Rising of popular condominiums and their impact on traditional districts of Lima, Peru

Abstract

This contribution is focused on the symbolic boundaries and barriers that are built as a consequence of housing relocation of families within the socioeconomic sectors C and D (lower middle class and low class). Precisely, it deals with the moment when higher income allows change of residence from the so called "invasions" (shanty settlements) in the city limits to lower-level residential condominia within the limits of the traditional districts of the city. These relocations, involving new neighbors apparently from the same social class, actually imply living amongst a heterogeneous population (coming from mountain, coast and jungle) and takes its protagonists out of the protection of the emotional and functional networks of friendship in the neighborhood of origin, situation that produces a number of new concerns and fears.