The greening of neoliberal urbanism in Santiago de Chile: urbanisation by green enclaves and the production of a new socio-nature in Chicureo

Abstract

Urban enclaves - private and gated developments for elitist groups - are a worldwide spread mode of colonisation of the peri-urban and countryside of metropolitan areas, in a context of cities under capitalist globalisation and urban neoliberalisation. At the same time, environmental concerns and environmentalism are acknowledged as increasingly relevant drivers of change in urban planning and urbanism worldwide, as a myriad of public and private initiatives of urban sustainability and urban greening are reported in cities worldwide. This thesis examines the intertwining of neoliberal urbanism and urban greening in the urban enclaves that sprouted in Santiago de Chile in the late 1990s, amidst the political tensions of the period of political transition to democracy and the debates over the continuity or dismissal of Pinochet’s neoliberal legacy for the urban policies. Although many studies have focused on the Chilean neoliberal experiment, the role of environmentalism and environmental discourses in the reforms to urban growth policies in Santiago in the postdictatorial period remains unexplored. And, despite the debates over social inequality triggered by their rise, the environmental transformation that the new urban enclaves have produced and their role in the production of environmental inequality have not been substantially addressed. This study analyses the linkages between neoliberal urbanism and urban greening in the making, maintaining and living of urban enclaves in Chicureo, in Santiago’s metropolitan countryside. Anchored on Urban Political Ecology proposals, this research examines the role of a new urban metabolism of material flows and subjectivity driven by the urban enclaves in the production of a new socio-nature in Chicureo. The findings suggest that the assemblage of innovations in neoliberal planning, market environmentalism and elitist utopianism is generating green enclaves that reproduce social privilege and environmental inequality. Nevertheless, tensions and conflicts account for possibilities of alternative directions in Chicureo’s development.

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