Civic Design: Incorporating Urbanity and Sustainability from the Roots of Chilean Society
Good city making is defined as a practice that incorporate citizens and civic life as essential variables, in order to rebuild the idea that the city is one of the structural elements that support society as a construct. However, the accelerated changes that many cities in the world have undergone during the past 40 years, have contributed to detract value from urbanity and sustainability as two fundamental aspects of civic life and compromising the role that the city used to play in the development of communal life. This article discusses the ways in which cities are being developed today focusing on the standardisation of urban production undertaken with consequential impact on the socio spatial structure. The main components of civic design are defined and the relationship with the concept of neighbourhood as a primary unit of urban intervention on multiple levels. Empirically, contemporary urban development and growth dynamics resulting from the paradigm shift that the city of Santiago, Chile has undergone since the second half of the 20th century, are critically discussed using Independencia and San Miguel as two key inner neighbourhoods. Finally, reflections on how to address the most relevant aspects of this accelerated socio spatial change through civic design are given as a way to recover the sense of urbanity and sustainability and then reincorporating them to the structure of society.