Indeed, Chile is a centralist country in urban matters, and this translates into an enormous responsibility for the ministry apparatus to govern all urban processes. We urban planners do not know which door to knock on. The most important instrument for the management of urban planning in Chile is the Budget Law, which distributes 80 percent of what is spent in Chile on urban development. What happens, then, is that the sector criteria of each ministry take precedence. The Budget Law is never discussed from a territorial point of view, from the point of view of how these funds will reach the territory. Then the Ministry of Public Works appears and builds a road over there, the Ministry of Housing builds houses in Puente Alto, the Ministry of Health builds a hospital over here, the Ministry of Education founds a school, and who ensures that all these actions coincide in time and the territory for the people's quality of life? This means that you have a lot of families that come to a town built by the Ministry of Housing and it turns out that there is no school, no polyclinic, and no good accessibility. It is essential to have a long-term vision agreed upon by the community, a “where we want to go”. In the case of the "Recovery and Urban Development Plan for Valparaíso", you as the IDB, the financing bank, had the possibility of influencing the approach to urban planning. What was that experience like? In 2007, in order to address the "Valparaíso Urban Recovery and Development Plan", a wide diversity of social actors had to be brought together. We then proposed the creation of a "Development Corporation" to coordinate the actions of both public and private sectors. This had already been imple- mented in the recovery of downtown Barcelona and we had replicated it in Quito with the same positive results. However, in Chile, we were told that there was no political space for a corporation. We then proposed a five-year "Contract Plan", as was done in the recovery of western Paris, and they told us that they could not commit to a multi-year budget. What was finally done? We did what they love to do in Chile: a round table. An instance where everyone talks and has a good time and then everyone goes home and no one is responsible for anything. That is what happened in Valparaíso, several issues were addressed at the table and finally, each institution and actor looked after its own interest, and the sector logic was imposed over the integral logic of the community and the territory How should we address this problem? The first thing we have to do, the most fundamental thing, is to connect the community with the decisions about its territory. This connection is not easy to make, because the community's attachment to its territory is not automatic. It is difficult to define which territory one feels part of: are we citizens of Santiago, are we citizens of Providencia, of the Southern Cone? This emotionality is difficult to interpret. The distribution of communities in Chile, especially in urban areas, has boundaries that seem to be very arbitrary. The territory is structured in a way that has no emotionality. People do not "buy" it. What has to happen is that these people, who do not necessarily feel linked to their territory, reach an agreement on what they want to have as a city. How is this lack of coordination reflected in Chile? I live in Washington, just a few blocks from the White House, I have everything I need within walking distance because it is a city that was planned with a diversity of functions. Now let's take Villa Panamericana as an example: a project that has been 15 years in the making, a place that could have
gasto puede llegar a que el 50 por ciento esté en manos de las administraciones locales.
Efectivamente, en materia urbana, Chile es un país centralista y por lo tanto se traduce en la enorme responsabilidad que tiene el aparato ministerial de gobernar todos estos procesos urbanos. Los urbanistas no sabemos a qué puerta golpear. El instru- mento más importante de gestión del urbanismo en Chile es la Ley de Presupuesto, que distribuye el 80 por ciento de lo que se gasta en Chile en desarrollo urbano. Lo que pasa, entonces, es que priman los criterios sectoriales de cada ministerio. Y nunca se discute la ley de presupuesto desde el punto de vista territorial, desde cómo llegan estas platas al territorio. Entonces, aparece el Ministerio de Obras Públicas y construye una carretera por allá, el Ministerio de Vivienda hace viviendas en Puente Alto, el Ministerio de Salud construye un hospital por acá, el de Educación funda una escuela, y ¿quién asegura que todas estas acciones coinciden en el tiempo y en el territorio para la calidad de vida de la gente? Esto se traduce en que tienes un montón de familias que llega a una población hecha por el Ministerio de la Vivienda y resulta que no hay escuela ni policlínico ni buena accesibilidad. Es fundamental tener una visión de largo plazo concordada por la comunidad, un “para dónde queremos ir”. En el caso del “Plan de recuperación y de desarrollo urbano de Valparaíso” ustedes como BID, el banco financista, tuvieron la posibilidad de ejercer una influencia sobre la manera de abordar el urbanismo. ¿Cómo fue esa experiencia? En 2007, para abordar el “Plan de recuperación y de desarro- llo urbano de Valparaíso”, había que poner de acuerdo a una gran diversidad de actores sociales. Entonces propusimos crear una “Corporación de desarrollo” para coordinar el accionar tanto del sector público como del privado. Esto ya se había implementado para la recuperación del centro de Barcelona y lo habíamos replicado en Quito con los mismos buenos resultados. Sin embargo, en Chile nos dijeron que no
R “We urban planners do not know which door to knock on. The most important instrument for the management of urban planning in Chile is the Budget Law, which distributes 80 percent of what is spent in Chile on urban development. What happens, then, is that the sector criteria of each ministry take precedence.” R “Los urbanistas no sabemos a qué puerta golpear. El instrumento más importante de gestión del urbanismo en Chile es la Ley de Presupuesto, que distribuye el 80 por ciento de lo que se gaste en Chile en desarrollo urbano. Lo que pasa, entonces, es que priman los criterios sectoriales de cada ministerio”.
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Entrevista / Interview
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