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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Lehigh University: Lehigh Preserve Lehigh University Lehigh Preserve Volume 35 - Leveraging Peru's Economic Potential Perspectives on Business and Economics (2017) 2017 Improving Sustainable Development in Lima Through Public Transportation Investment Kyle Fischer Lehigh University Follow this and additional works at: https://preserve.lehigh.edu/perspectives-v35 Recommended Citation Fischer, Kyle, "Improving Sustainable Development in Lima Through Public Transportation Investment" (2017). Volume 35 - Leveraging Peru's Economic Potential (2017). 6. https://preserve.lehigh.edu/perspectives-v35/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Perspectives on Business and Economics at Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion in Volume 35 - Leveraging Peru's Economic Potential (2017) by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IMPROVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN LIMA THROUGH PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT Kyle Fischer Introduction GDP growth rates in Latin America, averaging 5.9 percent per year, with a large percentage Every day citizens of Lima travel across of that growth coming from Lima, the capital the city for work or personal reasons, like city, where over one-third of Peru’s population people all over the world. Yet they face lives (Peru Overview…). For high growth rates more obstacles in their daily travels, with a to continue in the coming years, however, good portion of their time wasted sitting on Lima needs to decrease its income inequality, overcrowded, unregulated, dangerous buses which has seen little improvement over the in traffic. Thus, the average person in Lima same period. Public transportation investment spends four hours a day commuting to and can help reduce income inequality by allowing from work. This inhibits citizens living in lower-income citizens access to better-paying lower-income areas from accessing potential jobs across the city. The election of President jobs in wealthier parts of the city and damages Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in June 2017 put Peru the health of all citizens by polluting the air. By on this path. One of Kuzcynski’s priorities is reducing the productivity of Lima’s population, an increase in infrastructure investment to the inefficient transportation limits Peru’s help close the significant infrastructure gap, overall growth potential. providing hope for a brighter future for Lima An increase in public transportation and Peru. infrastructure is crucial to Lima’s and Peru’s My purpose in this article is to analyze continued growth and sustainable development the transportation system within Lima and since few public transportation options exist to offer recommendations that will allow for because of the rapid growth of the city. Over sustainable and inclusive growth. I begin by the past decade, Peru had one of the highest examining the development of Lima into Peru’s 125 capital city and its rapid population growth over nearby port of Callao. By 1796 the population the past century. The development pattern led stood at around 50,000 people in an area to the current socio-spatial inequality. Next, I surrounded by the still-standing wall (Oliver- detail the current transportation in Lima with Smith, p. 263). Lima’s population remained a focus on how the historical socioeconomic constant for the next century as diseases such income distribution has led to deregulated as malaria and dysentery were rampant due to and informal transportation with long transit poor sanitation. The wall was demolished and a times and dangerous levels of pollution. Lima plan for development was created in the 1860s, currently has limited public transportation but growth was halted when the Chilean navy options, consisting of only one main bus bombed and then occupied Lima during the corridor and one operating metro line. The War of the Pacific (1879–1883). existing metro line can integrate with future The most recent period of Lima’s growth metro lines, some of which are currently began with reconstruction of the city center under construction. When combined, the following the war with Chile and is still metro lines will create a more complete continuing today. Following the war, Peru public transportation network across Lima. I borrowed money from Britain to rebuild, in conclude by analyzing the current metro line exchange for British control over all Peruvian project and the plans for moving forward with a mineral resources. Under British influence, recommendation for how to best proceed with rail systems were built for industrial purposes continued public transportation investment. with a focus on linking center city Lima to other coastal settlements and to the Andes Background Mountains in the West. Electrical grids and sanitation systems were constructed and basic Lima’s Development public services provided, including schools, from 1535 to 1908 hospitals, and police and fire departments. Despite the modernization of the urban Founded in 1535 by the Spanish centers, agriculture production was stagnating conquistador Francisco Pizarro, the city of and economic inequality was growing in rural Lima grew in bursts, with alternating periods areas. The declining quality of life pushed of expansion and destruction from its founding people out of rural areas toward Lima and through the twentieth century. Lima was resulted in mass migration to Lima. established on the banks of the Rímac River near the coast of Peru. This provided fresh water for Development from the city and a central location through which 1908 to the Present gold and silver could be routed, allowing for the initial growth of the city. At the same time, the The migration that followed can be port of Callao was formed directly west of the broken down into three stages: 1908–1940, city center of Lima on the Pacific Ocean. The 1940–1960, and 1960–present. During the first central district of Lima is still in its original stage, the annual urban population growth location on the river and sits 13 km from the rate jumped from 2.5 to 6.1 percent from 1920 ocean. The layout of the original town followed to 1930 (Oliver-Smith, p. 266). This was an traditional Spanish guidelines, with central increase from approximately 6,000 people per plazas and streets in an east-west, north-south year to almost 23,000 people per year. Most of grid pattern, bringing organization to the city. the people were wealthy elites who settled in In the late 1600s the boundaries were clearly dense suburbs closer to the coast and expanded defined by a defensive wall built around the beyond the city footprint established over the city. However, the city interior became less past 300 years. The second stage, from 1940 to organized as diagonal streets cut across the 1960, saw the continued expansion of the city grid and racially segregated neighborhoods into peripheral areas as the population growth appeared. Unfortunately, most of the early rate climbed to upwards of nine percent development was destroyed in 1746 when an annually (Oliver-Smith, p. 267). The area earthquake hit Lima, and a tsunami struck the from the old city center of Lima all the way to 126 Callao became fully urbanized, with migrants vulnerable (“International Bank…,” p. 2). The of a lower socio-economic class. Lima entered outer districts, which have the most poverty, the third and current stage of growth around consist largely of the pueblos jóvenes in 1960. By 1984 Lima had grown to 6 million deteriorated areas without public services. people, equal to the entire population of Peru The location of the pueblos jóvenes on in 1940 (Oliver-Smith, p. 267). This later group the periphery of Lima creates transportation of migrants were primarily low income and issues for the people living there and reinforces settled even further out on the city periphery. the economic inequalities within Lima. The This wave of migration was most significant average age within the pueblos jóvenes is lower because a large portion of it was in the form than the average age in Lima, representing of “land invasions,” in which large groups of a key demographic for growth. Growth and migrants moved during the night onto property the country’s future are dependent on the to which they did not have rights. education of the youth and their access to Communities were built quickly and formal employment. Although there may forced the government into a difficult decision be jobs in the informal sector within the of either forcibly removing the squatters or pueblos jóvenes, most better-paying formal allowing them to remain. The city of Lima sector jobs are located around the city center allowed the migration and added legitimacy by in the wealthier districts (“International granting land titles and formally recognizing Bank…,” p. 81). Jobs within the formal sector community charters. The quickly constructed have significantly higher wages and higher settlements developed into pueblos jóvenes productivity per hour of labor. In addition (young towns) as the buildings became to formal jobs, most education, health care, permanent. This process continued on available and other services are located in the urban land on the city periphery, and more pueblos centers. Access to these services for everyone jóvenes arose farther from the city center. The is necessary for the development and growth informal migration led to widespread urban of Lima, and requires efficient transportation sprawl as the city limits expanded into hills unfit throughout the entire city. for houses and lacking public services such as water and electricity. This latest migration was Transportation in Lima significantly different from the previous waves of migration in which the communities were The current transportation system is planned and infrastructure built along with the holding back economic growth by creating houses.

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