KarunaNews Story

Chile's newly elected president, Gabriel Boric, has moved into Yungay, a Santiago neighborhood filled with abandoned lots infested with garbage, overcrowded homes, and traffickers peddling drugs. "We want to recover those neighborhoods that today are threatened by voracious real estate developers, criminals or drug traffickers," he said in a TV interview. Boric campaigned on improving government and state services, reducing income inequality, and ending "neoliberal" practices. In Chile, the president chooses where to live, and Boric has made a choice very different from his predecessors. His presence in the neighborhood has had a dramatic effect. The local economy has picked up, the police presence has increased, drug traffickers are moving shop, and real estate searches in the neighborhood have doubled.