From subsidy to neighborhood and from neighborhood to subsidy: an analysis of social housing demolition in Chile

Chile's social housing policy has brought with it effects that have been more adverse than expected. Among them, the massive production of territories where urban poverty is concentrated. To address this problem, governments have deployed measures that seek to subvert these effects. This has been considered a qualitative turn in policy, in contrast to massive housing production. One of these remedial measures is the identification of vulnerable neighbourhoods, which have been the subject of innovative urban and social intervention. Within the category of vulnerable neighbourhoods, critical neighbourhoods emerge, where an exceptional process of demolition, displacement and reconstruction of social housing has been deployed. Conceptually, these mechanisms are explained by phenomena such as the neighbourhood effect and the search to build upward residential trajectories. Through a primarily qualitative case study, this process is described and analysed. The results show the political and discursive underpinnings of demolition, the experience of displacement and the perceptions surrounding the construction of a new housing complex. It is concluded that this is a radical intervention in physical and spatial terms, but it does not address the social issues that were at the origin of the intervention.