Administrative restructuring and identity of new municipalities

perception analysis of representative urban centers in Hualpén

Abstract

Since its emergence as an independent municipality in 2004 from the division of its mother municipality Talcahuano, the municipality of Hualpén presents a
distribution of services and areas of centrality of all kinds scattered throughout the territory. It is characterized as a city that does not have a traditional urban center recognizable by its inhabitants, nor a traditional main square where the main services are located around it and at the same time is understood as the civic center that provides identity and a sense of belonging for the inhabitants. It is proposed that this absence of a recognizable traditional urban center results in the appearance of polycentralities that respond to specic functions in its space. This also results in the use of services from other municipalities by the inhabitants of Hualpén, in order to minimize the feeling of lack of services in their own municipality. This study seeks to
analyze these centralities of Hualpén by dening them based on their functions through the analysis and elaboration of various maps with data from the municipality and the National Institute of Statistics. It is analyzed by means of surveys how these centralities determine the dynamics of the inhabitants of the city, how they use them, and which one is the most representative centrality of the city. The results show a commune with several polycentralities scattered throughout the territory and with a notable lack of cohesion among them, a problem that the municipality recognizes, but which it has not yet been able to address.