This article identifies the spatial correlation between the social determinants of health in the housing area (housing prices, overcrowding, poor-quality building materials, and household socioeconomic vulnerability) and the spread of COVID-19 in Santiago de Chile. The research used data from the 2017 Census conducted by the National Institute of Statistics of Chile and data on confirmed cases of COVID-19 (PCR) by communes provided by/obtained from Chile’s Ministry of Health. The article provides a two-fold examination/analysis of the spatial correlation using the Pearson measure to observe how the virus spread from areas with high-quality housing in the early stage of the contagion to then become concentrated in areas with low-quality of housing. The second examination/analysis is a multiple linear regression to identify the housing factors that inform virus propagation. The test results show that of the four social determinants of health relating to housing assessed here, housing prices is the variable that best predicts how the social determinants of health based on housing explain the progress of the pandemic for the Santiago case, following the collinearity factors according to the data used in this study. The conclusions suggest that public policy should treat housing quality as a factor in public health and health risks that needs to be addressed with a transdisciplinary approach to urban planning in Chile.

This paper compares the level of neighbourhood cohesion of two single access neighbourhoods in Calgary, Alberta. The two neighbourhoods had a high sense of neighbourhood cohesion. It is argued that the single access to the neighbourhood has contributed to a high sense of neighbourhood cohesion. One neighbourhood outperformed the other on all three subscales of cohesion due to a stronger sense of seclusion for the neighbourhood. Establishing a sense of identity, a focus, and a clear boundary for a neighbourhood is paramount. Meanwhile, visionary planning for the future of neighbourhood design in terms of ease and flexibility of redevelopment for the open grid model seems to dominate the mindset of municipal planners raising the banner of sustainability.

The social consequence of gating have been generally characterized as negative, particularly in regards to raising issues of social injustice such as the privatization of space, estrangement, and segregation. Some authors have found positive social consequences of gating particularly in regard to reducing the scale of segregation and promoting social interdependency as a form of social integration as well as encouraging neighbourhood cohesion and maintaining social capital. The following is a critical review of the positive consequences of gating within the overall trend of commodification of community in new residential developments.