The Social Production of the Urban Peripheries: (In)formality, the Role of the State, and the Participation of Popular Sectors

Abstract

This article analyzes the social production of urban peripheries in Chile from a historical and relational perspective, examining how cycles of informal urbanization relate to changing modes of State intervention. Drawing on documentary analysis of housing policies, presidential speeches, and informal settlement registries from 1930 to 2020, four stages in the production of urban peripheries are identified: informal (1930-1973), neoliberal transformation (1973-1989), formal consolidation (1990-2018) and new cycle of informal settlements (2018 to date). It argues that informal settlements have functioned, at different times, as a means of access to housing, a mechanism for sociopolitical participation, and a space for territorial dispute. However, the shift toward a neoliberal model has reduced the margins for popular agency, institutionalizing access to housing and producing spatially segregated and politically excluded peripheries. The article contends that the current housing crisis and exponential increase in informality cannot be explained solely by circumstantial factors, but rather reflect the structural contradictions of a market-oriented housing production model. This analysis contributes to understanding how tensions between contradictory State principles and disputes over control and appropriation of the urban territory shape urban space.