Beyond residential segregation: Mapping Chilean social housing project residents’ vulnerability

Residential segregation is an important challenge in Latin America, particularly since its effects on quality of life and access to urban opportunities are increasingly urgent on the public agenda. Segregation has not only arisen in the region due to the market, but also directly due to the State, which has promoted it through creating social housing along urban peripheries, far from job opportunities and urban equipment. This has increased conditions of vulnerability, although such conditions are not homogenously distributed in the territory. The present article proposes a multidimensional vulnerability index for social housing project residents, which apart from the socioeconomic indicator used in official measurements also applies two special indicators: (1) spatial mismatch from employment centers, and (2) an indicator for accessibility to public services and equipment. Unlike the commonly used one-dimensional indicator, the proposed index produces clearer discrimination of the vulnerability levels faced by social housing residents, allowing for better public policy design and improved public resource focusing.