Geomatic study of urban expansion in the community of Colina

The transformation of rural spaces into urbanized areas (2010 – 2021)

Abstract

The city of Santiago has experienced significant spatial and demographic growth in recent decades at the expense of the surrounding agricultural areas. This situation is due to the transformation of the city's economic base under the effects of globalization and the beginning of an urban management modality based on liberalization and deregulation, which has resulted in metropolitan expansion materializing in a more complex organization and morphology than previously observed. In recent decades, the commune of Colina has undergone important demographic changes. The commune had 52,769 inhabitants in 1992, which increased to 146,207 in 2017, representing an increase of 177%, notably higher than the 33% growth experienced by the Metropolitan Region during the same period. This process has occurred in parallel to the relative decrease of the rural population, since, if in 1992 this represented 27% of the inhabitants, in 2017 it decreased to 19%, which, however, is still well above the 4% of the Metropolitan Region. Since 2010 this strong growth has been maintained and in order to show the magnitude of the expansion until the year 2021, this study used temporary images provided by the Google Earth platform, from where, using the QGIS program the different foci of activity in urban and rural areas were vectorized and categorized. All this was supported by studies of the legal regulations applicable to the commune and population growth statistics.