The experience of living in Santiago’s first consolidated block by the urban renewal process: The perception of the well-being of its inhabitants

Abstract

How can we approach living experiences focusing on the perception of the inhabitants? What does the integration of quantitative and qualitative perspectives placing the inhabitant at the center of research contribute? These are the questions that the article seeks to answer to investigate the quality of life by relating qualitative and quantitative variables of the experience of living in the densest block and the first one consolidated by the urban renewal process in the city of Santiago de Chile. The study began in the first stage with an (objective) analysis of comfort conditions such as lighting and sunlight, acoustics, quality and equipment of shared spaces, volumetry, and configuration of public spaces, etc. In the second stage, we conducted 500 surveys about inhabitants' quality of life. In the third (subjective) phase, we selected and interviewed ten owners who had been residents for more than five years, exploring the possible contributions of the phenomenological methodology, mainly used in neurosciences, to deepen their perceptions of living and to understand some of the results of the survey. The combination of methods allowed a multiple analysis to approach the experience of living in small apartments in the city's central area. The study's findings, such as the positive evaluation of the neighborhood, acceptable evaluation of housing, high social isolation, and the idealization of the previous housing, also illuminate how the (subjective) notion of well-being is constructed, providing a methodological perspective that favors the approach to the inhabitant’s experience in urban studies.