The multiple dimensions of risk in the centre of Lima

The first days of fieldwork have started to reveal the complex structural conditions producing and reproducing social-spatial inequalities and precarious living conditions for citizens of Barrios Altos and Cantagallo in the centre of Lima.

A vacant plot in Cantagallo where the former residents accepted LAMSAC's offer of money to vacate the site immediately (c) Chris Yap

In Cantagallo, multiple groups, such as the indigenous Shipibo community, live in highly concentrated makeshift homes, directly on top of a former city dump-site. The entire district is marked for regeneration, and the community is engaged in long negotiations with the municipal authorities over their relocation. However, the private company LAMSAC, working in partnership with the municipality to manage the infrastructure megaproject, Via Parque Rimac, is offering money to families to vacate their plots immediately. Some members of the community have already left their improvised properties, which were immediately demolished and the plots fenced off, to prevent others from taking their place.

For every family that vacates their plot during talks with the municipal authorities, the negotiating position of the remaining families is weakened. Those families that remain face a multitude of socio-environmental risks; unhygienic living conditions and tenure insecurity the most apparent.

In Barrios Altos, only a few hundred metres away from Cantagallo, residents face a different set of challenges and risks. The historic centre of Lima is characterised by its grand, dilapidated buildings. The current residents of the quintas - colonial-era buildings - some of which have lived in the area for generations and others that are new to the district, face daily risks from unstable, unsafe buildings, land traffickers and forced displacement.

Buildings at risk of collapse in Barrios Altos (c) Chris Yap

The central location and cultural significance of the district and the quintas has attracted multiple actors with competing intentions for the area's regeneration. Private sector developers and municipal agencies, such as ProLima, are being pushed to find new solutions for urban regeneration.

The displacement or relocation of residents from the grand buildings is followed by the barricading of the room or building, just as the vacant plots are fenced off across the river in Cantagallo.

A bricked-up former residence in Barrios Altos (c) Chris Yap

Meanwhile, many local private developers are building illegally, without permits, behind the UNESCO-protected facades of the quintas. But whilst the municipal authorities are aware of the problem, they lack the capacity to prevent the developments.

Of greater concern are the cases where private developers have forcibly evicted tenants, or cut water pipes to hasten the collapse of the already fragile buildings in order to acquire the land for development.

The complex reality generated by multiple actors with different interests, capacities, resources and priorities, and multi dimensional realities of risk, are manifested differently in each of the two sites, yet the residents face comparable challenges. Over the next two weeks, students will explore the nature of risk in each of the sites, and the strategies that residents and other stakeholders are using to realise equitable urban development solutions.

A quinta where the water pipes were illegally cut, forcing the residents to leave and causing the structure to collapse. (c)  Chris Yap

Over the past two days, MSc Environment and Sustainable Development students have examined, reflected-upon and interrogated social, environmental and political conditions in Lima, Peru. On Sunday, DPU staff and students were introduced to Lima first by urban environmental expert, Liliana Miranda, and by architect and urban planner with the Instituto de Desarollo Urbano CENCA, Carlos Escalante. The group toured the city by bus and on foot; visiting three of the chosen research districts: Cantagallo, Barrios Altos and Jose Carlos Mariategui.

The stark divide between San Juan de Miraflores (left) where residents access an average of 20-30 litres of water per day and the Surco District (right) where residents enjoy 460 litres per day. (photo by Chris Yap)

First the group walked to a hilltop overlooking the divide between the 'invaded' San Juan de Miraflores and the affluent Surco District (pictured above). The houses in San Juan de Miraflores were built in accordance with the 1961 Law of Marginal Settlements and Popular Neighbourhoods, which gave communities the right to built houses and improve marginal land around the city, so long as the settlements respected the interests of the private sector, state property and agricultural land. Decades on, the settlement is still severely lacking in basic services and infrastructure.

The tour of the city was the first opportunity for many of the students to explore the sites that they have been examining for the past months. 

Today students presented their diagnostic, pre-fieldtrip videos to research partners from each of the four districts. The feedback and discussions that followed challenged the research hypotheses of each of the groups. The discussions will influence and inform the first stages of the fieldwork, starting tomorrow...

MSc students Eva Filippi and Marco Trombetta presenting their videos and case study to research partners from the four districts.

Environmental justice in Lima: Co-learning for action:

Every year, students from MSc. Environment and Sustainable Development at DPU, embark on a fieldtrip to a country in the Global South. Supported by prior research, the fieldwork synthesizes hands-on experience of using the skills, concepts, theories and techniques of environmental justice for development. 

This year the research aims to understand the relations between water, risk and urban development and how environmental injustices are produced and can be tackled; by exploring scenarios and strategies imbedded in the wider socio-political, economic and ecological processes, with the potential for transformative change.

Four case studies: Cantagallo, Barrios Altos, Jose Carlos Mariátegui and Huaycán were chosen with our local partners and offer unique readings of Lima.