- Email: [email protected]
Inner-city Rental Housing in Lima
Pergamon
PII: S0264-2751(01)00017-8
Cities, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 249–258, 2001 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0264-2751/01 $ - see front matter
www.elsevier.com/locate/cities
Inner-city Rental Housing in Lima A Portrayal and an Explanation Geert Custers1 Veltumse Kleffen 15, 5801 SB Venray, The Netherlands
Since the second half of the 1980s, practitioners and researchers have been paying attention to what may be labelled the oldest type of housing for low-income groups in modern Latin America, namely inner-city rental housing. An important conclusion that can be drawn from a review of the studies executed over the last 15 years is the fact that there appear to exist significant differences between Latin American cities regarding the quantitative importance of this segment of the urban housing market and the explanations for its current “state-of-theart”. In this paper I discuss the often poor physical conditions of these dwellings, the lack of sufficient and good services, the tight accommodations and the socio-economic characteristics of owners and tenant households, as well as the factors contributing to this situation. I do this by elaborating upon the case of the Peruvian capital Lima, where the so-called tugurios comprise an important alternative for poor households who prefer to live in the inner city. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: inner city, inner-city rental housing, (local) policy, proprietors, tenants, tugurios
Introduction
houses) in Guatemala, mesones (inns) in El Salvador and conventillos (cloisters) in Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay. Until the second half of the 1980s, practitioners [states, national government organizations (NGOs) and development organizations alike] and researchers showed little interest in inner-city rental housing, something that could be explained by two factors. On the one hand, the growth of the poor peripheral neighbourhoods in the majority of Latin American cities was so fast and the difficulties related to it so enormous and complex that local and national political concern was primarily directed at these areas and their populations. At the same time, researchers not only wrote descriptive studies, but also tried to explain specific phenomena and problems related to urban expansion. For example, the architect John Turner’s model of intra-urban migration of the poor and their housing strategies inspired a large number of empirical studies and theoretical discussions of the ever-growing peripheral neighbourhoods. On the other hand, the inner city was generally looked upon as an area inhabited by a diminishing population with fewer socio-economic problems than their fellow citizens living on the urban fringe. This idea was of course partly influenced by Turner’s model, which stated that the inner city was inhabited by people who had reached an acceptable level of living, and by the fact that low-
This contribution discusses the oldest type of housing for low-income groups in modern Latin America: rented dwellings situated in the inner cities. This segment of the urban housing market comprises dwellings built in the colonial and post-colonial eras (until about the 1940s) that are characterized by physical deterioration and are each inhabited by several households who rent their accommodation, which usually is limited to just a few rooms. Services like water and electricity are generally shared and are of poor quality. We can discern two sub-types. Firstly, buildings that were originally inhabited by the colonial and post-colonial upper and middle classes, who started to leave their residences from the last part of the nineteenth century for areas just outside the cities and who subdivided their former residences in order to rent them out. A second type consists of buildings that were constructed with the specific aim of letting (Custers and Vreman, 1995). The various names by which they are known are colourful and revealing: tugurios (hut, shack) in Peru, palomares (pigeon *Tel.: +31-478-581428; e-mail: [email protected],[email protected] 1 Former advisor on Urban Planning, Municipality of Chinandega, Nicaragua.
249
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
income housing in this area was less noticeable than the poor dwellings on the periphery. Moreover, where there was an interest in the inner city, it was only in relation to the expansion of economic, mostly tertiary, activities in this area. In short, concern for low-income housing was drawn mainly to the urban fringes, whereas renting accommodation in the inner city was hardly a topic of academic research or of a structural policy. An increasing belief that the socio-economic and housing conditions of the population of the inner-city rental dwellings were worse than was commonly assumed, was the most important reason for a growing interest in this subject. Moreover, authors and policy makers became more aware of the complex problems of the colonial and post-colonial inner cities. There was a growing consciousness of the cultural heritage, of the economic and social decay of some of these areas, and a fierce competition for the use of space in the more dynamic Latin American inner cities. In one way or another, the housing of the poor was under threat. In some cases this was because of the poor physical quality of the dwellings, in others it was also because of the increasing urban renewal and economic revitalization activities that left little space for housing for the poor and consequently resulted in evictions. As a result, the second half of the 1980s saw an increasing number of studies on inner-city rental housing and, to a lesser extent, policy measures. A review of the literature leads to one indisputable conclusion: it is dangerous to make generalizations about some crucial aspects of this segment of the urban housing market in Latin America. First, we can observe important differences in the relative importance of its population. In La Paz, 1% of the city dwellers live in the conventillos, in Mexico City about 3.5% in the vecindades; 17.5% of the population of Quito live in the conventillos and about 20% of the inhabitants of San Salvador in mesones (Custers and Vreman, 1995). Second, it is too easy to generalize about the processes that have influenced and continue to influence the development and the present “stateof-the-art” of inner-city rental housing. In some cities, local or national urban policy was a determining factor in its development as, for example, in Santiago, where all conventillos disappeared in the 1940s because of a rigorous renovation policy (Violich, 1987). In Mexico City, the quality and quantity of casas de vecindad were severely affected by the earthquake that hit the city in 1985. And in Quito, inner-city rental houses still are a dominant user of space, because of a lack of competition from the tertiary economic activities; the latter are concentrated in the modern Ciudad Nueva (New City) that was built outside the colonial core (Jones and Bromley, 1996; Mahuad, 1999). In this paper, I shall elaborate upon the above themes on the basis of a case study of the Peruvian capital of Lima. I portray the tugurios, their inhabitants and proprietors and try to explain why no sig250
nificant changes have occurred since the first half of the twentieth century. I show that the factors contributing to this relative “stability” are to be found in the lack of genuine interest on the part of the Liman elite and local and national governments in the inner city. The structure of the contribution is as follows. In the next section, I start with a brief introduction on the city of Lima and some general observations on innercity rental housing in that city. This is followed by a portrayal of the tugurios and their inhabitants in the 1990s, referring, amongst other things, to the socioeconomic characteristics of the households and the physical quality of the buildings. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the explanation, focusing on the role of urban elites and policy. In the conclusions I consider the future, especially in the light of recent developments in the policy for the inner city and the tugurios.
Lima, a brief introduction The Peruvian capital, Lima, which is situated on the left bank of the Rimac river, was founded on 18 January 1535 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. Initially baptized Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings), the city rapidly became known as Lima, presumably a corruption of Rimac. Inhabited by more than 7,000,000 people (estimate, INEI, 1999), Lima is the largest city of Latin America after Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. And although its annual growth rate has slowed down since the early 1960s, the capital is still 10 times larger than the country’s second city, Arequipa (695,000 inhabitants; estimate, INEI, 1999). The primacy can also be expressed in functional terms: eg, by the mid-1980s, 98% of private investment outside the mining sector, 76% of the country’s doctors, 45% of its public services, 58% of its industrial activities and 83% of its bank loans were situated in Lima. There is no reason to assume that these numbers have changed significantly in the last 15 years. The nature and the scale of the problems this metropolis has to cope with are enormous. For example, the large majority of the population are either unemployed or underemployed (10% and 77%, respectively, according to official statistics; Riofrı´o, 1996) and, consequently, the proportion of people living below the poverty level is enormous (over 75%) (Riofrı´o, 1996; Ruiz de Somocurcio and Dı´az-Albertini, 1997). Another significant problem, and at least partially related to that just mentioned, is shelter for low-income groups. The vast majority of them are housed in settlements on the older and newer periphery of the city in self-built houses. As in many other cities in developing countries, the housing issue is accompanied by other problems like the deficiency of collective services of all kinds, such as water and sewerage, legal problems (illegal occupation of lands) and crime and violence. The management of this mega city with its mega problems is obviously far
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Figure 1 Aerial view of inner-city Lima (author)
from easy (Riofrı´o, 1996; see also Caldero´ n and Maquet, 1996; Ruiz de Somocurcio and Dı´az-Albertini, 1997). Although inner-city rental housing is of lesser importance in quantitative terms than housing in the peripheral neighbourhoods, it still constitutes a significant housing alternative for the Liman poor and therefore deserves our attention. In the next section I introduce the tugurios.
About casas subdivididas and callejones Although tugurios have been called the invisible sector of the Liman housing market,2 they occupy a prominent place in Lima’s inner city (Fig. 1). They can be found just one block from the Presidential Palace, in front of the National Library or in neighbourhoods that are situated along the most important traffic arteries crossing the area. In several areas of the inner city, such as in a neighbourhood called Barrios Altos, they not only constitute the main type of shelter, but also the most important user of space (IMP, 1998). Using data from the former urban planning department of the Municipality of Lima, PROURBE, we estimate that between 150,000 and 200,000 people live in tugurios, of whom about
2 Their fronts are often indistinguishable from those of buildings accommodating other functions. It is also possible to find buildings that function partly as a tugurio, whereas other rooms, mostly situated along the street, are used as offices, stores or warehouses.
107,000 live in the larger part of the inner city, ie on the left bank of the Rimac river (PRO-URBE, 1990).3 Tugurios attract attention, however, not only because of their important position, but also through their varied structural designs. In Lima, two subtypes stand out. The oldest form is the casa subdividida (subdivided house dwelling) which originally, in the colonial and early post-colonial era, accommodated one household. In the nineteenth century the original inhabitants started to subdivide their properties in order to rent them to lower-class families, a process that could last several years, during which the house was increasingly subdivided in order to accommodate more families and so obtain more rental income or at least maintain it at the same level (next section). As a corollary, overuse became a common phenomenon and, although the majority of the casas subdivididas were constructed of solid materials like stone, they deteriorated severely, partly because of the lack of maintenance and the Liman climate (see section on physical deterioration) (Fig. 2). In quantitative terms, the callejon (corridor) appears to be the most important type of tugurio in 3 It is rather difficult to give reliable and accurate estimates of the number of tugurio inhabitants. Firstly, the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) does not include the concept in its censuses, nor any equivalent (INEI does employ callejon, but omits the casas subdivididas and other subtypes of inner-city rental housing). Secondly, although some institutions like the Civil Defence have made estimates, these are unreliable in the view of the Liman NGO CEPROMUR (interview with Director of CEPROMUR, December 1999) and other experts. PRO-URBE used INEI data in their report, supplemented with estimates based on their own field research (see section on explanation).
