Psycho-Environmental Impacts of Urban Deterioration: Place Dispossession and Precarity in Valparaíso / Impactos psicoambientales del deterioro urbano: desposesión de lugar y precariedad en Valparaíso

This study examines the psycho-environmental impacts of urban deterioration in Valparaíso, Chile, focusing on symbolic dispossession processes and precarious forms of dwelling. We conducted 34 spatially referenced in-depth interviews with residents from the city’s different neighbourhoods and analysed them using a thematic analysis approach. Findings reveal how material decay – garbage, insecurity and perceived institutional neglect – destabilises place identity and generates feelings of incongruence and estrangement. However, affective bonds with the city do not disappear; rather, they are reconfigured into nostalgic place attachment, where memories of a more prosperous past sustain a sense of belonging. At the same time, residents report micro-segregations: restricted routes, avoidance of public spaces and symbolic boundaries that fragment daily life, exemplifying what the literature describes as symbolic displacement. Overall, these findings demonstrate that urban deterioration functions as a process of symbolic dispossession that intertwines disrupted identities, nostalgic reattachments and affective boundaries, producing subjective precariousness even without residential displacement.