Frontera sur de Santiago: detectando engranajes para una Infraestructura Verde entre lo urbano y lo natural

Abstract

Santiago’s urban extension project, current since 2014, could threaten the integrity of its ecological matrix, by absorbing some relevant elements of the surrounding natural landscape. Both, the planning of periurban areas and the detection of opportunities to enable a green infrastructure, are the main focus of the present research. Particularly, the unprecedented contact of the urban tissue with the Maipo River and the nearby slopes of the so-called “island hills”, turns our attention over various landscape elements of great natural and cultural value, located in the southern skirts of Santiago. Seemingly, the coordination of such elements with ongoing processes could host an ecological structure that, beyond facilitating flows, could supply the city with a series of environmental, economic and social services, crucial to sustainable urban development. Organizing pieces that compose this type of infrastructure, together with establishing management and maintenance requirements, seem to be unexplored challenges to Chilean urban planning.