251
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Figure 2 Exterior view of street and housing conditions, Lima, (author)
the Peruvian capital. The callejones, which were constructed with the explicit aim of renting them to lowincome groups, are characterized by a group of dwellings located on both sides of a longitudinal corridor, where each household has only one or two small rooms with inadequate illumination and ventilation at its disposal. Although their size varies, most Liman callejones accommodate more than 50 families. They are constructed mainly of clay or bricks with a wooden roof and often have a floor of sand. Even more than the casas subdivididas, the callejones have a poor reputation due to their physical state and therefore frequently figure in the newspapers (“Callejones of Barrios Altos on the verge of collapsing”) and in the reports of public institutions like the Metropolitan Planning Institute and, especially, the Civil Defence of Lima.
About tenants and proprietors Although there are no city-wide, representative socioeconomic profiles of Lima’s tugurio inhabitants, reports on specific parts of the inner city depict a population that belongs to the “marginalized”, poor, low-income sectors of the urban society. For example, a study by Dekker of 27 tugurios revealed that 57% of the households had a monthly income of less than 600 nuevos soles (official minimum wage in 1997: 300 nuevos soles; Dekker, 1998). Most people, ie up to 60%, are employed in the formal or informal tertiary sectors of the Liman economy (Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia, 1996). An important group comprises people working as employees, ie domestic servants, salespersons, or any other lowerpaid job in the numerous restaurants, offices, edu252
cational institutes and workshops in the inner city, while another significant proportion of the labour force is employed in the informal sector, eg as street vendors. The large majority of the people work within walking distance of their homes in the inner city of Lima. The inhabitants of neighbourhoods like Barrios Altos and Monserrate (which possess a very mixed service economy of mainly small establishments), in particular, are able to save on transport costs. Although a CEPROMUR study in Barrios Altos revealed that the inner city is still “the place to be” for new intra-urban and rural/inter urban migrants (more than 10% had lived for less than 5 years in the tugurio where they were interviewed), most households had lived there for a long time. Over half of the tenants had lived in the same building for between 16 and 35 years, while other studies revealed that households had lived in the same tugurio on average for over 18 years (Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia, 1996). This suggests that the rental population is relatively stable, a situation that is generally explained by two factors: firstly, by the advantages of living in the inner city, near work, schools, hospitals and other services, resulting in a saving of travel time and costs and, secondly, by the economic conditions that force people who would like to leave (eg because of the poor physical conditions of the building – see next section) to stay. Renting accommodation in a Liman tugurio is rather economical, even for low-income households, and forms an additional motive for people not to move, eg to Lima’s periphery to build a house of their own. Dekker’s study revealed that 30% of the tenants paid less than 50 nuevos soles in rent, and 30% paid between 50 and 100 nuevos soles (Dekker, 1998). The
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
most striking result of the study, however, was the fact that the remaining 40% of the tenants lived for free!4 Tugurio owners should not be looked upon as a homogeneous socio-economic class that has a sole objective, namely that of making fast and easy profits. In Lima we can distinguish at least three categories. Firstly, there is a group of petty proprietors, eg those who live in the building in the same circumstances as their tenants and whose rent incomes are extremely low, because they own just one section of the building. They may have sold some rooms to former tenants, or have inherited the tugurio jointly with several brothers and sisters and have therefore to share the rent income.5 A second group of individual proprietors comprises the affluent descendants of the original owners of casas subdivididas and callejones. Generally, these owners reside in wealthy districts like San Isidro or Miraflores and have appointed a caretaker who lives in the tugurio and who arranges all matters for his employer, from collecting the rents to settling problems with tenants. A third group consists of several kinds of institutions who, especially in the early decades of the twentieth century, constructed callejones in order to augment their incomes. This kind of proprietor includes not only real estate companies who were only interested in “enrichment […] at the expense of the working class”, but also universities, the Catholic Church, religious orders and municipal institutions. The size of this group is considerable. Whereas in Monserrate they make up about 20% of the proprietors, in Barrios Altos about 70% of the population lives in tugurios that are owned by these institutions (IMP, 1998; Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia, 1996).
About physical deterioration, poor services and tight accommodation Every now and then, governmental institutions, NGOs and popular movements raise the alarm about the
4 Various studies in other parts of the city, as well in other Peruvian cities, confirm the level of these figures and lead to the conclusion that renting accommodation in a tugurio is indeed inexpensive. For example, in a study of tugurios in the city of Arequipa, southern Peru, we found that the vast majority of the households paid less for living in a tugurio in the early 1990s than for a simple lunch: more than half of them paid nothing or under US$3.5 in rent (Custers and Vreman, 1995). The explanation for this situation are the rent laws that were enacted since the late 1930s (see section on elites, governments and tugurios). 5 In our research in Arequipa we found that more than half of the proprietors who were interviewed had inherited the tugurio. More than 20% of this group had to share the building with at least six other heirs (Custers and Vreman, 1995). The resulting complex patterns of ownership also hamper policy measures like renovation and rehabilitation (interview with an official of the municipality, December 1999).
physical condition of Lima’s tugurios (Fig. 3). For example, in 1995 a Civil Defence study found that about 5500 living units in 250 tugurios (with a population of about 30,000) were in a ruinous state and that they were in imminent danger of collapse (El Comercio, 7 April and 21 August 1995). In the same year, CEPROMUR estimated that about 735 tugurios were in a poor physical state. According to the NGO, 8500 dwellings were uninhabitable and should be demolished, while 9600 should be renovated as soon as possible, at least if they were to be preserved as acceptable shelter (Capacitacio´n de Lı´deres Urbanos en Renovacio´n Urbana, 1995). The situation is particularly disastrous in those neighbourhoods where there is a huge concentration of tugurios as appeared from a report of a visit to a notorious callejon in Barrios Altos: “When we strolled through the [building] we found that the planks of the stairs that took us to the first floor were so humid and moth-eaten that they cracked with every step we made. Climbing to the second floor, the stairs felt like a swing that moved so dangerously that we thought we could fall down any moment. However, the most dangerous constructions were the walls made of quincha [a wooden frame filled with mud and straw – gc] and the cross beams of adobe [sun dried bricks made from mud and straw – gc] that trembled with only the slightest movement and that could collapse easily during an earthquake” (La Liberacio´n, 28 December 1999). The situation in Monserrate is equally hazardous, as almost the half of the tugurios in this neighbourhood are affected by “woodworm, deformation of structures, walls and bases, beams and columns, breaking off of plaster and paintwork, filtration of water and humidity” (The Case of Lima’s Inner-city Slum Areas – A Report to the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT), 1983). A crucial factor in explaining this deplorable situation is the fact that the majority of the callejones are constructed from adobe and quincha. These materials are especially susceptible to deterioration in the Liman climate (humid and hot in September–April and humid and cold in May–August), particularly where buildings are overused and suffer from lack of maintenance. Many studies point to the extremely limited living space and note that most families have to be satisfied with just one room. Given a general family size of five members, the size of the rooms and the mostly poor illumination and services (see below), the living conditions in tugurios are indeed deplorable.6 In the words of a tenant, interviewed by La Liberacio´n newspaper: “We live [in this building] 6 According to the results of the study by Dekker (1998), 60% of the households have to be satisfied with one room. Studies carried out in the 1980s yielded the same results (eg, Estudio Socio-econo´mico de Tugurios, Sentados en Inmuebles de la Benificencia Pu´blica de Lima y Ubicados en el Cercado de Lima Metropolitana, 1982; The Case of Lima’s Inner-city Slum Areas – A Report to the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT), 1983).
253
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Figure 3 Interior view of housing conditions, Lima (author)
because we need to live somewhere, and are exposed to whatever catastrophe” (La Liberacio´ n, 28 December 1999). The lack of maintenance by owners and tenants only worsens the physical conditions. The poor quality and limited quantity of the services also contribute to the severe deterioration. The water system and sewage networks, in particular, are in a poor condition, due to overuse and lack of maintenance. While leaking water pipes cause severe problems of humidity (see above), the poor state of the sewerage provision leads to health problems among the population of the rental houses. In the casas subdivididas, the lack of water supply in the rooms and of sewerage services is particularly severe, as just one family originally inhabited each of these colonial edifices. Only in rare cases have the landlords constructed additional facilities. The same applies to the sewage and showers: in the best situations the proprietors constructed additional collective facilities. Civil Defence gave some examples of the deficit: in one, fairly representative case, 85 people had to make do with one water tap, 125 persons with one shower and 93 people with one latrine (El Comercio, 7 April 1996). The results of Dekker’s study confirm this data: 30% of the households that were interviewed had no water tap in their rooms (Dekker, 1998). The state of the electricity supply is little better, as 35 to 40% of the tenant households have no direct supply in their rooms, a high percentage taps electricity (up to 35%) and in 75% of the cases the wiring is in a bad condition (El Comercio, 7 April 1996). 254
About elites, governments and tugurios The picture sketched of tugurios in the 1980s and 1990s differs little from the situation in the first half of the twentieth century. First of all, the tenant population in the parts of the inner city located on the left bank of the Rimac river was estimated at 114,000 during the 1940s, just 6% more than at the beginning of the 1990s (Belaunde Terry, 1945).7 Nor do reports on the quality and size of tugurio living space in the 1940s suggest that there have been fundamental changes (rather there has been a worsening of the situation – see section on tenants and proprietors). Belaunde Terry and other authors referred to the “extreme high densities”, and wrote about “people [living] in small, dark and humid spaces, where they are infected with tuberculosis” (Derteano Urrutia, 1945). “The architecture of this building [a callejon] seems to be inspired by that of a cemetery. The living spaces hardly deserve the name ‘room’; maybe it would be more correct to label them ‘graves for living people’” (Belaunde Terry, 1945). Several studies mentioned the abominable conditions of the water and sewerage systems in the tugurios (Alexander, 1942; Belaunde Terry, 1943). Why did the tugurio population of Lima not 7 Within the inner city, there are notable differences. Eg, in the most central central parts of the area (the ones that saw a certain process of commercialization) the tenant population declined by about 37%, whereas Barrios Altos experienced a increase of 10% (data of PRO-URBE, 1990 compared with those of Belaunde Terry, 1945).
