The displacement of Santiago de Chile’s downtown during 1990–2015: Travel time effects on eradicated population

Abstract

The center of activities of Santiago de Chile has been continuously evolving towards the eastern part of the city, where the most affluent residents live. This paper characterizes the direction and magnitude of this evolution through an indicator stating how much the built surface area for service purposes grows in different areas in the city. To identify the impact of this evolution, we compare residents’ travel-time distributions from different sectors in the city to the central area. This travel-time comparison is focused on the sectors where informal settlements were massively eradicated between 1978–1985 and those areas where the settlements were relocated. This analysis show that this policy and the consequent evolution of the city were detrimental to the affected families, significantly increasing average travel time to the extended center of the city and inequality among different socioeconomic groups in the city. Although the phenomenon is quite visible to everyone, it has not received any policy reaction from the authority. These findings suggest that middle and low-income sectors would benefit if policies driving the evolution of the center of activities towards them were implemented.