OECD Urban Policy Reviews, Chile 2013
This review of Chile's urban policy finds that Chile has undergone significant transformation in the past three decades, including growth in GDP, population levels and urbanisation. This growth has been a key factor in Chile’s success in reaching an improved quality of life. However, Chile ranks lower than many other OECD member countries on a variety of urban-related quality-of-life factors, such as income, housing, jobs and the environment. Chile’s urban and metropolitan development practices have traditionally been sector-driven, and today the need for well-integrated approaches to urbanism are increasingly recognised among urban policy makers. This report examines the economic and socio-economic trends in Chile’s urban areas including population growth, and mounting inequality; it analyses four policy areas with significant implications for national urban programming, specifically land-use and zoning, housing, public transport, and the environment; and it examines possible approaches for revitalising the urban governance structure in metropolitan and urban areas, as well as mechanisms to reinforce strategic planning and service-delivery capacity.
Revitalising Chile's urban governance architecture
Chile’s urban governance architecture has provided a solid framework for urban development, but it may no longer be adequate to meet the pressures of continued rapid urbanisation. Improving Chile’s urban outcomes will require adjusting its urban governance framework, including building the capacity to bring central and sub-national, public and private actors together to build a whole-of-city approach to urban initiatives. This chapter focuses on Chile’s urban administrative structures, recent sub-national reforms and sub-national financing practices. It analyses the administrative and institutional fragmentation affecting urban governance and explores institutionally based governance models, including those for metropolitan areas. Finally, it examines mechanisms to reinforce strategic planning and public service delivery capacity based on the country’s own context and international experience.