Cambios de la configuración urbana y «sintaxis del espacio» en ciudades intermedias: el caso de La Serena (Chile)

Abstract

The basic starting principle of this paper accepts that the mutual relation among the physical structure of the built space and numerous aspects of the socioeconomic dynamics, especially the spatial ones, have great transcendency in the genesis and use of the urban space. The Space Syntax theory provides concepts, methods and technical procedures for studying the configuration of the physical space as independent variable, since once a spatial structure was created, this one acquires organizational properties that influence both, the future forms of its own growth and the uses and perceptions of the same one. In this article we apply the Space Syntax theory for studying the city of La Serena (Chile), as a representative case of intermediate city of the urban Chilean system. It was accepted that the modality of urban sprawling, made for iuxtaposition of new fragments more than for organic development, modifies the preexisting spatial configuration, increases the physical isolation of certain areas, at the same time that it reinforces the spatial segregation and increases the functional inefficiency of the urban space, conceived as system of movement.