Globalisation has signilicantly changed the face of urban space in Latin American cities. Chile was the first country on the subcontinent to initiate neoliberal reforms in 1970s. Since then, global change (climate change and globalisation) has clearly marked the Capital city, Santiago de Chile, with signs of fragmented development everywhere in the urban fabric.This arti-cle summarises the results of different research pro-jects fealised by the authors over the last few years. They provide evidence that fragmentation not only leads to new patterns of social and ethnic Segregation and the redistribution of retail trade and amenities* but also contributes towards new forms of mobility and migration. © Author(s) 2011. This work is distributed.