Burgos Salas, Vicente; (2021) Social Practices of Planning Law in the Built Environment Of Santiago 2007-2017. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis explores the role of planning law in urban change in Santiago, Chile. Working from a view of law constituting the built environment, I examine the interaction between the practices of planning law and the production of the spatial to analyse how legal instruments impact in urban processes. Cities are subject to legal institutions and procedures that aim to regulate and organise their development. The enforcement of planning law by governments affects the practices of actors in cities. Yet, little is known about the spatial impact of actors’ interpretations, understandings and ways of doing things from the perspective of the practice of planning law. My main argument is that reading the relation between law and the built environment in cities such as Santiago can help to uncover the potential for legal instruments to achieve desired urban change. The thesis expands on the literature of legal geography and on debates examining the relation between law and the city. To that end, I conduct an exploration of the social practices of law by documenting and comparing the interpretation and enforcement of planning law by public, private and civil actors in the built environment of three local governments in Santiago. The research approach develops an analytical understanding of the meaning of the social practices of law and their constitutive role in the spatial outcomes in the built environment. The research explores this relation between law and the built environment by examining primary data collected through qualitative fieldwork, document analysis and quantitative analysis of rulings regarding administrative decisions on planning controversies in Santiago. Mixed methods provide a broad range of sources to document the ways public, private and civil actors put planning law into practice. At the same time, the thesis researches the discourses of law that are mobilized by these actors in the processes of change in the Municipalities of Santiago and in Chilean legal institutions. The data is analysed through discourse analysis, with a focus on actors’ practices, discourses and strategies using planning law and its spatial manifestations in the built environment. 3 Avoiding seeing law as an abstract concept and a linear process, I contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of planning law, arguing its social practice in a given time and place is a key element to unveil its constitutive role in the built environment through the canalisation, as in establishing the legal course and limits of the intentions and objectives of different actors. Providing an analysis of how planning law is materialised in the built environment, the research seeks to uncover the relevance of social practices of the different actors in the use of planning law. It discovers that formalistic interpretations deeply influence how actors perceive planning law and how they use it for their objectives and presents the built environment as a manifestation of the consequences of a legalistic interpretation of planning law. The reflection on the strong links between the social practice of law and its spatial manifestation seeks to explain how canalisation could be used for addressing urban policy objectives through legal instruments and the potential of planning law to produce change in Santiago.

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