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
decrease as dramatically as in some other Latin American capitals and why are the living conditions in the 1990s as poor as they were in the 1940s? These are the questions I try to answer in this section. The export boom in guano (bird droppings that were used as a manure in Europe) in the 1860s and 1870s, several large-scale infrastructure works in the early 1900s and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 (which led to an expansion of the port of Callao) resulted in expanding labour opportunities and were therefore prominent pull factors for migration to the Peruvian capital (Contreras and Cueto, 1999; Klare´ n, 2000). Subsequently, as in most other Latin American capital cities, the private sector responded to the rising demand for housing with the construction of tenements, especially callejones.8 From the start, these buildings were considered to be very unhealthy places, especially by the Liman elites (Joffre´ , 1999). High population densities, lack of water and the poor quality of sewerage services frequently resulted in epidemics of typhoid, tuberculosis, yellow fever and malaria (Miller, 1988; Alvarino Guzma´ n, 1989; Joffre´ , 1999). These circumstances led to the final departure of the upper and middle classes from the inner city to the suburbs. After leaving their residences, they subdivided them and started to let them to the new, poor, city dwellers. Earlier, in the 1850s, the decay of the once glorious and colonial Lima had already given rise to the outmigration of sections of the upper class who started to exchange this “…miserable hamlet…without water, without light, without pavement…” (Stein, 1988) for the pleasant surroundings of what would become the districts of Chorrillos and Miraflores. This process was accelerated by the development of modern means of transport like railways, trams and motor cars, and the construction of traffic arteries between Lima and the suburbs, eg Avenida Arequipa to Miraflores in 1917. In the course of the twentieth century, Lima witnessed the growth of these as well as the foundation of new areas, like San Isidro (in the 1920s), and the development continued in the 1960s with new upper- and middle-class neighbourhoods in districts like San Borja and Monterrico (Amato, 1970; Contreras and Cueto, 1999; Klare´ n, 2000). Together with the development of tugurios, the formation of these suburbs was the beginning of the modern socioeconomic and spatial segregation that would eventually reach a climax, from the 1950s, with the largescale peripheral spontaneous neighbourhoods (Riofrı´o, 1996). The new, wealthy suburbs not only became residential areas, but also developed into “real” cities. Most high-quality services left the inner city, and the majority of the new ones were located directly in the 8 It should be noted that the Liman callejones have a long history. The first ones were constructed during the colonial epoch when they served as shelter for the Indians who worked for the Spaniards (Gunter, 1992; Joffre´ , 1999; Orrego, 1999; San Cristo´ bal, 1999).
new neighbourhoods. Thus, in the 1990s, the luxurious shopping arcades, banks, restaurants, travel agencies and hotels are to be found mainly in districts like Miraflores and San Isidro. Ministries, embassies, clinics and universities also moved to these areas and new organizations and enterprises were established here and not in the inner city. As a Liman banker said in the late 1980s: “When somebody thinks of investing in a new building, he will not do so in the centre, but in Miraflores or in San Isidro or where ever. How many buildings are they constructing in the centre? No more than two or three…” (Sa´ nchez Leon, 1989).9 The result of this concentration of residences and dynamic tertiary activities also implied a concentration of employment, which was another sign that the elite and large sections of the middle class had definitively turned their backs on the inner city. They not only live, but also work and spend their leisure time in the new areas, far away from the heart of Lima, which has developed into a place many of them hardly know and that seems farther away than its physical distance suggests. Within the context of these centripetal movements, the construction sector deserves special mention. In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, construction companies focused their activities on building callejones in the inner city, but like the wealthy city dwellers, they also started to move outwards. During the presidencies of Pie´ rola (1895–1899) and Leguı´a (1919– 1930) many prestigious buildings were constructed on the edge of the inner city, and the private sector also participated in the construction of modern traffic arteries (boulevards) and the modernization and expansion of the new suburbs (Joffre´ , 1999; Orrego, 1999; Contreras and Cueto, 1999; Klare´ n, 2000). From the late 1930s, because of the increasing migration towards Lima and the fact that space in the inner city was saturated, companies started to construct callejones in the new districts bordering the inner city, like La Victoria (Kross, 1992). The rental housing business proved to be very lucrative. As one observer wrote: “Housing for the lower class has con9 I do not want to suggest that the inner city became somewhat of a ghost town in the course of the twentieth century. Firstly, several banks and other financial institutions constructed their offices in the inner city in the 1930s and 1940s. Secondly, the Presidential Palace, the Court of Justice and the Congress are situated in the area. And thirdly, many colonial, post-colonial and recently constructed buildings function as educational institutes, cheap hotels and restaurants, small stores or offices. These activities, in particular, have attracted numerous informal enterprises, especially street vendors selling food, sweets, drinks, etc. (but see later in this section for recent developments) and important areas of the inner city therefore possess the character of a transition zone (a functionally mixed area of a marginal character, commonly situated at the edge of the city centre, that also contains such functions as housing of lower middle and lower classes, small industries, warehouses, car parks, unoccupied buildings, and all kinds of services of a lower quality).
255
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
stituted a magnificent business; the cheap land near the central areas and the equally economical materials of which poor constructions were erected led to maximum profits” (Derteano Urrutia, 1945). In later years, the construction sector continued to play a central role in the expansion of the Peruvian capital. For example, they tendered for and built the highways and middle-class neighbourhoods in the area between Lima and Callao (Co´ rdova Aguilar, 1989). Land speculation on the periphery also increased in importance, particularly from the 1950s. In 1955, for example, the five wealthiest proprietors owned 30% of the “urbanizable” land near Lima. They not only speculated in land, but also formed “Urbanization Groups”, companies that prepared land for construction, built houses and subsequently sold them (Riofrı´o, 1991). The departure of a large proportion of the socioeconomic elites, and high-quality tertiary activities from the inner city, resulted in a diminishing concern for this area and for its socio-economic problems. Consequently, although tugurios were not demolished and their inhabitants expelled from the inner city on a large scale by economically stronger activities (as in Montevideo), their problems received little attention from those who had left. The state also turned away from the old Lima and increasingly directed its urban policy to the areas outside the inner city. The ever-expanding peripheral neighbourhoods and their problems (like the lack of collective services), in particular, required a greater involvement, something that was also stimulated by the fact that the large populations of these areas constituted an enormous source of potential support for politicians. From the 1950s onwards, therefore, they tried to gain votes with promises and concrete policies for the young towns, as these poor areas were euphemistically labelled by the progressive military government in the 1970s (Collier, 1976). The political support of tenants in inner-city tugurios was less relevant, for the simple reason that the number of people living there was much less than in the new areas. Moreover, several politicians had interests in companies that exploited callejones, for example, and were therefore not inclined to initiate a policy that might affect these activities. Only occasionally did the national government pay attention to rental housing in the inner city, as in 1938 when the poor hygienic conditions in the callejones prompted the enactment of a law that was aimed at forbidding the construction of new ones (Kross, 1992). However, the success of the measure was limited, as companies found ways of evading the measure and simply started to construct other types of tugurio. The only more or less consistent national policy on tugurios was rent legislation. From 1938 Peruvian rent legislation was aimed, inter alia, at freezing rents, especially in tugurios (Custers and Vreman, 1995). And although several studies demonstrated that landlords regularly violated the rules, there is clear evidence that rents did 256
fall (Collier, 1976; Kross, 1992; Custers and Vreman, 1995). During the second half of the 1980s, in particular, a period of high and mounting inflation, rent incomes became totally insignificant, because adjustments to the freeze measures lagged far behind the level of inflation.10 The freezing of rents had severe consequences for the size, quality and, to a lesser extent, total quantity of tugurio living space. Firstly, accommodation became smaller and smaller as proprietors responded to the diminishing rent incomes by continuing to subdivide their buildings – more tenants could at least compensate for these losses. Secondly, the physical quality of the rental houses diminished as the owners did not wish to invest anything more in their maintenance. Proprietors sometimes also evicted their tenants in order to replace the tugurio by a more lucrative enterprise like a shopping arcade or a parking lot. The inhabitants preferred to stay in the tugurio but, because of their economic circumstances, they were unable to invest in the maintenance of their living space. A review of municipal development plans reveals that the successive local governments of Lima have largely ignored the inner city and rental housing (Ruiz de Somocurcio, 1999). For example, “The Urban Development Plan of Greater Lima” of 1967 focused upon the instruments by which the demographic and spatial growth of the capital could be controlled and related problems tackled; the document paid practically no attention to other parts of the capital. Only in the zoning plan, that was written on basis of this document, was the inner city mentioned (Behnfeld, 1983). The plan assigned a mixed function for this area (which it had, in fact, already possessed for many years), while the necessity of urban renewal was also acknowledged. However, in spite of the genuine concern about Lima’s urban problems, bureaucracy, the pace of urban growth and the lack of money caused the plan to become just another policy paper condemned to be forgotten in the municipal archives (Behnfeld, 1983). In the preparation of a new plan in 1984, the planners again aimed to guide Lima’s expansion. Unlike the 1967 plan, this one was drawn up by the Municipality of Lima itself and many pages were devoted to the socio-economic problems facing poor city dwellers, such as the accessibility of collective services like schools and clinics. The municipality acknowledged the problems of the inner city and pointed to the obvious and dangerous expansion which simultaneously produced a permanent deterioration of the central parts of the capital. However, once again the planning process finished with the presentation of a document and little was done to real10 For example, a decree issued on 1 November 1988 permitted a rise in rents of 100%. However, during the period since the last decree, September and October 1988, inflation had amounted to more than 200%. On 1 January 1990, a decree allowed an increase of 30%, but the inflation since the last decree, issued on 1 July 1989, had been 310% (Custers and Vreman, 1995).
