Abstract
The scenario of urban desolation in the Santo Tomás population, located on the southern outskirts of Santiago, is not due to what some authors call the culture of poverty. If not, rather, it is the result of the operation of a network of institutions (public and private) that reproduce and perpetuate such a condition. Through a case study, with qualitative data collection techniques, this research sought; understand the position and way of maneuvering of the local institution, represented by the municipality, in a marginal space, and glimpse the socio-spatial effects caused by its operation.
Among the main findings, regarding the performance of the municipality in the population, it was observed that there is; (1) a poor targeting and excess of "categorizations" that are made of the territory and individual; (2) a maintenance of the status quo of relegation and waiting (tools used as a territorial disincentive strategy); and, (3) the corruption faced by the local government. All this, taken as a whole, has generated what is called a cumulative circular causation of problems that erect the walls of what we will call here red zones, that is, spaces (re)produced by public and private institutions that keep the subjects who they inhabit it in a structural marginality