Peru and its urban challenges

 

The city is the largest and most complex product created by human beings since no other company comes close to it in complexity and investment. (…) The curious thing about this situation is that precisely in these spaces of conflict and at the same time of necessary tolerance is where humanity has found the best way to develop in a more efficient and effective way.

Distinguished authorities, teachers, students and the general public

I appreciate the kindness you have shown in inviting me to give you this inaugural lesson, in which I hope to be able to convey my personal, professional and academic concerns regarding the situation of our cities and their challenges to the professionals of our country.

Likewise, I take this opportunity to publicly thank the Authorities of the University of Piura for having invited me to be part of the Advisory Committee of the recently created Faculty of Architecture; the same one that I gladly accepted motivated by the initiative of founding it in the city of Piura, understanding that more than just obeying market considerations, it was a decisive gesture in favor of the long-awaited decentralization of our country.

Let me begin this brief dissertation by sharing with you that I prefer to define myself as a practicing architect who usually reflects in the academic field on his professional work. I studied at a public university; specifically at the Faculty of Architecture, Urban Planning and Arts of the National University of Engineering of Peru in the turbulent 70s, where I had exceptional teachers, who were the main practicing architects in the country. In addition to instilling in me a passion for architecture and urban planning, they transmitted to me their sense of duty towards our Alma Mater that was materialized in their teaching work. They also taught me that a professional should never keep anything for himself, but should give everything he knows, having also confirmed in my professional and teaching life that by doing so the well-known Franciscan phrase that says "because by giving you receive" is fulfilled. Teaching is therefore not only a duty but a condition to consistently exercise my profession.

Introduction to the urban theme

Regarding the topic that I am going to allow myself to discuss before you, I must recognize that it could seem like something very specific to my profession and that it has no major relationship with all the different fields of teaching that the University of Piura develops in its different academic programs, but I hope demonstrate that given the gigantic task that lies ahead of us in relation to the urban issue in Peru, we need the help of all professionals from their different areas of specialization.

The city is the largest and most complex product created by human beings since no other company comes close to it in complexity and investment. In them, as Professor Correa López explains when analyzing Plato's myth of Prometheus, “…there is the possibility that men can bear each other, to live together despite our differences and selfish interests, which will depend on the adoption of a common law and the recognition of two basic principles, such as justice and equity.[Yo]. However, this tolerance is not free of tensions, as the sociologist and urban planner Manuel Castells has described in his multiple writings, given that in this urban coexistence the multiplicity of individual visions of its inhabitants are opposed.[ii].

The curious thing about this situation is that precisely in these spaces of conflict and at the same time of necessary tolerance is where humanity has found the best way to develop in a more efficient and effective way.

Edward Glaeser, prominent urban economist at Harvard University, in his fundamental book “The Triumph of the City”[iii], shows us that the most prosperous countries are those that are eminently urban as opposed to eminently rural countries. This assertion is very logical because the city allows and even encourages exchange between human beings, multiplying the possibilities of creation in the different fields of human knowledge, and making it easier for them to put their ideas in contact with those of other men directly and in an informal way. very dynamic.

This triumph of urban life is not without problems. Cities have been growing rapidly since they constantly receive populations from rural areas, motivated by their aspirations for personal and family progress. Thus, more than half of the world's population is already urban, which seems to be affecting the ability to sustain human life, and many other species that inhabit our fragile planet. This planetary impact would be explained by the fact that the urban environment has been demanding unreasonable consumption patterns.

To understand it, we must recognize that the city is an open system, that is, it consumes more than it produces and to solve its basic needs it resorts to other systems, usually natural. If we also take into account that the vast majority of artifacts that we currently consider necessary to live do not come from itself but are brought mostly from outside using means of transportation that use fossil fuels, we can begin to understand their impact on the fragile environmental balance. planetary. This increasingly alarming situation has called for many international and national forums to demand more efficient and effective processes for almost all human activities, which, as we said, are directly related to their urban way of living.

