Encounters and misunderstandings between urban planning and urban space production in Lima metropolitana and Callao (1961-2020)

Limites e possibilidades da agência popular em Lima e Callao (1961-2020)

Abstract

Since 1940, the conurbation of Lima Metropolitana and Callao began its metamorphosis due to the intensification of migratory processes, which increased the gap in access to housing. Since then, the self-production of city and housing has consolidated as the most common mode of production of urban space. Despite this phenomenon, urban planning efforts, both State and private, have concentrated only on consolidated urban areas, which has led to unequal development. From the perspective of Critical Urban Theory, through a mixed-methods approach, we analyze the production of urban space in Lima and Callao from three approaches: first, questioning the theorization of urban space in Peru; second, the theory-practice relationship of urban planning is questioned; and, third, the current socio-spatial transformations are explored. We show that the epistemological bases of the self-production of urban space, labeled as urban informality, lead to the establishment of ineffective public policies that benefit certain power groups, denying its dynamic condition and its multicausality; at the same time, we insist on the perpetuation of the formal and informal dialectic, when in practice this distinction is unreal.