This paper analyses the role played by different urban nodes in the Chilean copper mining Global Production Network (GPN), and how filtering mechanisms act in favour of the capital city, limiting the territorial embeddedness of extractive industry in resource peripheries. In doing so, we make three contributions to the literature. First, in addition to observing gateway cities (those connecting the mining hinterlands to the global economy), we propose an intermediate category in urban hierarchies which we label the “backdoor city” (those that can perform one or more functions of a gateway city but lack chances for value capture and sustainable development outcomes). Second, we analyse the filtering mechanisms that work to the detriment of resources peripheries. Third, we analyse how these mechanisms reduce the territorial embeddedness of mining activity across the Chilean urban hierarchy. Our main results show that the capital city of Santiago stands out as the only gateway city in the country, and Antofagasta acts as a backdoor city for the Chilean resource peripheries where the extractive activity is weakly embedded, limiting their development opportunities.

The article depicts how the inhabitants of the macrocampamento (macro-slum) ‘Los Arenales’ aimed to bring their concrete urban utopia closer, by co-producing the first cooperative bakery in a Chile...

This article describes the creation of a cooperative bakery whose significance is fourfold: (1) it is the first located inside a Chilean campamento (informal settlement); (2) it was organized and managed by inhabitants, mostly Latin American immigrant women; (3) its implementation faced diverse conflicts that serve as lessons for similar experiences; and (4) it provides evidence from the field about strategies for advancing the right to the city agenda. The bakery was conceived by the community as a strategy to control the means of production. The study used a critical research approach, whereby researchers assumed an active role in the community processes around the formation of the cooperative. The article discusses the potential of cooperative socioeconomic organization as a path to developing community autonomy. It presents the Rayito de Sol bakery with its highs and lows, and reflects on the results of the project as a spatial, social and political approach to the relationship between academic communities and public institutions.