Contesting entrepreneurial urbanism: Struggles on the Parque Pumpin Megaproject in Valparaiso, Chile

Keywords: urban entrepreneurialism, governance, real estate megaproject, local politics, Valparaiso
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 44

Abstract

This paper explores the potential impacts on entrepreneurial forms of real estate development through the shifting politics of urban governance in Valparaiso. Chile's Urban entrepreneurialism operates through a state-led approach where the central government fosters private investments through subsidies and infrastructure provision, and municipalities coalesce with the real estate sector, providing planning conditions for the ‘highest and best’ exploitation of land. This growth coalition meant a proliferation of high-rise buildings in central areas, with a significant number of housing units built, while the country’s housing deficit critically increases.

Valparaiso is recognized as port-city and as UNESCO's World Heritage Site, but also as a city with severe urban deficits and scarce vacant land. Based on state strategies of heritage and tourism promotion, housing development have been mostly focused on second housing. This paper highlight the Parque Pumpin megaproject, led by a national real estate corporation proposing 23 high-rise towers in one of the few green areas remaining in the city. Since 2016, with the election of a leftist local government, politically close to New Municipalism, local politics shifted towards planning restrictions on real-estate interest areas and the overt opposition to this megaproject through both political and judicial actions.

Based on a qualitative study, we show how urban entrepreneurial governance is temporarily contested, analyzing how new forms of municipal statecraft turns its supports to grassroots demands against this megaproject. We also questions entrepreneurialism reconfigurations, as real estate interests remain dominant in decision-making with resources and powers that keep the project in force.