The curious thing is that this requirement has been directly and closely linked to the concept of "sustainability", whose definition according to the Dictionary of the Spanish Language is that which can be maintained for a long time without depleting resources or causing serious damage to the environment. Unfortunately, its widespread use without being aware of what it requires and implies, has led to this word being classified by many experts as a “sprayword”, a term used to refer to those that many people use, only because must be used, but they usually have no idea what it entails.

...every day there are more people who inhabit the Earth inefficiently in a physical framework that quickly becomes obsolete, without having the social and political capacity to design the legal and economic mechanisms necessary to confront it.

Making a city sustainable means that we must turn it into a closed system, which by its very nature is currently impossible. Personally, I think that it will not be possible to achieve the sustainability of a city in the immediate future, but I hope we can achieve it in one that is probably distant. However, this is not an impediment for us to make intense and reasonably directed efforts to tend towards it, that is, to try to be more efficient and effective in the way we urbanally inhabit our planet.

If we carefully observe how we have been inhabiting the Earth and mainly how we do it in our country, we will be surprised that we do it in the worst possible way. We usually seek to occupy large territories to try to fulfill the desire for “our own home.” This produces extremely extensive cities that force their inhabitants to travel enormous distances to go to their centers of activity; in addition to the requirement to mobilize all services and goods to satisfy our daily demands.

It seems urgent that we learn to live more compactly, and also learn to move more efficiently. About Edward Glaezer[iv] mentions that as a result of his multiple investigations on the subject, it seems possible to approach this goal only in highly concentrated and dense cities, since only they could achieve sufficient economies of scale to efficiently and effectively solve their “urban metabolism.”

This learning will imply a necessary transformation of the urban structure of our cities to respond to this urgent need, but at the same time to respond quickly and coherently to the way in which an urban society organizes itself on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this process is slower than necessary and therefore what urban planners call “urban obsolescence” often occurs. That is, the physical framework that houses society becomes obsolete and therefore does not respond adequately to the different and changing social needs.

In countries with a Latin tradition like ours, this situation becomes more delicate because the regulatory framework that outlines this physical framework is usually very rigid and difficult to modify, further complicating the situation described above and causing our cities to be extremely informal and therefore extremely inefficient.

In short, every day there are more people who inhabit the Earth inefficiently in a physical framework that quickly becomes obsolete, without having the social and political capacity to design the legal and economic mechanisms necessary to confront it.

The urban in Peru

To discuss the urban issue in Peru, it seems pertinent to me to begin by remembering the territorial reality on which our cities are based.

The Peruvian territory is the third largest in South America and has three large regions: coast, mountains and jungle, which occupy 11%, 30% and 59% respectively.

It has 28 of the 32 types of climate in the world, and 84 of the 114 microclimates, housing more than 75% of the planet's ecosystems. As an example of this, within this vast territory and due to its uniqueness, there are 62 protected natural areas that cover a total of approximately 127 thousand square kilometers, which corresponds to 4.3% of the country's surface, having a wonderful catalog of natural diversity that should motivate us to preserve it and present it to the world as the treasure that it is.

In summary, our territory is very varied and its accessibility is very complex, therefore human settlement in it has been and is an extremely difficult undertaking.

Its settlement was possible thanks to the fact that migrant human groups discovered the relevant technology to be able to provide themselves with water and food in this complex geography. According to various experts, this process prior to the arrival of the Spanish took around ten thousand years until the appearance of Chavín and another sixteen thousand until the formation of the Inca state, as María Rostworowski called it.[v], and which brought together the different regional developments following the laws of reciprocity. This difficult pre-Hispanic settlement required a very particular attitude towards the varied geography that resulted in a reasonable use of natural resources, which we can see through the valuable archaeological heritage that we have and which is considered one of the richest on the planet. .

Peru is considered one of the seven original centers of culture in the world, with more than seventy archaeological sites considered for tourist use, and with places inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list such as the Archaeological Site of Chavín, the Archaeological Zone of Chan Chan, the Historical Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, the Lines and Geoglyphs of Nazca and Pampas de Jumana, among others.

