Neoliberalization of Urban Management in Metropolitan Lima, Peru

Abstract

Our main objective is to study, within the context of neoliberal reforms, the transition of a regulating State to an entrepreneurial State concerning urban management in Lima, Peru since 1990. For this we have carried out retro-progressive research. Firstly, we analyzed the regulatory framework that established real estate operations in the city. Secondly, we have come to understand the current situation, analyzing the case of Lince district to corroborate and diagnose an entrepreneurial urban development. The methodology applied was to analyze its urban management tools and interviews with neighborhood delegates in order to understand how the city changed not only in its surface, behind and beneath it,, but also in its sociability. The results show that Lima, and Peru in general, assimilates the model of free market as the only way of creating a city and, consequently, with the endorsement of local authorities and real estate agencies, fragmenting and privatizing districts. This paper´s contribution lies in pointing out how Lima, unlike its Latin American peers, has a laissez-faire approach that, far from regressing regulations both on a metropolitan and a local scale, has expanded them in the name of efficiency and the rationality of market logics, creating thus the paradox of a deregulated city.