From the Neighborhood to the Housing Complex: Public Space and Sociability of Social Housing in Santiago

Chilean housing policy has suffered a profound transformation during the last decades. In the sixties and the beginning of the seventies a model emerged based on community attributes, promoting community organization and the construction of well-provided neighborhoods that, in addition, had abundant public space. In 1973, the focus shifted with the implementation of a subsidiary model that promoted single-family and individual solutions and payed far less attention to the collective development of the residential habitat. Although the continuation of this model until today has significantly reduced the housing shortage, it has been unable able to reproduce a residential space of community ties. This article aims to investigate the impacts of both models on the configuration, use and appropriation of the public space and the neighborhood sociability of the residents through a multi-methods analysis of two social housing projects located in Santiago de Chile. The findings reaffirm the relevance of the history and the organization of the neighborhoods, but also confirm the significance of planned public spaces and the arrangement of the built environment as dimensions that can promote or suppress social practices.