The Biobío North Riverbank Urban Recovery Program, Concepción, Chile: Achievements and Shortcomings after Twenty Years

Abstract

The Ribera Norte (North Riverbank) Urban Recovery Program (prurn) in the city of Concepción is one of the major urban renewal projects promoted by the Chilean government in the 1990s and is still underway to this date. Its importance lies in its large intervention area and the complexity of a highly marginal sector, a few blocks away from the city center. This article gives a synthesis of its development and evaluates the results achieved in relation to the programÍ€™s objectives, twenty years after the programÍ€™s inception. The methodology consists of a chronological analysis that reviews the proposed objectives, management model and achievements of the programÍ€™s three dimensions: social, urban, and real estate. As a result, those public policy tools that have been effective in solving complex urban problems are validated; and these are the same problems that continue to generate conflicts in most Latin American cities.