Download file 269 KB Texto completo en español More of: Francisco Javier Labbé Marcelo Llévenes

As a result of the social housing policy implemented by the actual government, a process began to implant and eradicate camps. In 1982, urban impoverishment encompassed around 600,000 people in the Metropolitan Region, who lacked the minimum conditions of sanitation.
The paper concentrates on the eradication of camps conducted between the years 1979 and 1984. Figures are presented on the flow of population in this process between the different boroughs of Greater Santiago. It also determines what the direction of the natural or voluntary flow of people between boroughs has been and compares it to the one imposed by the Ministry of Housing. Thereafter, it seeks to determine whether the government, the creator of the eradication process, has implemented the necessary support structures required to conduct this process since the private sector seems not to have the incentive necessary to provide any services, such as education, health, urban roads, etc., because of the low level of income of the re-settled people, the disadvantaged situation of some boroughs who receive them or because some services constitute public property. Concretely analyzed are the municipal investments, those of the Ministry of Housing and those of the Ministry of Public Works. Figures are also presented on the evolution of health and education in the different boroughs or sectors that participated more significantly in this process.
Investments, say the authors, whether public or private, generate an increase in the price of properties and with it in the wealth of the residents in the sector where they are made. Moreover, the eradication of a camp affects both the price of properties in the receiving borough as well as in the original one. The paper therefore studies the effects this has had on the distribution of wealth in the period in question.