La ciudad de Valdivia: Centralismo, configuración urbana y políticas de vivienda. Continuidades y contradicciones desde el sur (1909-1990)

Abstract

The metropolitan centralism exercised from Santiago to other Chilean cities is reflected in different scales of power. The housing policies implemented since the early twentieth century detail the progress and the contradictions for the urban orientation of middle cities whose morphology complicated the capital’s decisions. The case of Valdivia recognizes these two issues. On one hand, political management that proposed to be applied unilaterally throughout the territory, and on the other the exceptional nature of the generation of a housing solution with a local perspective; both in terms of a material nature and access placing attention on natural as well as human events in its urban configuration. This article attempts to organize the development of these policies in Valdivia, starting from primary sources that contain the foundations of the four essential structures of the past century: Consejo Superior de Habitaciones Obreras, Caja de Habitacion Popular, Corporacion de la Vivienda, and the beginnings of the Servicio de Vivienda y Urbanizacion. These organizations represent the spirit of the legislation and its effects, but also the focus of metropolitan power, which, until today continues to be one of the main sources of tension for the Chilean State.