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
ize the objectives of the plan, either on the periphery or in the inner city. In the 1990s, the deterioration of the inner city (not only of the private spaces, particularly the tugurios, but also of the public spaces, with some 30,000 street vendors offering their products and services throughout the area) had reached an all-time low and several local governments in the decade appeared to be sincerely concerned about the situation. In 1990, the “The Metropolitan Development Plan of Lima, 1990– 2010”, drawn up by the new planning office of the Lima municipality, PRO-URBE, was presented. It was undoubtedly one of the best-documented visions on the spatial future of Lima ever published and, for the first time in the twentieth century, dedicated many pages to the inner city. The report contained an extensive stocktaking of run-down areas and defined explicit criteria for defining areas to be considered for policy measures. Some alternative policy options were also developed and a pilot study of Monserrate was announced (PRO-URBE, 1990). Although there was a danger that the organization and the financing of this policy would result in an immense bureaucracy, the enthusiasm of the appointed urban renewal specialists and the growing concern for the inner city and tugurios in and outside politics justified the hope that a turning point had been reached. However, with the election of a new mayor and executive, the optimism rapidly wained. Because of conflicting ideas on urban planning, PRO-URBE was closed, its manager discharged and the 1990–2010 plan cancelled. Policy on the inner city was reduced to the improvement of some central traffic arteries, a reduction in the huge number of street vendors and some ad hoc measures. The only policy relating to run-down areas (and therefore, tugurios) consisted of the possible making of a request for the financing of a project by international organizations. In 1996, the administration of a new mayor, Alberto Andrade, appeared to taking seriously its promises to realize a comprehensive policy for the inner city. Measures were taken to regain public space by relocating the thousands of street vendors to formal markets outside the inner city or to shopping arcades and thus free large areas from chaos, crime and all kinds of environmental pollution (Godoy and De la Puente, 1996; Guerrero, 1999). Squares (like the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza San Martı´n) and parks (Parque Universitario) were entirely renovated; neighbourhoods that once had been attractive areas for people to spend their leisure time regained their old splendour. An important feature was that various sectors of the private sector were encouraged to take initiatives and, as a result, new attractions opened their doors (El Comercio, 13 and 15 March 1996; Caretas, 24 September 1998). Tourist guides have already heralded the return of famous restaurants and cafe´ s, but the government’s objective was not limited to making the inner city an attractive centre for Liman families and foreign tourists. The Master Plan for the
area and the specific reports that were produced within its context, such as a study of and proposal for the renovation of Barrios Altos, also paid extensive attention to tugurios (IMP, 1998). The reports pointed to many specific problems of rental houses and their population, such as their dangerous deterioration. The Dutch government financed a pilot renovation project that was executed by a joint venture in which several NGOs (like CEPROMUR) and the municipal government participated (Keijzer, 1998).11 However, financial problems caused a paralysis of the renovation activities.12 At the time of completing this manuscript, the projects had not yet been resumed (July 2000).
Conclusions In the course of the twentieth century, inner-city rental housing in Lima has not changed significantly. Therefore, at the start of the new millennium, the most depressing characteristics of the tugurios, as well as the number of people living in them, have largely remained the same as in the 1940s. More than in any other Latin American capital, both elites and the state have turned their backs on the area, something that at least has one positive consequence for those who preferred to live there: unlike Santiago or Montevideo, there have been no massive evictions. On the other hand, the neglect and the single exception to this neglect, rent laws, have only resulted in a deterioration of housing conditions. Recent local policy proposals look hopeful, but while those directed at the public spaces have been quite successful, the interventions directed at improving the condition of the tugurios have been limited to a number of studies and some pilot projects. Most important initiatives have, in fact, come to a standstill. As the deterioration of the tugurios has reached an extreme point, it may be that large-scale demolitions and evictions will become the only alternative “policy” for this segment of the Liman housing market. Moreover, the implementation of a comprehensive renovation policy for the tugurios (taking into account the interests of both tenants and landlords) may be too complex and too costly (see also 7) and therefore not viable.
11 In 1997, the Dutch government donated US$1.5 million to this joint venture, called PRORRUA (“Special program for urban renovation and recuperation of the environment”). Half of the money was spent on the amelioration of tugurios, the other half on renovation and on relocation of the street vendors in the area. 12 According to several informants, the lack of funds was at least partly due to political rivalry between the mayor of Lima and the Peruvian president, Alberto Fujimori, both of whom stood as candidates in the presidential elections of April 2000. The president refused to give his approval to donations and credits from international organizations for the municipality of Lima (interviews with experts, January 2000).
257
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Acknowledgements This paper is based in part on a chapter of the author’s Ph.D. thesis, which was written jointly with Damiaan Vreman (Custers and Vreman, 1995). I would like to thank Luz Estremadoyra of the Liman NGO CEPROMUR, Patricia Dı´az of the Municipality of Lima and the Dutch consultant Dick Keijzer for supplying recent material on Lima’s inner city, its tugurios and relevant policy. Many thanks also to Azarias Cha´ vez for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper and Robert Symonds for correcting the English. The usual disclaimer applies.
References Alexander, A (1942) La crisis actual de la edificacio´ n y sus proyecciones El Arquitecto Peruano 62 np. Alvarino Guzma´ n, M (1989) La destugurizacio´ n del Centro Histo´ rico de Lima. Paper presented to the Encuentro sobre la Destugurizacio´ n del Centro´ Histo´ rico de Lima, Lima, 9 October. Amato, P W (1970) Elitism and settlement patterns in the Latin American city. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 36(2), 96–105. Behnfeld, H (1983) Ra¨ umliche Planung in Latein Amerika – Analyse und Vorsla¨ ge stadt-planerischer Instrumente, dargestellt am Beispiel Peru. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden Baden. Belaunde Terry, F (1943) Algunos aspectos generales del problema urbano de Lima El Arquitecto Peruano 77 np. Belaunde Terry, F (1945) El tugurio: enfermedad urbana de diagno´ stico grave El Arquitecto Peruano 95 np. Caldero´ n, J and Maquet, P (eds) (1996) Gestio´ n Municipal – Por el Habitat. Cuadernos Habitat II No. 1, Plataforma Habitat II, Lima. CEPROMUR (1995) Capacitacio´ n de Lı´deres Urbanos en Renovacio´ n Urbana. CEPROMUR, Lima. CEPROMUR (1996) Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia. CEPROMUR, Lima. Collier, D (1976) Squatters and Oligarchs. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Contreras, C and Cueto, M (1999) Historia del Peru´ Contempora´ neo. Red para el Desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales en el Peru´ , Lima. Co´ rdova Aguilar, H (1989) La ciudad de Lima: su evolucio´ n y desarrollo metropolitano. Revista Geogra´ fica 110(Jul-Dec), 231–266. Custers, G and Vreman, D (1995) Tugurios and Tugurio Inhabitants in Arequipa. Nijmegen Studies in Development and Cultural Change 20. Verlag fu¨ r Entwicklungspolitik Breitenbach GmbH, Saarbru¨ cken. Dekker, E (1998) Inquilinato en los tugurios de Lima. Medio de Construccio´ n 135(Feb), 17–29. Derteano Urrutia, F (1945) Algunas consideraciones y cifras que tocan al problema de la vivienda El Arquitecto Peruano 95 np. Godoy, L and De la Puente, J (1996) En pie de guerra La Repu´ blica-Domingo 17 Mar 2–5. Guerrero, E (1999) Lima, el comercio callejero y el Centro Histo´ rico. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 125–142. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Gunter, J (1992) El problema de tugurios y la necesaria participacio´ n de la empresa privada en su solucio´ n. Por los Tugurios II(5), 3.
258
IMP (Instituto Metropolitano de Planificacio´ n) (1998) Renovacio´ n Urbana en Barrios Altos – Propuesta. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. INADUR (1983) The Case of Lima’s Inner-city Slum Areas – A Report to the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT). INADUR, Lima. INEI (Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica e Informatica) (1999) Indicadores Demogra´ ficos (Webpage), Lima. Joffre´ , G R (1999) La Muralla y los Callejones – Intervencio´ n Urbana y Proyecto Polı´tico en Lima durante la Segunda Mitad del Siglo XIX. Sidea/Promperu´ , Lima. Jones, G A and Bromley, R D F (1996) The relationship between urban conservation programmes and property renovation: evidence from Quito, Ecuador. Cities 13(6), 373–385. Keijzer, D (1998) Report of a Mission to Peru. Lima, 19 August. Klare´ n, P F (2000) Peru – Society and Nationhood in the Andes. Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford. Kross, E (1992) Die Barriadas von Lima – Stadtentwicklungsprozesse in einer lateinamerikanischen Metropole. Ferdinand Scho¨ ningh, Paderborn. Mahuad, J (1999) Ecuador: Quito, salvamento de la ciudad. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 63–84. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Miller, R (1988) The population problem of late nineteenth century Lima paper presented to the 46th Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, 4–8 July. MVC (1982) Estudio Socio-econo´ mico de Tugurios, Sentados en Inmuebles de la Benificencia Pu´ blica de Lima y Ubicados en el Cercado de Lima Metropolitana. MVC (Ministerio de Vivienda y Construccio´ n), Lima. Orrego, J (1999) Evolucio´ n histo´ rica del centro de Lima. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 33–48. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. PRO-URBE (1990) Plan de Desarrollo Metropolitano de Lima, 1990–2000. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Riofrı´o, G (1991) Producir la Ciudad (Popular) de los ’90 – Entre el Mercado y el Estado. DESCO, Lima. Riofrı´o, G (1996) Lima: mega-city and mega-problem. In The Mega-city in Latin America, (ed.) A Gilbert., pp 155–172. United Nations University Press, Tokyo/New York/Paris. Ruiz de Somocurcio, J (1999) Construyendo el futuro: nuestra propuesta. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 49–88. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Ruiz de Somocurcio, J and Dı´az-Albertini, J (1997) The challenge of metropolitan planning in Lima: towards a new encounter. In The Challenge of Sustainable Cities – Neo-liberalism and Urban Strategies in Developing Countries, (eds) R Burgess, M Carmano and T Kolstee., pp 189–201. Zed Books, London/New Jersey. Sa´ nchez Leon, A (1989) Destugurizacio´ n del Centro Histo´ rico de Lima paper presented to the Encuentro sobre la Destugurizacio´ n del Centro´ Histo´ rico de Lima, Lima, 9 October. San Cristo´ bal, A (1999) Fachadas de un piso El Comercio 15 Dec e5. Stein, S (1988) New approaches to the study of urban history in Latin America: the case of early twentieth century Lima paper presented to the 46th Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, 4–8 July. Violich, F (1987) Urban Planning for Latin America – The Challenge of Metropolitan Growth. Oelgeschalager, Gunn and Hain, Publishers Inc, Boston, MA (in collaboration with R. Daughters).
