This article shows a dog that didn't bark: Santiago, Chile's capital city, not growing dramatically in area from 1975 to 1989. But Santiago's population did grow rapidly, and this brought a series of problems for the city, all of which were complicated by Chile's unusual geography.
Between the mountains
One Landsat image spans the breadth of this narrow country, from the Pacific Ocean to Argentina. These March images were taken near the end of the warm, dry summer; the mountains show only a dull red vegetation signature, and a fire appears in the 1989 image. But there are still patches of snow visible in the Andes Mountains, over 6,000 m above sea level.1
In contrast the Central Valley, between the Andes and the coastal range, shows a bright red signal from agriculture. Rivers such as the Mapacho, visible running off the Andes through northern Santiago, feed into a network of canals irrigating vineyards, fruits and vegetables. This Central Valley is the heartland of Chile, and the home to 70-80% of its people.2
With rapid industrialization after the Second World War, Chile's population urbanized earlier than many other countries, already 68% urban by 1960 and perhaps 81% by 1980. A great deal of construction occurred in Santiago throughout the 1960s to accommodate this growth. Santiago itself contains more than a third of all Chileans, and its share of the country's economic activity is even greater.
One result was some of the world's worst air pollution. Santiago's view of the mountains was often blocked by smog trapped in the valley by the mountains themselves. The government imposed carless Sunday mornings, regulation of the city's 11,000 private buses, and other remedies. By the mid-1990s the air had improved.3
Growth and housing, 1973-1990
From 1975 to 1989 Santiago's population increased from under 3.5 million to about 5 million, but these images show surprisingly little growth in area. From 1973 to 1990, when Chile was under military rule, illegal land acquisition for squatter settlements almost came to a stop, and some settlements were eradicated. In the late 1970s housing shortages were increasing, particularly for the poor, until in 1980 and 1981 there were public protests, with homeless people taking refuge in churches.4
In the early 1900s, Santiago's elites moved to the northeast suburbs, to escape the city center's increasing congestion, retail, and rural immigrants. The affluent Barrio Alto district is in this quarter, flanked by the Andes and the San Cristobal Hills. A squatter settlement existed in the Barrio Alto, housing many domestic servants and workers for wealthy households nearby, till the mid-1970s when the government evicted them. A park in place of the squatter settlement was discussed, but instead Chile's largest shopping mall, the Parque Arauco, was eventually built. The former squatters were resettled in public housing in the southeast part of the metropolitan area.5
This followed the pattern of the military government: slum clearance in the city's center and northeast, with a shift to public housing on the urban fringe, which has been called "the bedroom community of the working poor." The bulk of metropolitan growth since the Second World War has in fact been along the southern edge, where the Central Valley widens and land is relatively cheap. In the mid-1970s the government bought large tracts of agricultural land and committed its housing resources in this area. The government's "making neighborhoods healthy" (saneamiento) program has brought services such as water, sewer, and electricity to much of this housing.6
Question:
You can see that Santiago is close to the west coast of South America. Do you think it is east or west of Los Angeles? (See the answer below.)
Footnotes
1. Claire Hutchings, 1996, The streets of Santiago: The Geography Magazine, v. 68, no. 6, June 1996, p. 36. Andrea T. Merrill, 1982, Chile, a country study, rev. ed. of: Thomas E. Weil, 1969, An Area Handbook for Chile: American University, Washington D.C., p. 57.
2. Hutchings, p. 37. Merrill, p. 51-53.
3. Hutchings, p. 36. Brook Larmer, 1992, The Greening of Santiago: Newsweek, August 10, 1992, p. 41.
4. J. Browder, J. Bohland, and J. Scarpaci, 1995, Patterns of Developement on the Metropolitan Fringe: Urban Fringe Expansion in Bangkok, Jakarta, and Santiago: APA Journal, summer 1995, p. 316. Merrill, p. 86. Joseph Scarpaci, 1988, Planning Residential Segregation: The Case of Santiago, Chile: Urban Geography, v. 9, no. 1, p. 21.
5. Browder, 1995, p. 319. Merrill, p. 84. Scarpaci, 1988, p. 23.
6. Browder, 1995, p. 316. Scarpaci, 1992, Patterns of Developement on the Metropolitan Fringe: A Peri-Urban Survey of Santiago, Chile: Center for Urban and Regional Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va., Working Paper 92-1, p. 6, 10. Scarpaci, 1988, p. 28.
7. Merrill, p. 50.
LM2250083007508190 (Landsat 2 MSS, 22 March 1975)
LT4233083008907610 (Landsat 4 TM, 17 March 1989)
Department of Geodesy and Cartography, German Democratic Republic, 1966, Buenos Aires: Berlin, Dept. of G. and C., GDR. S G-I 19-21, 169, scale 1:2,500,000.
American Geographical Society of New York, 1949 ("1939, Revised I. '49), Santiago - Mendoza: provisional edition S. I-19, scale 1:1,000,000.
Thanks to Professor Joseph Scarpaci of Virginia Tech, Urban Affairs and Planning, for the photographs used in this article.
Santiago is almost straight south of Boston. In fact, because of the angles, the orbit path for this scene (path 233) is one path east of Newfoundland (path 1). (The paths were numbered by Canadians.)7
Campbell, Robert Wellman, ed. 1999. "Santiago, Chile: 1975, 1989." Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change. U.S. Geological Survey. http://earthshots.usgs.gov. This article was released 14 August 1999.
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