ARTÍCULO
TITULO

Bicentenary: An opportunity to rethink urban housing policies in Chile

Rubén Sepúlveda Ocampo    
Jorge Larenas Salas    
Vanessa Prado Barroso    
Bárbara Prat Waldron    
Jun Álvarez González    

Resumen

Different countries of the Region are developing a series of projects to celebrate the Bicentenary. In a context of competition for visibility, these plans are intended to promote country image by taking into account the concepts of globalization and neoliberalism. In the case of Chile, initiatives are more focused on the future than the past of the nation. It is a turning point for Chilean urban policies, where Ciudad Parque Bicentenario, through the combination of basic concepts of quantity, quality and integration, is an example of this forward-looking approach expressed on housing-urban affairs. With a major role of the State, Chile has gradually consolidated a housing policy and reduced the quantitative housing deficit. However, this policy had serious urban and social consequences; sociospatial segregation is one of them. The solution to these problems is, then, a task of the new policies. The ?I Love My Neighbourhood? programme (PQMB by its initials in Spanish) is composed by elements that may coincide to those of fourth generation policies, namely, participation, integration and systematicity. This initiative represents an important turning point in first, second and third generation policies; which were thought to address the construction of housing units, urbanization and regularization respectively.