PII: S0264-2751(01)00017-8
Cities, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 249–258, 2001 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0264-2751/01 $ - see front matter
www.elsevier.com/locate/cities
Inner-city Rental Housing in Lima A Portrayal and an Explanation Geert Custers1 Veltumse Kleffen 15, 5801 SB Venray, The Netherlands
Since the second half of the 1980s, practitioners and researchers have been paying attention to what may be labelled the oldest type of housing for low-income groups in modern Latin America, namely inner-city rental housing. An important conclusion that can be drawn from a review of the studies executed over the last 15 years is the fact that there appear to exist significant differences between Latin American cities regarding the quantitative importance of this segment of the urban housing market and the explanations for its current “state-of-theart”. In this paper I discuss the often poor physical conditions of these dwellings, the lack of sufficient and good services, the tight accommodations and the socio-economic characteristics of owners and tenant households, as well as the factors contributing to this situation. I do this by elaborating upon the case of the Peruvian capital Lima, where the so-called tugurios comprise an important alternative for poor households who prefer to live in the inner city. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: inner city, inner-city rental housing, (local) policy, proprietors, tenants, tugurios
Introduction
houses) in Guatemala, mesones (inns) in El Salvador and conventillos (cloisters) in Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay. Until the second half of the 1980s, practitioners [states, national government organizations (NGOs) and development organizations alike] and researchers showed little interest in inner-city rental housing, something that could be explained by two factors. On the one hand, the growth of the poor peripheral neighbourhoods in the majority of Latin American cities was so fast and the difficulties related to it so enormous and complex that local and national political concern was primarily directed at these areas and their populations. At the same time, researchers not only wrote descriptive studies, but also tried to explain specific phenomena and problems related to urban expansion. For example, the architect John Turner’s model of intra-urban migration of the poor and their housing strategies inspired a large number of empirical studies and theoretical discussions of the ever-growing peripheral neighbourhoods. On the other hand, the inner city was generally looked upon as an area inhabited by a diminishing population with fewer socio-economic problems than their fellow citizens living on the urban fringe. This idea was of course partly influenced by Turner’s model, which stated that the inner city was inhabited by people who had reached an acceptable level of living, and by the fact that low-
This contribution discusses the oldest type of housing for low-income groups in modern Latin America: rented dwellings situated in the inner cities. This segment of the urban housing market comprises dwellings built in the colonial and post-colonial eras (until about the 1940s) that are characterized by physical deterioration and are each inhabited by several households who rent their accommodation, which usually is limited to just a few rooms. Services like water and electricity are generally shared and are of poor quality. We can discern two sub-types. Firstly, buildings that were originally inhabited by the colonial and post-colonial upper and middle classes, who started to leave their residences from the last part of the nineteenth century for areas just outside the cities and who subdivided their former residences in order to rent them out. A second type consists of buildings that were constructed with the specific aim of letting (Custers and Vreman, 1995). The various names by which they are known are colourful and revealing: tugurios (hut, shack) in Peru, palomares (pigeon *Tel.: +31-478-581428; e-mail: [email protected],[email protected] 1 Former advisor on Urban Planning, Municipality of Chinandega, Nicaragua.
249
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
income housing in this area was less noticeable than the poor dwellings on the periphery. Moreover, where there was an interest in the inner city, it was only in relation to the expansion of economic, mostly tertiary, activities in this area. In short, concern for low-income housing was drawn mainly to the urban fringes, whereas renting accommodation in the inner city was hardly a topic of academic research or of a structural policy. An increasing belief that the socio-economic and housing conditions of the population of the inner-city rental dwellings were worse than was commonly assumed, was the most important reason for a growing interest in this subject. Moreover, authors and policy makers became more aware of the complex problems of the colonial and post-colonial inner cities. There was a growing consciousness of the cultural heritage, of the economic and social decay of some of these areas, and a fierce competition for the use of space in the more dynamic Latin American inner cities. In one way or another, the housing of the poor was under threat. In some cases this was because of the poor physical quality of the dwellings, in others it was also because of the increasing urban renewal and economic revitalization activities that left little space for housing for the poor and consequently resulted in evictions. As a result, the second half of the 1980s saw an increasing number of studies on inner-city rental housing and, to a lesser extent, policy measures. A review of the literature leads to one indisputable conclusion: it is dangerous to make generalizations about some crucial aspects of this segment of the urban housing market in Latin America. First, we can observe important differences in the relative importance of its population. In La Paz, 1% of the city dwellers live in the conventillos, in Mexico City about 3.5% in the vecindades; 17.5% of the population of Quito live in the conventillos and about 20% of the inhabitants of San Salvador in mesones (Custers and Vreman, 1995). Second, it is too easy to generalize about the processes that have influenced and continue to influence the development and the present “stateof-the-art” of inner-city rental housing. In some cities, local or national urban policy was a determining factor in its development as, for example, in Santiago, where all conventillos disappeared in the 1940s because of a rigorous renovation policy (Violich, 1987). In Mexico City, the quality and quantity of casas de vecindad were severely affected by the earthquake that hit the city in 1985. And in Quito, inner-city rental houses still are a dominant user of space, because of a lack of competition from the tertiary economic activities; the latter are concentrated in the modern Ciudad Nueva (New City) that was built outside the colonial core (Jones and Bromley, 1996; Mahuad, 1999). In this paper, I shall elaborate upon the above themes on the basis of a case study of the Peruvian capital of Lima. I portray the tugurios, their inhabitants and proprietors and try to explain why no sig250
nificant changes have occurred since the first half of the twentieth century. I show that the factors contributing to this relative “stability” are to be found in the lack of genuine interest on the part of the Liman elite and local and national governments in the inner city. The structure of the contribution is as follows. In the next section, I start with a brief introduction on the city of Lima and some general observations on innercity rental housing in that city. This is followed by a portrayal of the tugurios and their inhabitants in the 1990s, referring, amongst other things, to the socioeconomic characteristics of the households and the physical quality of the buildings. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the explanation, focusing on the role of urban elites and policy. In the conclusions I consider the future, especially in the light of recent developments in the policy for the inner city and the tugurios.
Lima, a brief introduction The Peruvian capital, Lima, which is situated on the left bank of the Rimac river, was founded on 18 January 1535 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. Initially baptized Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings), the city rapidly became known as Lima, presumably a corruption of Rimac. Inhabited by more than 7,000,000 people (estimate, INEI, 1999), Lima is the largest city of Latin America after Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. And although its annual growth rate has slowed down since the early 1960s, the capital is still 10 times larger than the country’s second city, Arequipa (695,000 inhabitants; estimate, INEI, 1999). The primacy can also be expressed in functional terms: eg, by the mid-1980s, 98% of private investment outside the mining sector, 76% of the country’s doctors, 45% of its public services, 58% of its industrial activities and 83% of its bank loans were situated in Lima. There is no reason to assume that these numbers have changed significantly in the last 15 years. The nature and the scale of the problems this metropolis has to cope with are enormous. For example, the large majority of the population are either unemployed or underemployed (10% and 77%, respectively, according to official statistics; Riofrı´o, 1996) and, consequently, the proportion of people living below the poverty level is enormous (over 75%) (Riofrı´o, 1996; Ruiz de Somocurcio and Dı´az-Albertini, 1997). Another significant problem, and at least partially related to that just mentioned, is shelter for low-income groups. The vast majority of them are housed in settlements on the older and newer periphery of the city in self-built houses. As in many other cities in developing countries, the housing issue is accompanied by other problems like the deficiency of collective services of all kinds, such as water and sewerage, legal problems (illegal occupation of lands) and crime and violence. The management of this mega city with its mega problems is obviously far
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Figure 1 Aerial view of inner-city Lima (author)
from easy (Riofrı´o, 1996; see also Caldero´ n and Maquet, 1996; Ruiz de Somocurcio and Dı´az-Albertini, 1997). Although inner-city rental housing is of lesser importance in quantitative terms than housing in the peripheral neighbourhoods, it still constitutes a significant housing alternative for the Liman poor and therefore deserves our attention. In the next section I introduce the tugurios.
About casas subdivididas and callejones Although tugurios have been called the invisible sector of the Liman housing market,2 they occupy a prominent place in Lima’s inner city (Fig. 1). They can be found just one block from the Presidential Palace, in front of the National Library or in neighbourhoods that are situated along the most important traffic arteries crossing the area. In several areas of the inner city, such as in a neighbourhood called Barrios Altos, they not only constitute the main type of shelter, but also the most important user of space (IMP, 1998). Using data from the former urban planning department of the Municipality of Lima, PROURBE, we estimate that between 150,000 and 200,000 people live in tugurios, of whom about
2 Their fronts are often indistinguishable from those of buildings accommodating other functions. It is also possible to find buildings that function partly as a tugurio, whereas other rooms, mostly situated along the street, are used as offices, stores or warehouses.
107,000 live in the larger part of the inner city, ie on the left bank of the Rimac river (PRO-URBE, 1990).3 Tugurios attract attention, however, not only because of their important position, but also through their varied structural designs. In Lima, two subtypes stand out. The oldest form is the casa subdividida (subdivided house dwelling) which originally, in the colonial and early post-colonial era, accommodated one household. In the nineteenth century the original inhabitants started to subdivide their properties in order to rent them to lower-class families, a process that could last several years, during which the house was increasingly subdivided in order to accommodate more families and so obtain more rental income or at least maintain it at the same level (next section). As a corollary, overuse became a common phenomenon and, although the majority of the casas subdivididas were constructed of solid materials like stone, they deteriorated severely, partly because of the lack of maintenance and the Liman climate (see section on physical deterioration) (Fig. 2). In quantitative terms, the callejon (corridor) appears to be the most important type of tugurio in 3 It is rather difficult to give reliable and accurate estimates of the number of tugurio inhabitants. Firstly, the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) does not include the concept in its censuses, nor any equivalent (INEI does employ callejon, but omits the casas subdivididas and other subtypes of inner-city rental housing). Secondly, although some institutions like the Civil Defence have made estimates, these are unreliable in the view of the Liman NGO CEPROMUR (interview with Director of CEPROMUR, December 1999) and other experts. PRO-URBE used INEI data in their report, supplemented with estimates based on their own field research (see section on explanation).
