From Model Reform Country to Critic: Chile and its cooperation with the USA in urban planning and housing under Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–1970)

Katharina Schembs

Planning Perspectives, 2025, vol. 40, issue 1, 79-96

Abstract: As Latin American cities grew rapidly from the mid-twentieth century onwards, most governments in the region took up the challenge of providing sufficient housing in urban areas, following developmentalist convictions. In Chile, this urban planning trend was promoted by US programmes and organizations, most notably the Alliance for Progress, which in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution funded infrastructure measures to prevent the spread of leftist ideologies. However, favoured by this influx of financial means, personnel and expertise, Chile, as one of the prime targets of US involvement in the 1960s, soon developed its own institutions and approaches to tackling the housing shortage. While US engagement and housing policies in Chile in the 1960s have mostly been looked at individually, this article argues that the latter, especially for the first half of the decade, can only be fully grasped by considering inter-American relations. It therefore focuses on select institutional and individual actors from the USA, active in the field of urban planning in Chile, and examines the institutions and approaches that developed on the ground under the Christian Democratic President Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–1970). Lastly, it analyzes the reasons for the end of the initially close US-Chilean cooperation in housing.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2024.2434970

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