The real estate city: institutional mechanisms, power relations and the commercialization of the natural environment

Abstract

From the study of real estate development and urban expansion observed in the Valparaiso Metropolitan Area (hereinafter AMV) in the period 2000-2012, this article attempts to provide a general lecture of the developing processes, the institutional configuration of the main urban agents and the consequences of this phenomenon over the natural environment. Thus, the article discusses the processes of metropolisation and urban expansion of the AMY in close relation with the worldwide processes of financialisation, while -at a national scale- the institutional configuration articulates as a centralized, exclusive and technocratic framework. This article examines the mechanisms that influence its construction as well as the major territorial consequences of these processes.