251
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Figure 2 Exterior view of street and housing conditions, Lima, (author)
the Peruvian capital. The callejones, which were constructed with the explicit aim of renting them to lowincome groups, are characterized by a group of dwellings located on both sides of a longitudinal corridor, where each household has only one or two small rooms with inadequate illumination and ventilation at its disposal. Although their size varies, most Liman callejones accommodate more than 50 families. They are constructed mainly of clay or bricks with a wooden roof and often have a floor of sand. Even more than the casas subdivididas, the callejones have a poor reputation due to their physical state and therefore frequently figure in the newspapers (“Callejones of Barrios Altos on the verge of collapsing”) and in the reports of public institutions like the Metropolitan Planning Institute and, especially, the Civil Defence of Lima.
About tenants and proprietors Although there are no city-wide, representative socioeconomic profiles of Lima’s tugurio inhabitants, reports on specific parts of the inner city depict a population that belongs to the “marginalized”, poor, low-income sectors of the urban society. For example, a study by Dekker of 27 tugurios revealed that 57% of the households had a monthly income of less than 600 nuevos soles (official minimum wage in 1997: 300 nuevos soles; Dekker, 1998). Most people, ie up to 60%, are employed in the formal or informal tertiary sectors of the Liman economy (Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia, 1996). An important group comprises people working as employees, ie domestic servants, salespersons, or any other lowerpaid job in the numerous restaurants, offices, edu252
cational institutes and workshops in the inner city, while another significant proportion of the labour force is employed in the informal sector, eg as street vendors. The large majority of the people work within walking distance of their homes in the inner city of Lima. The inhabitants of neighbourhoods like Barrios Altos and Monserrate (which possess a very mixed service economy of mainly small establishments), in particular, are able to save on transport costs. Although a CEPROMUR study in Barrios Altos revealed that the inner city is still “the place to be” for new intra-urban and rural/inter urban migrants (more than 10% had lived for less than 5 years in the tugurio where they were interviewed), most households had lived there for a long time. Over half of the tenants had lived in the same building for between 16 and 35 years, while other studies revealed that households had lived in the same tugurio on average for over 18 years (Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia, 1996). This suggests that the rental population is relatively stable, a situation that is generally explained by two factors: firstly, by the advantages of living in the inner city, near work, schools, hospitals and other services, resulting in a saving of travel time and costs and, secondly, by the economic conditions that force people who would like to leave (eg because of the poor physical conditions of the building – see next section) to stay. Renting accommodation in a Liman tugurio is rather economical, even for low-income households, and forms an additional motive for people not to move, eg to Lima’s periphery to build a house of their own. Dekker’s study revealed that 30% of the tenants paid less than 50 nuevos soles in rent, and 30% paid between 50 and 100 nuevos soles (Dekker, 1998). The
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
most striking result of the study, however, was the fact that the remaining 40% of the tenants lived for free!4 Tugurio owners should not be looked upon as a homogeneous socio-economic class that has a sole objective, namely that of making fast and easy profits. In Lima we can distinguish at least three categories. Firstly, there is a group of petty proprietors, eg those who live in the building in the same circumstances as their tenants and whose rent incomes are extremely low, because they own just one section of the building. They may have sold some rooms to former tenants, or have inherited the tugurio jointly with several brothers and sisters and have therefore to share the rent income.5 A second group of individual proprietors comprises the affluent descendants of the original owners of casas subdivididas and callejones. Generally, these owners reside in wealthy districts like San Isidro or Miraflores and have appointed a caretaker who lives in the tugurio and who arranges all matters for his employer, from collecting the rents to settling problems with tenants. A third group consists of several kinds of institutions who, especially in the early decades of the twentieth century, constructed callejones in order to augment their incomes. This kind of proprietor includes not only real estate companies who were only interested in “enrichment […] at the expense of the working class”, but also universities, the Catholic Church, religious orders and municipal institutions. The size of this group is considerable. Whereas in Monserrate they make up about 20% of the proprietors, in Barrios Altos about 70% of the population lives in tugurios that are owned by these institutions (IMP, 1998; Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia, 1996).
About physical deterioration, poor services and tight accommodation Every now and then, governmental institutions, NGOs and popular movements raise the alarm about the
4 Various studies in other parts of the city, as well in other Peruvian cities, confirm the level of these figures and lead to the conclusion that renting accommodation in a tugurio is indeed inexpensive. For example, in a study of tugurios in the city of Arequipa, southern Peru, we found that the vast majority of the households paid less for living in a tugurio in the early 1990s than for a simple lunch: more than half of them paid nothing or under US$3.5 in rent (Custers and Vreman, 1995). The explanation for this situation are the rent laws that were enacted since the late 1930s (see section on elites, governments and tugurios). 5 In our research in Arequipa we found that more than half of the proprietors who were interviewed had inherited the tugurio. More than 20% of this group had to share the building with at least six other heirs (Custers and Vreman, 1995). The resulting complex patterns of ownership also hamper policy measures like renovation and rehabilitation (interview with an official of the municipality, December 1999).
physical condition of Lima’s tugurios (Fig. 3). For example, in 1995 a Civil Defence study found that about 5500 living units in 250 tugurios (with a population of about 30,000) were in a ruinous state and that they were in imminent danger of collapse (El Comercio, 7 April and 21 August 1995). In the same year, CEPROMUR estimated that about 735 tugurios were in a poor physical state. According to the NGO, 8500 dwellings were uninhabitable and should be demolished, while 9600 should be renovated as soon as possible, at least if they were to be preserved as acceptable shelter (Capacitacio´n de Lı´deres Urbanos en Renovacio´n Urbana, 1995). The situation is particularly disastrous in those neighbourhoods where there is a huge concentration of tugurios as appeared from a report of a visit to a notorious callejon in Barrios Altos: “When we strolled through the [building] we found that the planks of the stairs that took us to the first floor were so humid and moth-eaten that they cracked with every step we made. Climbing to the second floor, the stairs felt like a swing that moved so dangerously that we thought we could fall down any moment. However, the most dangerous constructions were the walls made of quincha [a wooden frame filled with mud and straw – gc] and the cross beams of adobe [sun dried bricks made from mud and straw – gc] that trembled with only the slightest movement and that could collapse easily during an earthquake” (La Liberacio´n, 28 December 1999). The situation in Monserrate is equally hazardous, as almost the half of the tugurios in this neighbourhood are affected by “woodworm, deformation of structures, walls and bases, beams and columns, breaking off of plaster and paintwork, filtration of water and humidity” (The Case of Lima’s Inner-city Slum Areas – A Report to the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT), 1983). A crucial factor in explaining this deplorable situation is the fact that the majority of the callejones are constructed from adobe and quincha. These materials are especially susceptible to deterioration in the Liman climate (humid and hot in September–April and humid and cold in May–August), particularly where buildings are overused and suffer from lack of maintenance. Many studies point to the extremely limited living space and note that most families have to be satisfied with just one room. Given a general family size of five members, the size of the rooms and the mostly poor illumination and services (see below), the living conditions in tugurios are indeed deplorable.6 In the words of a tenant, interviewed by La Liberacio´n newspaper: “We live [in this building] 6 According to the results of the study by Dekker (1998), 60% of the households have to be satisfied with one room. Studies carried out in the 1980s yielded the same results (eg, Estudio Socio-econo´mico de Tugurios, Sentados en Inmuebles de la Benificencia Pu´blica de Lima y Ubicados en el Cercado de Lima Metropolitana, 1982; The Case of Lima’s Inner-city Slum Areas – A Report to the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT), 1983).
253
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Figure 3 Interior view of housing conditions, Lima (author)
because we need to live somewhere, and are exposed to whatever catastrophe” (La Liberacio´ n, 28 December 1999). The lack of maintenance by owners and tenants only worsens the physical conditions. The poor quality and limited quantity of the services also contribute to the severe deterioration. The water system and sewage networks, in particular, are in a poor condition, due to overuse and lack of maintenance. While leaking water pipes cause severe problems of humidity (see above), the poor state of the sewerage provision leads to health problems among the population of the rental houses. In the casas subdivididas, the lack of water supply in the rooms and of sewerage services is particularly severe, as just one family originally inhabited each of these colonial edifices. Only in rare cases have the landlords constructed additional facilities. The same applies to the sewage and showers: in the best situations the proprietors constructed additional collective facilities. Civil Defence gave some examples of the deficit: in one, fairly representative case, 85 people had to make do with one water tap, 125 persons with one shower and 93 people with one latrine (El Comercio, 7 April 1996). The results of Dekker’s study confirm this data: 30% of the households that were interviewed had no water tap in their rooms (Dekker, 1998). The state of the electricity supply is little better, as 35 to 40% of the tenant households have no direct supply in their rooms, a high percentage taps electricity (up to 35%) and in 75% of the cases the wiring is in a bad condition (El Comercio, 7 April 1996). 254
About elites, governments and tugurios The picture sketched of tugurios in the 1980s and 1990s differs little from the situation in the first half of the twentieth century. First of all, the tenant population in the parts of the inner city located on the left bank of the Rimac river was estimated at 114,000 during the 1940s, just 6% more than at the beginning of the 1990s (Belaunde Terry, 1945).7 Nor do reports on the quality and size of tugurio living space in the 1940s suggest that there have been fundamental changes (rather there has been a worsening of the situation – see section on tenants and proprietors). Belaunde Terry and other authors referred to the “extreme high densities”, and wrote about “people [living] in small, dark and humid spaces, where they are infected with tuberculosis” (Derteano Urrutia, 1945). “The architecture of this building [a callejon] seems to be inspired by that of a cemetery. The living spaces hardly deserve the name ‘room’; maybe it would be more correct to label them ‘graves for living people’” (Belaunde Terry, 1945). Several studies mentioned the abominable conditions of the water and sewerage systems in the tugurios (Alexander, 1942; Belaunde Terry, 1943). Why did the tugurio population of Lima not 7 Within the inner city, there are notable differences. Eg, in the most central central parts of the area (the ones that saw a certain process of commercialization) the tenant population declined by about 37%, whereas Barrios Altos experienced a increase of 10% (data of PRO-URBE, 1990 compared with those of Belaunde Terry, 1945).
