Territorial transformations and discourses of development in the city of Concepción (Chile), 1960-2010. Approaches from a perspective of imaginaries in the study of environmental assessment of the territory

Abstract

We analyse the transformations that occurred between 1960 and 2010 in the Metropolitan Area of Concepción, Chile, an emblematic city of national importance. This paper deals with the study of the imaginaries and discourses of development as a possibility of monitoring the changes in a given territory with emphasis on environmental assessment. We suggest a theoretical and methodological model that enables us to identify the partner trajectories from a discursive point of view in addition to the traditional perspective of the mutations in the economic, urban and demographic fields. For this purpose, we present the documentary analysis of official instruments of spatial planning at the community level and the regional (subnational level), emphasizing the environmental dimension, where we can suggest semantic development paths associated with environmental imaginaries, covering from natural resources to environmental degradation.