The rebuilding of Chile's Constitución: how a 'dead city' was brought back to life

Five years on from the 2010 earthquake, Gideon Long revisits the city flattened by a tsunami to find out how a unique collaboration between local residents, businesses and government is driving Constitución’s recovery, reports the Guardian.

It is a poster child for the effectiveness of public-private partnership. According to the article, Arauco, a major forestry firm that employs thousands of workers, agreed to finance a “sustainable reconstruction plan” to rebuild the city. Elemental, which specializes in social housing projects, oversaw the plan’s implementation, engaging the citizens throughout the process, and bringing in a consulting firm, Tironi Associates, to advise on this participatory approach, and Arup, a London-based engineering and design multinational. All this happened with state input from both the local and regional governments, and the housing ministry in Santiago.