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
decrease as dramatically as in some other Latin American capitals and why are the living conditions in the 1990s as poor as they were in the 1940s? These are the questions I try to answer in this section. The export boom in guano (bird droppings that were used as a manure in Europe) in the 1860s and 1870s, several large-scale infrastructure works in the early 1900s and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 (which led to an expansion of the port of Callao) resulted in expanding labour opportunities and were therefore prominent pull factors for migration to the Peruvian capital (Contreras and Cueto, 1999; Klare´ n, 2000). Subsequently, as in most other Latin American capital cities, the private sector responded to the rising demand for housing with the construction of tenements, especially callejones.8 From the start, these buildings were considered to be very unhealthy places, especially by the Liman elites (Joffre´ , 1999). High population densities, lack of water and the poor quality of sewerage services frequently resulted in epidemics of typhoid, tuberculosis, yellow fever and malaria (Miller, 1988; Alvarino Guzma´ n, 1989; Joffre´ , 1999). These circumstances led to the final departure of the upper and middle classes from the inner city to the suburbs. After leaving their residences, they subdivided them and started to let them to the new, poor, city dwellers. Earlier, in the 1850s, the decay of the once glorious and colonial Lima had already given rise to the outmigration of sections of the upper class who started to exchange this “…miserable hamlet…without water, without light, without pavement…” (Stein, 1988) for the pleasant surroundings of what would become the districts of Chorrillos and Miraflores. This process was accelerated by the development of modern means of transport like railways, trams and motor cars, and the construction of traffic arteries between Lima and the suburbs, eg Avenida Arequipa to Miraflores in 1917. In the course of the twentieth century, Lima witnessed the growth of these as well as the foundation of new areas, like San Isidro (in the 1920s), and the development continued in the 1960s with new upper- and middle-class neighbourhoods in districts like San Borja and Monterrico (Amato, 1970; Contreras and Cueto, 1999; Klare´ n, 2000). Together with the development of tugurios, the formation of these suburbs was the beginning of the modern socioeconomic and spatial segregation that would eventually reach a climax, from the 1950s, with the largescale peripheral spontaneous neighbourhoods (Riofrı´o, 1996). The new, wealthy suburbs not only became residential areas, but also developed into “real” cities. Most high-quality services left the inner city, and the majority of the new ones were located directly in the 8 It should be noted that the Liman callejones have a long history. The first ones were constructed during the colonial epoch when they served as shelter for the Indians who worked for the Spaniards (Gunter, 1992; Joffre´ , 1999; Orrego, 1999; San Cristo´ bal, 1999).
new neighbourhoods. Thus, in the 1990s, the luxurious shopping arcades, banks, restaurants, travel agencies and hotels are to be found mainly in districts like Miraflores and San Isidro. Ministries, embassies, clinics and universities also moved to these areas and new organizations and enterprises were established here and not in the inner city. As a Liman banker said in the late 1980s: “When somebody thinks of investing in a new building, he will not do so in the centre, but in Miraflores or in San Isidro or where ever. How many buildings are they constructing in the centre? No more than two or three…” (Sa´ nchez Leon, 1989).9 The result of this concentration of residences and dynamic tertiary activities also implied a concentration of employment, which was another sign that the elite and large sections of the middle class had definitively turned their backs on the inner city. They not only live, but also work and spend their leisure time in the new areas, far away from the heart of Lima, which has developed into a place many of them hardly know and that seems farther away than its physical distance suggests. Within the context of these centripetal movements, the construction sector deserves special mention. In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, construction companies focused their activities on building callejones in the inner city, but like the wealthy city dwellers, they also started to move outwards. During the presidencies of Pie´ rola (1895–1899) and Leguı´a (1919– 1930) many prestigious buildings were constructed on the edge of the inner city, and the private sector also participated in the construction of modern traffic arteries (boulevards) and the modernization and expansion of the new suburbs (Joffre´ , 1999; Orrego, 1999; Contreras and Cueto, 1999; Klare´ n, 2000). From the late 1930s, because of the increasing migration towards Lima and the fact that space in the inner city was saturated, companies started to construct callejones in the new districts bordering the inner city, like La Victoria (Kross, 1992). The rental housing business proved to be very lucrative. As one observer wrote: “Housing for the lower class has con9 I do not want to suggest that the inner city became somewhat of a ghost town in the course of the twentieth century. Firstly, several banks and other financial institutions constructed their offices in the inner city in the 1930s and 1940s. Secondly, the Presidential Palace, the Court of Justice and the Congress are situated in the area. And thirdly, many colonial, post-colonial and recently constructed buildings function as educational institutes, cheap hotels and restaurants, small stores or offices. These activities, in particular, have attracted numerous informal enterprises, especially street vendors selling food, sweets, drinks, etc. (but see later in this section for recent developments) and important areas of the inner city therefore possess the character of a transition zone (a functionally mixed area of a marginal character, commonly situated at the edge of the city centre, that also contains such functions as housing of lower middle and lower classes, small industries, warehouses, car parks, unoccupied buildings, and all kinds of services of a lower quality).
255
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
stituted a magnificent business; the cheap land near the central areas and the equally economical materials of which poor constructions were erected led to maximum profits” (Derteano Urrutia, 1945). In later years, the construction sector continued to play a central role in the expansion of the Peruvian capital. For example, they tendered for and built the highways and middle-class neighbourhoods in the area between Lima and Callao (Co´ rdova Aguilar, 1989). Land speculation on the periphery also increased in importance, particularly from the 1950s. In 1955, for example, the five wealthiest proprietors owned 30% of the “urbanizable” land near Lima. They not only speculated in land, but also formed “Urbanization Groups”, companies that prepared land for construction, built houses and subsequently sold them (Riofrı´o, 1991). The departure of a large proportion of the socioeconomic elites, and high-quality tertiary activities from the inner city, resulted in a diminishing concern for this area and for its socio-economic problems. Consequently, although tugurios were not demolished and their inhabitants expelled from the inner city on a large scale by economically stronger activities (as in Montevideo), their problems received little attention from those who had left. The state also turned away from the old Lima and increasingly directed its urban policy to the areas outside the inner city. The ever-expanding peripheral neighbourhoods and their problems (like the lack of collective services), in particular, required a greater involvement, something that was also stimulated by the fact that the large populations of these areas constituted an enormous source of potential support for politicians. From the 1950s onwards, therefore, they tried to gain votes with promises and concrete policies for the young towns, as these poor areas were euphemistically labelled by the progressive military government in the 1970s (Collier, 1976). The political support of tenants in inner-city tugurios was less relevant, for the simple reason that the number of people living there was much less than in the new areas. Moreover, several politicians had interests in companies that exploited callejones, for example, and were therefore not inclined to initiate a policy that might affect these activities. Only occasionally did the national government pay attention to rental housing in the inner city, as in 1938 when the poor hygienic conditions in the callejones prompted the enactment of a law that was aimed at forbidding the construction of new ones (Kross, 1992). However, the success of the measure was limited, as companies found ways of evading the measure and simply started to construct other types of tugurio. The only more or less consistent national policy on tugurios was rent legislation. From 1938 Peruvian rent legislation was aimed, inter alia, at freezing rents, especially in tugurios (Custers and Vreman, 1995). And although several studies demonstrated that landlords regularly violated the rules, there is clear evidence that rents did 256
fall (Collier, 1976; Kross, 1992; Custers and Vreman, 1995). During the second half of the 1980s, in particular, a period of high and mounting inflation, rent incomes became totally insignificant, because adjustments to the freeze measures lagged far behind the level of inflation.10 The freezing of rents had severe consequences for the size, quality and, to a lesser extent, total quantity of tugurio living space. Firstly, accommodation became smaller and smaller as proprietors responded to the diminishing rent incomes by continuing to subdivide their buildings – more tenants could at least compensate for these losses. Secondly, the physical quality of the rental houses diminished as the owners did not wish to invest anything more in their maintenance. Proprietors sometimes also evicted their tenants in order to replace the tugurio by a more lucrative enterprise like a shopping arcade or a parking lot. The inhabitants preferred to stay in the tugurio but, because of their economic circumstances, they were unable to invest in the maintenance of their living space. A review of municipal development plans reveals that the successive local governments of Lima have largely ignored the inner city and rental housing (Ruiz de Somocurcio, 1999). For example, “The Urban Development Plan of Greater Lima” of 1967 focused upon the instruments by which the demographic and spatial growth of the capital could be controlled and related problems tackled; the document paid practically no attention to other parts of the capital. Only in the zoning plan, that was written on basis of this document, was the inner city mentioned (Behnfeld, 1983). The plan assigned a mixed function for this area (which it had, in fact, already possessed for many years), while the necessity of urban renewal was also acknowledged. However, in spite of the genuine concern about Lima’s urban problems, bureaucracy, the pace of urban growth and the lack of money caused the plan to become just another policy paper condemned to be forgotten in the municipal archives (Behnfeld, 1983). In the preparation of a new plan in 1984, the planners again aimed to guide Lima’s expansion. Unlike the 1967 plan, this one was drawn up by the Municipality of Lima itself and many pages were devoted to the socio-economic problems facing poor city dwellers, such as the accessibility of collective services like schools and clinics. The municipality acknowledged the problems of the inner city and pointed to the obvious and dangerous expansion which simultaneously produced a permanent deterioration of the central parts of the capital. However, once again the planning process finished with the presentation of a document and little was done to real10 For example, a decree issued on 1 November 1988 permitted a rise in rents of 100%. However, during the period since the last decree, September and October 1988, inflation had amounted to more than 200%. On 1 January 1990, a decree allowed an increase of 30%, but the inflation since the last decree, issued on 1 July 1989, had been 310% (Custers and Vreman, 1995).
