aspx
 Fig. 5. Neighbourhood La Pradera, photographs taken by the author.
5.-Resources are always delayed. It is
necessary to move towards direct delivery of
resources, because on one hand they are
included in decisions but were segregated
from other tasks because they are unable.
This is a city making processes by interacting
daily in the territories that is deeply related
with the steps to have a good city.
5. - Conclusion:
The spatial approach performed through the
dialectical relationship between centrality and
periphery, the notion of edge and better
understanding of the composition of the Anti-
Ghetto, along with the practical example given
by I Love My Neighbourhood program, let now
visualize possible steps to approach a better
city.
To address the problem of possible strategies
(theoretical and practical) to reinstate or
reconnect the periphery to the center there
are two concepts that can contribute:
1.-The power of the pixel
The pixel understood as maximum resolution
unit is based on the idea of "Pixelating
through micro-policy of small-scale
interventions" (Cruz 2010, Morrow and
Abdelmonem, 2013 p.95.) Understood as a
small space starting unit that has the ability to
regenerate and connect to a larger system.
One of the difficulties is the "the difficult of s
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the bigger picture"(Ibid), so it is necessary that
this process will associate to another system
that generates the force needed to attract
new centralities closest. The city can offers
that grid.
Fig.6. Conceptual Image by the author:
Neighbourhood irradiation forces, by
2-The Hybrid Space
The centrality not only be understood as a
central geographic location as Lefebvre noted,
but as a system, an interconnected network,
extremely complex that has the ability to
appear in different places. With this idea with
the notion of the third space of Soja, as a
place of encounter, is that the possibility of
the creation / existence of another space
arises, right there in the collision between
centre and periphery, on the border between
the two realities.
A hybrid space that allow the reconnection of
the peripheries with the centrality. This
parallel system must be elastic enough to go
mutating based on the changing dynamics
that go presenting both sides of the city.
Doing an exercise of reality, this space is
displayed as a meeting place where both sides
attend, a service system and public facilities
that are looking to meet the needs of the
citizens in the different scales present. Here
the green areas have a key role as place of a
pleasure and leisure, essential detonator for
recover the lost citizenship.
This space should be a hybrid system,
(composed of different elements), an organic
mesh that is able to interface with the plot
proposed by the center and allow connections
from the periphery micro needs.
There is a town out to reconquer. Those
abandoned places, cloistered, have a great
deal to be discovered and reinstated to the
city in a virtuous process of collaboration.
The focus on this issue is essential to face the
city of tomorrow, where it seems to abound
more bad than good city.
Small changes, modifications are possible and
often that is where the good city is. Then the
message is to not stop and be involved.

Fig.7. Conceptual Image by the author: The yellow

space gathering realities.

Finally:

1.-The necessary balance between practice

and theory to address the city is like the
dynamic between utopia and process: both
are needed, as the center needs the
periphery.

2. - Concepts battery: Name to find the

concept. Not just an illustrated exercise to
show off. By naming you build a common
language; you can construct reality to begin
the strategy. These theoretical frameworks, so
messy mix at first, but then when land on the
specificity, in the territory acquires new
meanings, new intensity and intention. So the
idea is not reproduce is recycling.

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Refrences

Amin Ash, The Good City: Can we still see the
city as a place for a hopeful politics? This
article is an edited version of ‘The Good City’,
Urban Studies, 43, 5/6, and 2006.
Boano, C. and Martén, R., Agamben´s
urbanism of exception: Jerusalem´s border
mechanics and biopolitcal stronghold, 2012,
Cities.
Wacquant 2008, Interview in Pensar:
Epistemología, política y ciencias sociales Nº
3-4, Editorial CIESO 2008/2009.
http://es.scribd.com/doc/25129692/07-
WACQUANT-Guetos-y-Anti-Guetos-PENSAR-
3y4
Accesed 01.12.13

Bridge, G., Watson, S., Reflection on Division Images

and Difference, 2011, the new Blackwell
Fig. 1 Rosas. J., Green. M. y Valenzuela.
companion to the city pp.501-510, Oxford
Revista Foco 76 Nº. 5, p. 51, 2007.
Lefebvre Henri, The Urban Revolution, http://revistafoco.cl/5/ Map of Santiago whit
Minnesota, 2003. Originally published in socioeconomic prevalent group.
France under the title La Revolution Urbaine,
Accessed 01.12.13
copyright 1970, Editions Gallimard.
Fig.2. Atisba, 2013,
Montaner Josep Maria and Muxi Zaida,
http://atisba.cl/categoria/prensa/areas-
Arquitectura y Política: Ensayos para mundos
verdes/
alternativos, Gustavo Gilli, 2012.
Image of inequality trough green areas.
Morrow Ruth and Abdelmonem Mohamed
Accessed 01.12.13
Gamal, Peripheries, Routledge, 2013.
Fig.3. Image produced by author: Americo
Rodríguez Alfredo and Sugranyes Ana, Los con
Vespucio ring road.
techo, Ediciones Sur, 2005.
Fig.4. Fotolog: pakeos_madres_2, 2008,
Sabatini Francisco and Brain Isabel, La
http://www.fotolog.com/pakeos_madres_2/5
segregación, los guetos y la integración social
1315809/
urbana: mitos y claves, 2008, revista Eure.
Accessed 01.12.13
http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0250-
71612008000300001&script=sci_arttext Fig.5. Photographs taken by the author.
Neighbourhood La Pradera, Quilicura district,
Accesed 01.12.13
Santiago. Implementation of the policy “Love
Sorkin Michael, Against the Wall: Israel´s my Neghbourhood”, 2009-2011.
Barrier to Peace, The new press, 2005.
Fig.6. Conceptual image by the author.
Wacquant Loic, Las dos caras de un gueto:
Fig.7. Conceptual image by the author.
Ensayos sobre marginalización y penalización,
Siglo Veintiuno, 2010.

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