Consumption infrastructure, retail urbanism and the production of space in Santiago

Abstract

This article examines how shopping malls operate as key agents in the production of urban space in Chile. Drawing on Lefebvre's trialectics of space and Soja’s spatial dialectics, the study conceptualizes malls as infrastructures of urban centrality, governance, and meaning-making within a neoliberal urban regime. We introduce the concept of retail urbanism to describe the retail-led production of urban space through the articulation of real estate development, planning alignment, and discursive strategies that recode malls as pseudo-public urban anchors. Empirically, the article combines georeferenced mapping of retail infrastructures in Santiago with semiotic discourse analysis of corporate documents and media materials. Santiago serves as an exemplary case, representing phenomena previously observed in other urban contexts of retail centrality. Shopping malls are declining in many parts of the world; however, they continue to thrive in South America, attracting millions of visitors and reshaping cities as gentrifying forces, infrastructural hubs, and markers of class and social identity. The findings show that malls operate as material and symbolic infrastructures of urban centrality, while simultaneously reinforcing socio-spatial exclusions. By foregrounding Chile's specific neoliberal history, the article contributes to debates on commercial urbanism, global urbanization, and the role of consumption infrastructures in shaping contemporary cities.