Neo-liberalized Housing Policy and Urban Accessibility: the relevance of perception in intermediate cities. The case of Temuco, Chile

The neoliberal model of housing production has been installed in most Latin American countries. However, in most cases it has resulted in problems of urban accessibility. Understanding that accessibility is not only a problem of distance, but especially of the experience of mobility towards services, this article analyses the perception of urban accessibility that is configured in neighbourhoods built through housing policy in Temuco, an intermediate city in the south of Chile. Methodologically, a mixed approach was deployed, based on the application of an urban accessibility index, semi-structured interviews and go along interviews on the daily mobility of residents of the city’s housing neighbourhoods. The results show that the experience of mobility towards urban services is marked by a number of barriers related to socio-economic status and gender, which the residents do not face in identical ways. In addition, it is noted that urban investments and infrastructures built around neighbourhoods to improve their accessibility can be perceived as socially selective when they promote a specific type of mobility, to the detriment of others. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of the subjective dimension in the configuration of urban accessibility in intermediate and small cities, where this phenomenon is not usually problematised.