Urban speculation and standardization of housing as drivers of energy poverty

Abstract

The free market model has determined the commercial and industrial development in Chile since the 1980s and it has established a speculative logic in the real estate business. In addition to its effects on the morphology and demography of the city, the development of building projects by public-private alliances with minimal regulatory participation of the State has had an impact on the questionable quality of high-density housing projects in terms of thermal comfort and energy efficiency. This makes it possible to establish a relationship between regulatory deficiencies and energy poverty, a phenomenon made more evident by the growing job insecurity, rising cost of living and economic instability of recent years.