ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the financial agency of urban designers so that they would be able to know the socio-spatial effects of their works when they ignore the political-economic effects of their decisions. To illustrate this problem, the use of a simple financial profitability assessment tool for real estate projects in Greater Santiago is presented as an example. The results of the application of this tool show how the housing projects studied can produce displacement, segregation, and gentrification in the neighbourhoods where they are inserted, as the literature suggests for the case study. The chapter seeks to highlight the importance of the use of financial analysis tools in urban design as a tremendously valuable method for improving cities in the prevailing neoliberal context.
