Housing as urbanism: the role of housing policies in reducing inequalities. Lessons from Puente Alto, Chile. Issue 9 (21st October 2021) - Cociña, Camila
Abstract: This article explores the potential of housing policies to reduce economic, social and political inequalities. Understanding inequalities as issues of distribution and recognition, housing policies have the potential to tackle them by encouraging more equal outcomes and processes. Presupposing the centrality of the urban dimension in current debates, this article puts forward the idea of housing as urbanism as a framework of analysis. This framework is used to discuss the Chilean case, a market-led housing system that is considered as a financial model by many countries in the global South. However, urban shortcomings have encouraged policy makers to incorporate explicit urban equality ambitions in recent years. Based on empirical work conducted in Bajos de Mena, Santiago, the article presents two programmes with equality aspirations, examining their economic, social and political impacts. To draw lessons from the cases contributing to wider debates, it identifies the main challenges in addressing inequality, reflecting on the relevance of these conclusions beyond the Chilean case.