Verónica and Rosita walk talking and arm in arm through the Plaza de Armas, the heart of the historic center of the Chilean capitalwhere the cathedral, the Town Hall and several emblematic buildings converge.
Both comment on the “degradation” of this sector of the city that they know welldespite not being neighbors of the area.
Veronica, 72 years old, has been selling handicrafts in downtown bookstores for 20 years and complains about the abandonment that accuses the place in recent years: “There is a lot of insecurity, unhealthiness, you are scared and you cannot walk in peace.”
Rosita, who is 82, adds: “It is very sad to see everything scratched up, with so many tents of people living on the streets and so many street vendors“.
Change of face of the center of Santiago
Since the social outbreak of October 2019, the commune of Santiagothe third most populous in the country, has changed its face.
Several establishments have closed, others have covered their facades with bars or steel plates to protect themselves from vandalism, the streets are dirtier, they are filled with graffiti -many with hardly any artistic content-, there are broken sidewalks and from time to time there are episodes of violence with deterioration of urban furniture that is not always repaired quickly.
The data from the latest survey by the Center for Public Studies (CEP) show that 50% of the people consulted consider that crime, assaults and robberies are the main problem that the new government of leftist Gabriel Boric should resolve.
A percentage eight points higher than that noted in the previous measurement of August 2021.
“The center has become a dangerous place,” laments Miguel Leopoldo, a vendor for more than 30 years in a small kiosk located on the corner of Paseo Huérfanos and Paseo Estado, two of the main arteries.
The social outburst October 2019, the most important mobilization that the country has experienced since the return to democracy, marks a before and after in this setback.
According to Miguel Lawner, executive director of the Urban Improvement Corporation of the government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) and winner of the 2019 National Architecture Award, it is the “main factor”.
The expert also lists some others such as the pandemic, the difficulties in acquiring a home, the activity of investment funds and the increase in itinerant commerce derived from the rise in migration.
“Regain the Spaces”
Food, juices, rugs, masks, headphones, mobile phone holders, clothes and the star products of winter: socks and hats.
These are some of the articles that are offered in the informal stalls that flood the center. Today are street vendors and office workers who fill most of these roads.
“They have become a kind of Persian (flea market) full of street vendors and that had not been seen here. Before we had many families, but now the public went to the malls (shopping centers),” complains Claudia, an employee of a old perfume shop
The mayor of SantiagoIraqi Hassler, 31, the first communist to come to officeexplains that the City Council is working to provide opportunities for formal employment and, at the same time, supervise commerce on public roads: “Together with Carabineros we carry out more than 60 monthly operations.”
“The wonderful consistency that the city center had that combined residential, commercial and leisure functions is slipping away,” says Lawner.
The dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the Universidad del Desarrollo, Pablo Allard, a specialist in urban recovery, believes that the deterioration is “reversible”, but that “determination” by the authorities.
He proposes “reconquering” public space so that people are not afraid of the center: “The solution is not to paint heritage facades, erase graffiti or deploy more police officers,” he says..
The constitutional process under way and Boric’s government are, for Allard, “a window” to advance in the reconstruction of the heart of Santiago. A task that, according to him, could be completed in four years: “Every day that passes -he concludes- this opportunity is being lost”. (EFE)