Through the prism of governance: the role of institutions in urban-rural (de)-regulation in southern Chile

ABSTRACT

Between 2019 and 2021 multiple residential cores emerged in rural areas in Chile. Real estate companies and individuals acquired plots of agricultural land for housing purposes. The change prompted rapid changes in land use that were largely regulated. This article analyses the role of formal and informal rules, as well as territorial planning policies, in the spreading of residential cores in the Andean Lake axis, Villarrica – Pucón – Curarrehue. Based on document analysis, processing and analysis of satellite images, and semi-structured interviews with key actors, this article shows how external shocks, such as the COVID pandemic, contributed to shifts in the application of regulations and practices that transformed rural areas. It concludes that in order to avoid uncontrolled rural development, territorial planning needs to consider urban and rural areas from a multisystemic perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Land use change
• territorial planning
• agricultural land conversion
• rural development
• suburbanisation
• peri-urban

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

We would like to thank the Chilean National Research and Development Agency (ANID) for funding this work through a Fondecyt de Iniciación N° 11180970.