Polycentrism in Chile: Exploratory measurement for city-systems of regions La Araucanía, Los Ríos and Los Lagos

Abstract

Polycentricity is a concept that has gained strength in recent years as one of the European territorial policy strategic objectives, which aims to promote more balanced and cohesive spaces. Its definition and measurement has generated much debate in the international scientific community, in which Chile has been lagging. This publication aims to define the concept of polycentricity, its main aspects and to propose some improvements in the measurement methods were used. For this purpose, it has been applied a theoretical measurement of the level of polycentricity within three regions of southern Chile: la Araucanía, los Ríos and los Lagos. The results suggest the existence of a lower middle polycentricity as a whole system and a low level of polycentric in each region.