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
ize the objectives of the plan, either on the periphery or in the inner city. In the 1990s, the deterioration of the inner city (not only of the private spaces, particularly the tugurios, but also of the public spaces, with some 30,000 street vendors offering their products and services throughout the area) had reached an all-time low and several local governments in the decade appeared to be sincerely concerned about the situation. In 1990, the “The Metropolitan Development Plan of Lima, 1990– 2010”, drawn up by the new planning office of the Lima municipality, PRO-URBE, was presented. It was undoubtedly one of the best-documented visions on the spatial future of Lima ever published and, for the first time in the twentieth century, dedicated many pages to the inner city. The report contained an extensive stocktaking of run-down areas and defined explicit criteria for defining areas to be considered for policy measures. Some alternative policy options were also developed and a pilot study of Monserrate was announced (PRO-URBE, 1990). Although there was a danger that the organization and the financing of this policy would result in an immense bureaucracy, the enthusiasm of the appointed urban renewal specialists and the growing concern for the inner city and tugurios in and outside politics justified the hope that a turning point had been reached. However, with the election of a new mayor and executive, the optimism rapidly wained. Because of conflicting ideas on urban planning, PRO-URBE was closed, its manager discharged and the 1990–2010 plan cancelled. Policy on the inner city was reduced to the improvement of some central traffic arteries, a reduction in the huge number of street vendors and some ad hoc measures. The only policy relating to run-down areas (and therefore, tugurios) consisted of the possible making of a request for the financing of a project by international organizations. In 1996, the administration of a new mayor, Alberto Andrade, appeared to taking seriously its promises to realize a comprehensive policy for the inner city. Measures were taken to regain public space by relocating the thousands of street vendors to formal markets outside the inner city or to shopping arcades and thus free large areas from chaos, crime and all kinds of environmental pollution (Godoy and De la Puente, 1996; Guerrero, 1999). Squares (like the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza San Martı´n) and parks (Parque Universitario) were entirely renovated; neighbourhoods that once had been attractive areas for people to spend their leisure time regained their old splendour. An important feature was that various sectors of the private sector were encouraged to take initiatives and, as a result, new attractions opened their doors (El Comercio, 13 and 15 March 1996; Caretas, 24 September 1998). Tourist guides have already heralded the return of famous restaurants and cafe´ s, but the government’s objective was not limited to making the inner city an attractive centre for Liman families and foreign tourists. The Master Plan for the
area and the specific reports that were produced within its context, such as a study of and proposal for the renovation of Barrios Altos, also paid extensive attention to tugurios (IMP, 1998). The reports pointed to many specific problems of rental houses and their population, such as their dangerous deterioration. The Dutch government financed a pilot renovation project that was executed by a joint venture in which several NGOs (like CEPROMUR) and the municipal government participated (Keijzer, 1998).11 However, financial problems caused a paralysis of the renovation activities.12 At the time of completing this manuscript, the projects had not yet been resumed (July 2000).
Conclusions In the course of the twentieth century, inner-city rental housing in Lima has not changed significantly. Therefore, at the start of the new millennium, the most depressing characteristics of the tugurios, as well as the number of people living in them, have largely remained the same as in the 1940s. More than in any other Latin American capital, both elites and the state have turned their backs on the area, something that at least has one positive consequence for those who preferred to live there: unlike Santiago or Montevideo, there have been no massive evictions. On the other hand, the neglect and the single exception to this neglect, rent laws, have only resulted in a deterioration of housing conditions. Recent local policy proposals look hopeful, but while those directed at the public spaces have been quite successful, the interventions directed at improving the condition of the tugurios have been limited to a number of studies and some pilot projects. Most important initiatives have, in fact, come to a standstill. As the deterioration of the tugurios has reached an extreme point, it may be that large-scale demolitions and evictions will become the only alternative “policy” for this segment of the Liman housing market. Moreover, the implementation of a comprehensive renovation policy for the tugurios (taking into account the interests of both tenants and landlords) may be too complex and too costly (see also 7) and therefore not viable.
11 In 1997, the Dutch government donated US$1.5 million to this joint venture, called PRORRUA (“Special program for urban renovation and recuperation of the environment”). Half of the money was spent on the amelioration of tugurios, the other half on renovation and on relocation of the street vendors in the area. 12 According to several informants, the lack of funds was at least partly due to political rivalry between the mayor of Lima and the Peruvian president, Alberto Fujimori, both of whom stood as candidates in the presidential elections of April 2000. The president refused to give his approval to donations and credits from international organizations for the municipality of Lima (interviews with experts, January 2000).
257
Inner-city Rental Housing: Geert Custers
Acknowledgements This paper is based in part on a chapter of the author’s Ph.D. thesis, which was written jointly with Damiaan Vreman (Custers and Vreman, 1995). I would like to thank Luz Estremadoyra of the Liman NGO CEPROMUR, Patricia Dı´az of the Municipality of Lima and the Dutch consultant Dick Keijzer for supplying recent material on Lima’s inner city, its tugurios and relevant policy. Many thanks also to Azarias Cha´ vez for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper and Robert Symonds for correcting the English. The usual disclaimer applies.
References Alexander, A (1942) La crisis actual de la edificacio´ n y sus proyecciones El Arquitecto Peruano 62 np. Alvarino Guzma´ n, M (1989) La destugurizacio´ n del Centro Histo´ rico de Lima. Paper presented to the Encuentro sobre la Destugurizacio´ n del Centro´ Histo´ rico de Lima, Lima, 9 October. Amato, P W (1970) Elitism and settlement patterns in the Latin American city. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 36(2), 96–105. Behnfeld, H (1983) Ra¨ umliche Planung in Latein Amerika – Analyse und Vorsla¨ ge stadt-planerischer Instrumente, dargestellt am Beispiel Peru. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden Baden. Belaunde Terry, F (1943) Algunos aspectos generales del problema urbano de Lima El Arquitecto Peruano 77 np. Belaunde Terry, F (1945) El tugurio: enfermedad urbana de diagno´ stico grave El Arquitecto Peruano 95 np. Caldero´ n, J and Maquet, P (eds) (1996) Gestio´ n Municipal – Por el Habitat. Cuadernos Habitat II No. 1, Plataforma Habitat II, Lima. CEPROMUR (1995) Capacitacio´ n de Lı´deres Urbanos en Renovacio´ n Urbana. CEPROMUR, Lima. CEPROMUR (1996) Encuestas en Barrios Altos e Independencia. CEPROMUR, Lima. Collier, D (1976) Squatters and Oligarchs. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Contreras, C and Cueto, M (1999) Historia del Peru´ Contempora´ neo. Red para el Desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales en el Peru´ , Lima. Co´ rdova Aguilar, H (1989) La ciudad de Lima: su evolucio´ n y desarrollo metropolitano. Revista Geogra´ fica 110(Jul-Dec), 231–266. Custers, G and Vreman, D (1995) Tugurios and Tugurio Inhabitants in Arequipa. Nijmegen Studies in Development and Cultural Change 20. Verlag fu¨ r Entwicklungspolitik Breitenbach GmbH, Saarbru¨ cken. Dekker, E (1998) Inquilinato en los tugurios de Lima. Medio de Construccio´ n 135(Feb), 17–29. Derteano Urrutia, F (1945) Algunas consideraciones y cifras que tocan al problema de la vivienda El Arquitecto Peruano 95 np. Godoy, L and De la Puente, J (1996) En pie de guerra La Repu´ blica-Domingo 17 Mar 2–5. Guerrero, E (1999) Lima, el comercio callejero y el Centro Histo´ rico. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 125–142. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Gunter, J (1992) El problema de tugurios y la necesaria participacio´ n de la empresa privada en su solucio´ n. Por los Tugurios II(5), 3.
258
IMP (Instituto Metropolitano de Planificacio´ n) (1998) Renovacio´ n Urbana en Barrios Altos – Propuesta. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. INADUR (1983) The Case of Lima’s Inner-city Slum Areas – A Report to the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT). INADUR, Lima. INEI (Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica e Informatica) (1999) Indicadores Demogra´ ficos (Webpage), Lima. Joffre´ , G R (1999) La Muralla y los Callejones – Intervencio´ n Urbana y Proyecto Polı´tico en Lima durante la Segunda Mitad del Siglo XIX. Sidea/Promperu´ , Lima. Jones, G A and Bromley, R D F (1996) The relationship between urban conservation programmes and property renovation: evidence from Quito, Ecuador. Cities 13(6), 373–385. Keijzer, D (1998) Report of a Mission to Peru. Lima, 19 August. Klare´ n, P F (2000) Peru – Society and Nationhood in the Andes. Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford. Kross, E (1992) Die Barriadas von Lima – Stadtentwicklungsprozesse in einer lateinamerikanischen Metropole. Ferdinand Scho¨ ningh, Paderborn. Mahuad, J (1999) Ecuador: Quito, salvamento de la ciudad. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 63–84. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Miller, R (1988) The population problem of late nineteenth century Lima paper presented to the 46th Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, 4–8 July. MVC (1982) Estudio Socio-econo´ mico de Tugurios, Sentados en Inmuebles de la Benificencia Pu´ blica de Lima y Ubicados en el Cercado de Lima Metropolitana. MVC (Ministerio de Vivienda y Construccio´ n), Lima. Orrego, J (1999) Evolucio´ n histo´ rica del centro de Lima. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 33–48. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. PRO-URBE (1990) Plan de Desarrollo Metropolitano de Lima, 1990–2000. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Riofrı´o, G (1991) Producir la Ciudad (Popular) de los ’90 – Entre el Mercado y el Estado. DESCO, Lima. Riofrı´o, G (1996) Lima: mega-city and mega-problem. In The Mega-city in Latin America, (ed.) A Gilbert., pp 155–172. United Nations University Press, Tokyo/New York/Paris. Ruiz de Somocurcio, J (1999) Construyendo el futuro: nuestra propuesta. In La Ciudad Posible – Lima Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad, (ed.) M. de P Tello., pp 49–88. MML (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima), Lima. Ruiz de Somocurcio, J and Dı´az-Albertini, J (1997) The challenge of metropolitan planning in Lima: towards a new encounter. In The Challenge of Sustainable Cities – Neo-liberalism and Urban Strategies in Developing Countries, (eds) R Burgess, M Carmano and T Kolstee., pp 189–201. Zed Books, London/New Jersey. Sa´ nchez Leon, A (1989) Destugurizacio´ n del Centro Histo´ rico de Lima paper presented to the Encuentro sobre la Destugurizacio´ n del Centro´ Histo´ rico de Lima, Lima, 9 October. San Cristo´ bal, A (1999) Fachadas de un piso El Comercio 15 Dec e5. Stein, S (1988) New approaches to the study of urban history in Latin America: the case of early twentieth century Lima paper presented to the 46th Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, 4–8 July. Violich, F (1987) Urban Planning for Latin America – The Challenge of Metropolitan Growth. Oelgeschalager, Gunn and Hain, Publishers Inc, Boston, MA (in collaboration with R. Daughters).