Abstract

In the neoliberal urban context of a heavily touristified city such as Valdivia in south of Chile, this research exercise seeks to address issues that allow us to gradually compose the idea that there is an “other” city, opposed to the space imagined from the hegemonic discourse around the recreational city. The aim is to reveal a series of “spaces of resistance” that can shed light on a range of values and attributes that, from the periphery, allow us to reconfigure ideas about a livable city and the commons. Using the concept of an ethos under constant construction helped us reveal a dimension of the character of this southern city, thus nourishing and rediscovering the idea of a city with a vibrant inner life based on human values that emerge from spatial practices, which are often spontaneous and unknown, and with ideas opposed to those of the space of the imagined city. Thirty-five spatial micro practices were gathered seeking to weave with their reading some sort of invisible manifesto. Thus, thirteen concrete notions of micro urbanism emerged, which allowed us to define it locally as a critical practice of intervention of space at the small-scale and as inputs for a culture of equality and the commons. © 2023, Universidad de Chile, Instituto de la Vivienda. All rights reserved.