Learning by failing better: Coproducing creativity in the informal city of Los Arenales, Chile

This chapter engages with the relationship between creativity in the built environment by focusing on its role in actively promoting the right to the [formal] city by slum dwellers. This, by using the case study of Los Arenales, a macro-slum located in Antofagasta, Chile. The chapter summarises three experiences where multiple actors (grassroot informal communities, local and international NGOs, academia, and the state) coproduced several actions aimed to make Los Arenales’ urban utopia, a concrete reality in the here and now. These were: (i) the first cooperative bakery in a Chilean slum; (ii) a service-learning; and (iii) a public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS). It does this by, firstly, unwrapping the conceptual underpins of such efforts, to then describe their achievements and defeats empirically. The chapter concludes by summarising some of the main understandings coproduced during these experiences.