Abstract

Social mixture has become an urban policy in Chile and Latin America. Although the corresponding initiatives seek to reduce the segregation of social classes, we still do not know whether, under the conditions of mixture and environment over which these neighbourhoods are built, it is possible (or not) to promote pluri-classist sociabilities. Using two social integration projects and a mixed methodology this article intends to fill this gap. The results suggest that due to the type of diversity promoted by these neighbourhoods, as well as because of their peripheral location in homogeneous environments, the sociabilities they produce are not diverse enough to work, for example, the so-called neighbourhood effect. The findings also reveal the importance of designing common spaces between resi-dents, spaces that have the capacity to minimize metropolitan habitus that the middle classes deploy. It concludes with suggestions to improve and expand the social mix approach in housing policies.