The Ribera Norte (North Riverbank) Urban Recovery Program in the city of Concepcion is one of the major urban renewal projects promoted by the Chilean government in the 1990s and is still underway to date. Its importance lies in its large intervention area and the complexity of a highly marginal sector just blocks from the city center. Twenty years after the program's inception, this article gives a synthesis of the development and evaluates the results achieved in relation to the program's objectives. The methodology consists of a chronological analysis that reviews the proposed objectives, management model and achievements of the program's three dimensions: social, urban and real estate. As a result, those public policy tools that have been effective in solving complex urban problems that continue to generate conflicts in most Latin American cities are validated.