Santiago is a city where coexist more than 7 million inhabitants often superimposed their individual interests above the common good and where urban planning is generally a scarce that only It seems to exist in the districts and communes of revenue or specific projects, vestiges of initiatives such as the CORMU, whose basic law provided for the purpose of: “… Improve and renew the damaged areas of the cities by urban development programs… “.”
A new effort was made the year 2014 with the enactment of the national urban development policy, presenting three major postulates: Social development, economic development and environmental balance, but that also consider including the “social integration” and the scope of “Identity and heritage”, policy that incorporates the creation of the National Council of urban development and dedicated to advise and make proposals to the President of the Republic.
On the one hand, there is a general consensus on the problems associated with the extension of the urban limit and the consequent construction of social and economic housing in the outskirts of the city. Extensive transportation, lack of services and facilities make these inhabitants have a poor quality of life. That motivates encouraging densification in height from the Centre and Verona of Santiago and with that goal settled areas of urban renewal which offered subsidies and standards that make more attractive the real estate business. Today, the arrival of migrants and the change of mentality of citizenship that emphasizes the reduced transfer times and the increased supply of services and equipment across the dimension of your home, has made to increase considerably the demand for projects of multi-storey buildings.
However, the lack of urban planning or a shared vision of the city make this densification is not carried out with criteria of sustainability, livability and quality of life. The real estate market maximizes the use of the ground design of 42-storey buildings and approximately 1000 departments (Colonel Souper 3202, Central Station), where some of them measured only 17 m2. In this commune in few years has built an approximate 28 projects, all with similar characteristics, many of them with deficit of green areas or elevators; collapsing the existing services to its about and to alter the quality of life of the oldest inhabitants of the district.
But this does not happen in all the communes of Santiago. Providencia, Las Condes, La Reina or Vitacura, among others, have regulatory plans, oversight and an image of city where the projects running prioritize the quality of life of its neighbors. In many of them is considered even the shadow that the building be screened on the adjacent buildings or the amount of free surface in first floor that ensures as many green areas.
Let the market alone to manage the design of our cities has caused as consequence an uneven area with sectors of the capital where the road infrastructure is built through underground tunnels or parks that compensate the terrain used, while in other transport infrastructures divided the territories, destroy the landscape and generate serious problems of pedestrian accessibility.
The same problem occurs with the accessibility to services, parks and bicycle paths being built depending on the resources of the commune or the economic capacity of its inhabitants, leaving the most vulnerable without access to most of them.
While it is true in countries like our investments of this type of projects are mostly private and is this sector which finally designed the city, is the State that must ensure that its development is harmonious and allows the city to deliver a better quality Ad of life to all its inhabitants. In Chile, we must recognize that this is still a pending issue that urge to regulate with a global view.
Poured in this op-ed content is the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial line nor the counter position.
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