The Spanish settlement many times took the previous indigenous settlement as a base, proof of which is the magnificent superimposition that we can observe in the city of Cusco. But in addition to this, it superimposed a form of territorial occupation that differed greatly from the native one; Given the fragmented occupation that allowed a reasonable and efficient use of the different ecological floors, an extensive one was superimposed that covered the territory as a continuous whole.

On the basis of these forms of territorial occupation, and on the layout of many new cities in the conquest, territorial occupation was consolidated, creating a vast set of cities based on production, extractive and commercial, and which has currently been developed. intensely but unbalanced.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics - INEI, as of June 2011, 74% of the Peruvian population lived in Populated Centers, being considered the urban population, while only 26% lived in rural areas. For the year 2014, the World Bank established that we should already have 78% of urban population, while worldwide the average for that year placed it at 53.4%.

The first and most urgent task in my opinion is to train citizens, to teach the entire large recently urban population to reside in a city understanding that the common good is above the individual good.

We have transformed into an urban society more rapidly than the average on the planet, and according to the Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation of Peru, this urban population of around 27 million people lives in approximately 7.5 million homes distributed in 98 thousand Populated Centers. These populated centers, which are classified as dispersed towns, hamlets, towns, villages, and cities, are distributed in the three natural regions of the country, and it should be noted that the majority of them are found in the mountains with 70,504 populated centers, but they only house 17% of the national population, while on the coast there are only 11,073 populated centers housing 76% of the population. And of course it is necessary to mention the case of the jungle, where 16,434 populated centers are located, housing 7% of the national population in a territory that represents 59% of the national territory.

The tendency towards population concentration in a few urban centers located mainly on the coast is accentuated, with unequal occupation mainly in the mountains and jungle, which does not allow the efficient development of economic activities that take advantage of these vast territories. The coast continues to be the historically privileged space for the urban population due to the presence of ports that facilitate trade and fishing, as well as its settlement in valleys, although many of them relatively small, which provide the necessary water for the population as well as some basic foods.

To manage the urban issue in Peru, there is the assistance of sub-national governments and the participation of the central government through its various ministerial portfolios. However, it is worth mentioning that the political structure privileges sectoral work as opposed to urban reality, which by its very nature is multisectoral. Sub-national governments at the local level, that is, municipalities, whether provincial or district, are relegated to a non-multisectoral sphere of administration and are not helped to comprehensively manage cities like many others in the region and the world that have undertaken urban development processes with enormous success. It is therefore urgent to rethink the form of multisectoral action that cities demand in the face of a single-sectoral and independent form of action that does not allow integration.

In the study Peru – Towards an Integrated System of Cities [saw] prepared by the World Bank, it proposes to think of cities according to the function they play within a system. On the one hand, large cities are essential for connecting domestic markets with international markets; They have the potential to be important poles for the generation of knowledge and human capital; and can serve as national administrative centers and house the country's main institutions. On the other hand, small cities should mostly serve a regional purpose, supporting the provision of quality basic services in their areas of influence, and can be used as local administrative centers that carry out intermediation tasks between their area of influence and the higher level administrative centers. The space between these two scales must be covered by intermediate cities capable of articulating large urban centers with networks of local cities. In this way, an important urban segment could be constituted within a system of cities that benefits productivity and growth.

Only Lima could be categorized as a large city, which is characterized by being the National Administrative Center of the country, and having a wide connection with international markets. It thus constitutes a hub for the generation of knowledge and human capital, as well as for services, concentrating industries with high added value since they require strong integration and access to international markets.

The cities based on their population and with the potential to be considered intermediate in Peru are Arequipa, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Iquitos, Piura, Cusco, Chimbote, Huancayo, Tacna, Juliaca, and as an exceptional case the city of Pucallpa due to its location. These cities would be called to be the Administrative Centers of their Region, where knowledge services and human capital would be developed for the regional economy, and they should become poles for services and industries that support regional economic activity, having the advantage that they do not require high integration and are not affected by the high cost of congestion suffered by the capital.

