https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8612-2479
![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to study the neighborhood social cohesion of the inhabitants of the Metropolitan Area of Santiago, Chile (MAS), considering its recent urban transformations driven by neoliberal urban policies. Using multilevel logistic regressions based on a survey of 401 inhabitants, we identify a symbolic cohesion among residents with higher incomes, which combines a high sense of belonging with low neighborhood sociability, and a relational cohesion among the vulnerable population, based on a stronger neighborhood sociability and a low sense of belonging. These results show an influence of the geographical divide between high and low income inhabitants, accentuated by the socio-spatial segregation of the metropolis in the past decades, in addition to identifying a certain relationship between neighborhood cohesion and two of its major neoliberal trends of urban growth: the densification of its center and the development of peripheral social housing. We argue that a deeper understanding of the distinction between relational and symbolic forms of neighborhood social cohesion is relevant because, as well as allowing us to analyze the MAS case by addressing its current complexity, it provides an opportunity to discuss the way in which the concept is defined and conceived in recent literature.
Acknowledgments
This work has been developed within the framework of the Doctoral Program of Geography of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, within the research group Tudistar.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Andrés Señoret
Andrés Señoret: Sociologist, Master in Urban Development from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, PhD candidate in Geography at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion (COES) and professor for the Facultad de la Construccion y Ordenamiento Territorial of Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana (UTEM). His work has focused on studying the intersection between the built environment, the daily practices of the inhabitants and their patterns of sociability and social cohesion. He has participated in research at the Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) on various topics such as housing rental, precarious work and urban sociability, in addition to working as a professional for the public and private sectors on topics of citizen participation, development of public space projects and studies on housing and neighborhood.
Felipe Link
Felipe Link: Sociologist, and holds a Doctorate in Architecture and Urban Studies from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He currently serves as an associate professor at the Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales at the same university and is an associated researcher at both the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) and the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). From 2014 to 2023, he was the chief editor of the Latin American Journal of Urban-Regional Studies, EURE (www.eure.cl). He has served as the principal investigator and co-investigator on various projects funded by national and international public grants. Currently, he is the principal investigator for the 2022-2025 Fondecyt regular project, “Geographies of Residential Transitoriness: Markets, Forms, and Practices of Renting in Chile.”
Sebastián Rodríguez
Sebastián Rodríguez: Geographer from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (2015) and a master’s degree in risk and resources governance from the Heidelberg Center for Latin America, University of Heidelberg, Germany (2018). He is currently a PhD candidate in Geography at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He works as a professor at the School of Geography of the Alberto Hurtado University; research assistant at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development, CEDEUS; he is a member of the Ibero-American Network for Research in Imaginaries and Representations, RIIR; and since 2024 he has been editor-in-chief of the Norte Grande Geography Magazine.
Luis Fuentes
Luis Fuentes: Geographer, Master in Development and PhD in Architecture and Urban Studies from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Associate professor and main researcher of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Since 2008 he has been professor of undergraduate and graduate courses at UC, directing theses at different levels of academic training. He was editor and director of the EURE journal and director of the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies. His lines of research are related to urban growth and socio-spatial transformations, addressing this problem from different perspectives and with different methodologies, publishing articles in indexed journals and book chapters in publishers with a high level of circulation and dissemination. He participates in national and international research projects, collaborating with other universities in Latin America and Europe.