Santiago

Santiago is the global pathfinder of urban inequality. The first Latin American country to jump from emerging to advanced nation status it also the most unequal in the world. Santiago’s path, extreme growth with cheek-by-jowl inequality is one many emerging cities will follow.

The world's pin up economy

Santiago, home to 5.2m people, is ten times the size of Chile’s next biggest city. It is a place of extreme inequality. Chile joined the developed nation OECD group in 2010 and is the club’s most unequal member. While other developed countries — notably Mexico — have huge disparities, Chile tends to tops the inequality leader board.

Santiago matters because it is a place Chile's neighbours aspire to, and others are told to follow. It is the capital of an economic success story: Chile was seen as a third world economy in the 1980s, but today is comparable to Portugal and Greece. Income per capita is the highest in Latin America, and it was the first country on its continent to officially graduate from ‘emerging’ to ‘developed’ status. For many these achievements have made it a pin up, the world’s ideal emerging economy, and one that others are advised to follow. What are the risks that Santiago-style economic development bring?