Urban growth and planning in Metropolitan Lima. Considerations regarding the present situation

Abstract

Metropolitan Lima is characterized by a disorganized and unsustainable urban growth. Efforts to address its current urban challenges -continuous informal expansion, traffic congestion, inadequate level of basic services, etc.- are severely limited by the lack of public resources and the difficult conditions of urban planning. These conditions are framed by the structural reforms of the 1990s, which privileged market dynamics and commercial real estate logics. This paper identifies the major limitations of urban planning to regulate and guide the growth of the city, and the serious problems it has to overcome these limitations due to its political nature. In this difficult situation, a realistic alternative to achieve a more sustainable and inclusive urban development must include leaving behind traditional planning practices, centred in master plans which are hardly implemented, and its replacement by a new strategic and proactive approach that recognizes the need for communication, dialogue and negotiation with the different urban actors. This necessarily implies a very different role for planners, in which education, of both future and current planning professionals, has a fundamental role.