Urban systems of accumulation: half a century of Chilean neoliberal urban policies

We analyse a half-century of Chilean urban reforms to explain the introduction of a system of urban accumulation by dispossession of public resources and opportunities. Three stages have been conceptualised in the imposition of a neoliberal creative-destructive process: proto-neoliberalism, roll-back and roll-out periods. Empirical studies have traditionally analysed this process by examining a single urban policy's evolution over time. In this paper, we go beyond these types of studies by performing a systemic analysis of multiple urban policy reforms in Santiago, Chile. We use a genealogical thematic analysis to track changes in laws, government programmes and planning documents from between 1952 and 2014. Our analysis identifies different “urban systems of accumulation” by looking at the interplay of four urban policies: (1) urban planning deregulation; (2) social housing privatisation; (3) devolution of territorial taxes; and (4) decreased public service provision. Moreover, our multidimensional policy analysis in Santiago characterises a more radical, fourth expression in the creative destruction process of “accumulation by dismantling”. Consequently, we advocate for more multidimensional urban policy research that goes beyond a three-period analysis in order to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary neoliberal creative-destructive processes in variegated geographies

Movilidad femenina: los reveses de la utopía socio-espacial en las poblaciones de Santiago de Chile

Daily displacement is one of the main activities of women in the poor neighborhoods of Latin American cities. Their female status makes heavy demands of them in connection with household support,, accompaniment, maintenance of family relationships and neighborhood social networks, etc. They are consequently obliged to make countless trips both inside and outside their neighborhoods. Through an analysis of the daily travel routines of women in Santa Julia, a poor neighborhood in Santiago, this article shows how the urban design of the political project of “popular promotion” has turned out to be a double-edged weapon. These women’s habitual pathways are being threatened by public space today, a situation which reignites the old debate on whether urban design by itself can transform society