However, multiple barriers prevent the harmonious development of this “incipient system of cities”, since despite the high congestion in Lima, many cities still do not offer the same opportunities as it; they suffer from an inconsistent quality of their public and private services; there are various bureaucratic barriers; in addition to poor planning and erratic land management; its urban transportation systems are insufficient and very limited; and perhaps most importantly, their labor markets are still precarious compared to the capital.

Urban challenges in Peru

This situation poses various challenges for all Peruvians in general, but personally there are three that should be resolved with greater urgency and with the help of professionals in practice and in training.

Challenge One: Form citizens

The first and most urgent task in my opinion is to form citizens, that is, to teach the entire large, recently urban population to reside in a city, understanding that the common good is above the individual good. Only in this way will we behave like people who can coherently inhabit these spaces of interaction without our actions harming others.

…we must promote the development and strengthening of intermediate cities within the framework of an efficient and effective system of integrated cities. Their empowerment would allow improvements in their attractiveness, seeking better connectivity, within the framework of a necessary planning process.

This task can begin with universities, ensuring that our students are aware of this, so that they in turn are teaching agents in their means of action. It is urgent to include this subject in the school curricular structure so that from children, just as it is now instilled that smoking is harmful, they learn that to live in a city we must respect others, starting by complying with basic rules. Its fulfillment is not just another duty, it is the expression of respect towards oneself and others.

Challenge Two: Position the city on the National Agenda

The second is to help position the city on the national agenda, ensuring that cities exist within the country's administrative political structure, with real and effective powers. This will help local governments not only receive adequate budgets but also have the legal framework that allows them to carry out the necessary actions to fight against permanent physical obsolescence. If local governments are not able to improve their fields of action and only limit themselves to watching the city develop on its own, the consequence will be greater chaos than we currently perceive.

Challenge Three: Strengthen the system of intermediate cities

Being clear that we are citizens and therefore the city must be permanently in the national debate, we must strive to meet the goal that our cities operate integratedly as a system. To do this, we must promote the development and strengthening of intermediate cities within the framework of an efficient and effective system of integrated cities. Their empowerment would allow improvements in their attractiveness, seeking better connectivity, within the framework of a necessary planning process.

Conclusions

The city is here to stay, and therefore it is a transcendental human fact given that in it, despite the conflicts, we find what is necessary to live and grow as people and as families; having to take care of it, and learn to live efficiently and effectively in it. In this reflective framework, it seems pertinent to me to remember the phrase of philosopher Julián Marías: "...the city is not made by the inhabitants, but rather we inherit it from our ancestors."

An arduous task awaits all future professionals who are being trained in Peru. In particular and in relation to the students of this university, the arduous task awaits future educators of making new citizens aware of their urban condition; An arduous task awaits future lawyers who must conceive adequate and agile urban legislation; An arduous task awaits future architects and future engineers who must imagine possible and viable infrastructure solutions within the budgetary limitations of our country; An arduous task awaits future administrators who must find efficient systems to manage our cities; and an arduous task awaits future communicators who must show society that the city is everyone's job.

Learning to live urbanly is an enormous task, but I am sure that the professors, alumni and students of the University of Piura, from their different disciplines, will be able to collaborate to face the challenges posed by the urban issue in Peru, starting with their area. regional.

Thank you.

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[Yo] “The city: habitat of diversity and complexity” / “The city in Philosophical reflection” – City and Philosophy / Bernardo Correa López -Professor Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Human Sciences – National University of Colombia- ISBN 958-701-129- 5

[ii] “Urban labyrinths in Latin America” / “Local and Global: The Management of Cities in the Information Age” / The Multicultural City / Jordi Borja and Manuel Castells. Pluriminor Series ABYA-YALA-2000 Ecuador. ISBN 9978-

[iii] “Triumph of the City” / Edward Glaeser / Macmillan. 2011. ISBN 978-0-230-75893-3 EPUB

[iv] Ibid

[v] “History of Tahuantinsuyu” / María Rostworowski / IEP – January 1988. ISBN 978-9972-51-473-9

[saw] “Peru – Towards an Integrated System of Cities – A new vision for growth” / World Bank – Policy Notes / December 2015 / Legal Deposit in the National Library of Peru N⁰ 2015-17058