LA RESPONSABILIDAD INTERNACIONAL

i. Housing Policies

Researchers on Chilean housing policies have carefully analysed the impact of the changes introduced after the "JaP military coup (see Richards "JJ[, Sabatini HIII, Rodríguez and Rodríguez HIIJ, Salcedo HI"I, Boano and Vergara Perucich HI"gb). These have been mostly sustained by ensuing democratic governments, from "JJI onwards, with minor variations. Therefore, these policies have shaped in determining ways the form of the Santiago we inhabit today.

Before the dictatorship, between "JHJ and "JaP, Chile had gone through a process of industrial development, import-substitution and protectionism. This drove more people to move to Santiago attracted by employment opportunities and also prompted the organization of workers who started to claim for basic rights. Architect Patricio Gross ("JJ", P[) defines the "JPg-"JcX period as one in which the State ‘assumes an active role seeking social protection and solution to the problems of the country, particularly of the most disadvantaged groups’. In this period, several welfare policies were implemented that

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benefitted particularly middle-class groups (Arellano "Jgg). The range and impact of these policies broadened between "JcX and "JaP, a period that economist José Pablo Arellano calls ‘the integration of low-income sectors’ in which the state took a central role as wealth redistributive actor (XP). Social policies aimed at reaching the poorest population such as peasants and marginal urban groups, which implied a great increase of the public spending. These policies did not resolve social problems, but they helped to improve everyday conditions of Santiago’s inhabitants (Richards "JJ[, ["J).

Furthermore, sociologist Rodrigo Salcedo (HI"I) identifies the "JcX-"JaP as one of ‘reform and revolution’ in which the governments of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei and Socialist Salvador Allende ‘attempted structural changes in Chilean society’ (JP). Frei started a vast plan of housing construction that was followed up and enhanced by Allende.

The state subsidised developers in building affordable housing and then, the state assigned these units to inhabitants’ organizations who paid back to the state (JX). Many of the housing projects were located in central areas, around XI%, which helped social integration and improved the access to social services and urban amenities of the lower-income groups (Navarrete-Hernández and Toro HI"J, g). In this period, popular squatting actions were common too. They were even encouraged by the government who regulated these operations afterward (Salcedo HI"I, JX). Urban researchers Pablo Navarrete-Hernández and Fernando Toro (HI"J, c) demonstrate how urban policies of the "J[H-"JaP period led to a ‘developmentalist urban transformation in Santiago characterised by a process of urban equity by distribution (UEbyD)’.

The military dictatorship restructured the role of the state in housing policies. Welfare policies were replaced by neoliberal ones by the hand of a group of young economists who studied under the mentorship of Milton Friedman in Chicago. They were known as the

‘Chicago boys’. While the military regime maintained a concern for the conditions of the

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poorer population and developed ‘minimal social aid programmes’ (Navarrete-Hernández and Toro HI"J, J), it minimised its role from a redistributive one to one limited to just providing the conditions for the private sector and the market to take care of social services such as health, education or housing (Richards "JJ[, ["[). Its social policy, then, followed the form of ‘carefully targeted state subsidies’ (["c).

The lack of housing was still a problem during the military regime. Much of the poorest population were living in shantytowns in deprived conditions, which were aggravated by the economic recession of the early "JgIs. While some of the occupied lands were located within low-income areas, other were in high-income ones. The military regime tackled the housing problem either by upgrading with legal titles those who had invaded low-value land or by relocating those who were occupying ‘areas required for other uses’ in wealthier areas, a process that was known as ‘eradications’ (Richards "JJ[, [HH). They were moved to the city periphery, to less valued land often in the south-west, ‘with poor infrastructure, far from employment possibilities’ ([HP). This was a sort of a cleansing of the low-income population from wealthy comunas which reinforced inequality among comunas since those already low-income municipalities needed to allocate and assist more people with the same scarce resources they had while land and economic resources were freed for wealthy comunas.

Together with this, a new policy of social housing was established that consisted in subsidised basic housing units for ‘marginal’ groups that were built by private builders contracted by the state and subjected ‘to a strict cost ceiling’ ([HX). Salcedo (HI"I, JX) explains that eligible people needed to save an amount of the cost of the property and ‘the remaining value of the house was paid for with a long-term bank loan insured by the state’.

He highlights the fact that ‘housing was redefined from a “social right” to a commodity that could be individually obtained, eliminating the idea of “collective” struggle for

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housing’. A subsidy for buyers from the middle-class was also provided. This policy of subsidies has endured until the present with only a few changes. In the "JJIs, democratic governments incremented the number of houses built every year with the goal of ending people living in shantytowns, even at the cost of neglecting the evidence of the marginality, violence and drug trafficking problems these complexes of basic housing were going through. Then in the HIIIs, some changes were introduced after reviewing the last decade of housing policies (J[). For example, the poorest population could have access to an ownership title after saving an amount of around £HaI, without needing to pay then a bank loan. In the case of the not-so-poor, they could start organising themselves through a new non-profit institution called Social Development Management Enterprise (EGIS) to prepare their housing projects and ‘negotiate building and location conditions with developers’ (J[).

In general, the numbers may appear to describe the story of a successful housing policy:

‘in HIIc, after "c years of left-of-center governments, shantytowns and slums are almost a thing of the past: Only "HI.III people live in shantytowns’ (J"). However, as Ben Richards ("JJ[, [Hc) acknowledges: ‘Improvements in certain indices, however, do not tell the entire story: the Basic Housing Programme did provide affordable housing for significant sectors of the urban poor, but it also produced severe overcrowding and strengthened segregation in an already profoundly divided city’. What seems evident is that after more than XI years of emphasising the market deciding where and how to construct social housing a legacy has been left of a highly segregated city, full of unequal contrasts.

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ii. Land Liberalization and Homogenization of Comunas

The expulsion of shantytowns from wealthier areas was in part possible due to the prior liberalization of the urban limits of Santiago in "JaJ. This change in the regulations of what was considered as urban land allowed the inclusion of cX.III ha of land in the peripheries when, originally, the area of the city of Santiago reached only Pg.gII ha (Morales et al. "JJI, Sabatini HIII). This meant a radical change in the urban growth politics from a controlled one that privileged certain compactness to one that potentiated urban sprawl (Morales et al. "JJI, [). Sociologist Francisco Sabatini (HIII, ["-[H) indicates that the principles followed responded to the purpose of positioning the market to regulate the limits of the urban area according to supply, demand and profitability. That way, urban areas are seen as growing naturally adjusted to market needs. Yet, after a few years, in "Jg[, some limitations were reintroduced and then, in "JJX, the expansion was limited only to HX.III ha, that corresponded mostly to the area that was already been built since the "JaJ liberalization ([c).

Another process that aggravated the socio-economic segregation of Santiago was the municipal reform of the "JgIs. Original comunas were divided following a criterion of social homogenization ‘moving from large and socially heterogeneous municipalities to smaller and homogeneous ones’ (Salcedo HI"I). The number of comunas increased from

"a to PX under the justification of better channelling resources to help the poorest population. This ended up only aggravating socio-economic inequalities by reinforcing a geography of wealthier and poorer comunas: ‘This type of segregation between rich and poor—a segregation which was both social and spatial—was symptomatic of Chile's authoritarian modernisation' (Richards "JJ[, [H"). The targeted subsidies for the poorer did not help them towards an improvement of living conditions but just gave them a little help to keep surviving in a neoliberal system that was leaving them without any kind of protection from market forces.

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