territories and cities we see are the result of a long, ongoing process of cumulative selection”.¹ It is worth noting, as De Ramón points out², that, in light of Valparaí- so’s significant port expansion, commercial importance, and population and economic growth during the second half of the 19th century, fierce competition for urban supremacy would intensify with Santiago, the seat of the country’s political administration. Nevertheless, figures such as Vicuña Mackenna believed that the two cities should be closely integrated, advocating for the construction of what would later become the railroad linking the port city with the capital. However, the Mayor of Santiago will also drive the urban transforma- tion of both spatial configurations, which, as is well known, were shaped by a tension between the construction of symbols of the capital in the founding core and the emerging residential peripheries. Nevertheless, the port’s unique topography—characterized by a marked division between the flatlands, the hills, and the cliffs—will determine very different conditions for the city’s modes of production. Indeed, the natural tension between the occupation of the coastline and that of the hills has also been one of a certain incompatibility be- tween urban planning in the lower zone and spontaneous occupation in the upper zones, which have been addressed, on the one hand, by a slow and gradual process of creating structural landfills and protective rockfill embankments that have established a functional layout suited to its role as a port and financial-commercial hub, and, on the other hand, by a constant struggle to occupy steep slopes and hillsides in an effort to meet the housing demands of the local population. In this vein, and in order to confirm the discrepancies between the patterns of growth on the flat areas and the hillsides—as was the case in Santiago—Engineer Bertrand was commissioned to conduct a street survey to obtain precise plans for undertaking sanitation projects, street realignments, and new street openings within two grids that were to be closely interwoven. Additionally, to address disorderly growth and the different sectoral realities, as proposed by Vicuña Mackenna, a Beltway was proposed to unify the city as a whole. In the case of Valparaíso, architect Fermín Vivaceta replicated this idea, which was implemented as a road situated at elevation 100, defining a boundary to the city’s urban expansion in the higher sectors— especially spontaneous construction, and that would not only connect all the hills to one another and to the city but also establish a viewing ledge acting as a buffer between the consolidated areas and the outer zones. What worked to some extent for Santiago, defining the general shape of the central city, in Valparaíso consolidated the segregated pattern and the socio-spatial stratification that still exists today. However, recogniz- ing this pattern and the various processes in the modern formation of Valparaíso opens up the possibility of resolving it. Disjointed Dialogue For decades, Valparaíso has served as an unwitting testing ground for the tensions inherent in Chilean housing policy: On its hills, different realities coexist in a disjointed dialogue: emergency housing erected in a matter of hours after a disaster; squatter settlements that position the city as the Chilean capital of this complex reality linked to the housing shortage; state-sponsored social housing built over extended and often uncertain timelines; and market-driven housing that emerges sporadi- cally, disconnected from the compromised historic district, undermining potential synergies that could revitalize the neglected heritage center. These housing types are not isolated compartments. They overlap geographically, competing for scarce land, and often serve the same
Valparaíso: The Coexistence of Emergency Housing, Public Housing, and the Real Estate Market
By: AGabriela Manzi, Humberto Eliash and José Rosas
Valparaíso perhaps encapsulates the most acute contradictions of Chile’s housing system: shantytowns on high-risk hillsides, insufficient subsidies, real estate speculation on heritage hills, and an institutional framework that responds only reactively to disasters. Disconnected enclaves, precarious and vulnerable to the passage of time, the state, the private sector, and the geographical conditions of a city that gazes nostalgically and romantically at the sea that calmly laps at our shores. Valparaíso is a city shaped by its geography: The natural amphithe- ater formed by its 42 hills sloping down toward the Pacific Bay is a structural condition that implicitly explains what happens there— how the land is used, how people move about, the risks they take, and the inequalities that become normalized. The city center—that horizontal strip reclaimed from the sea between the port and the foothills—concentrates institutions, commerce, and connectivity. The hills absorb life, heritage, and vulnerability. Between the two, there is not just an elevation difference: there are two overlapping cities. The natural link that unites them is the ravines, which we are certain constitute dangerous, flammable corridors worryingly occupied by informal settlements. Living in Valparaíso means constantly navigating a topography that has shown no mercy to improvisation. Its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003 raised expectations: This distinction highlighted its hills, its funiculars, and its Victorian architecture, yet failed to halt the pre-existing process of urban decay. This designation brought heritage restrictions, which also froze private investment. The result is a city that lost more than 11,000 residents according to the 2024 Census, with a depopulated historic district and heritage mansions that are gradually succumbing to decay. However, Valparaíso has had notable moments in its urban histo- ry—a past that perhaps deserves a closer look: as Secchi puts it, “the
1 Secchi, Bernardo. ”The First Lesson in Urban Planning.” School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Lima, 2014. 2 De Ramón, Armando. “Santiago, Chile. History of an Urban Society” Catalonia Publishing. Santiago. 2018.
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