Abstract

This article examines the development of the Comuna of Providencia during its three first decades in the context of the new attributions that Chilean municipalities acquired with the Ley de la Comuna Autónoma (1891). The article goes from 1897, year of the Municipality´s creation, to 1932, when its first transformation plan was passed, and when local administration was supported by the central government by then committed to urban issues. The Actas de Sesión Municipal, main sources of this study, show that although early urbanization in Providencia consisted in isolated attempts to build streets and neighbourhoods and to provide urban services, leaded by its residents, these were crossed with discussions that aimed to provide more general regulations, as was the transformation plan of the comuna, in 1911. Although initiatives did not materialize until the third decade of the twentieth century, this article proposes that these efforts appear as a key antecedent for the centralized urbanism commanded by the central government, framed by institutional changes that took shape in the Ley y Ordenanza General de Construcciones y Urbanización and in the 1932´s Plan de Transformación Definitivo of Providencia.