Social moyennisation and recent residential transformations in the Araucanía cities

Abstract

Neoliberal capitalism has promoted the restructuring of social classes within urban spaces, which have resulted in new urban typologies. This article analyses the way in which thtransformations in the social class structure of the last decades have impacted on the urban dynamics of three cities of La Araucanía: Temuco, Angol and Villarrica. The results show that the middle class has expanded while lower-class residents have declined within the social structure of these cities. In that context, this research shows how those social dynamics are expressed in territorial key within the urban spaces of the Region, in complement with local real estate dynamics that move between the increase of the social mixture of space and the expulsion of the lower classes of consolidated urban areas. Finally, this article reflects on the need to move towards the understanding of how the particularities of these cities have the capacity to build communities in them.