4. Squatter Settlements and Policy Innovation in Peru

In Abraham F. Lowenthal, ed., The Peruvian Experiment: Continuity and Change under Military Rule. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. Squatter Settlements and Policy- 129 Squatter Settlements and Policy Innovation in Peru David Collier The reformist military government which has ruled Peru since 1968 has introduced important innovations in policy toward squatter settlements. Taken together, these innovations constitute a coherent policy which appears to be one of the more successful aspects of the government's effort to transform Peruvian society. At the same time, however, the program in the settlements is a curious blend of policies from earlier periods-drawing not only on policies of a previous reform government, but also on policies proposed and carried out by the Peruvian Right. This chapter analyzes the steps through which the current pro- grams in squatter settlements have evolved, focusing primarily on policy toward the settlements of Lima. It begins with a de- scription of the gtowth of settlements in Lima and a characteriza- tion of government policy in earlier periods. Two phases of the evolution of policy under the present government are then exam- ined: the definition of priorities up to the Pamplona invasion of May 1971 and the consolidation of the policy since that invasion. A concluding section places current policy in perspective by con- trasting it with policy in other countries and under earlier gov- ernments in Peru. SQUATTER SETILEMENTS IN LIMA The expression squatter settlement is used here to refer to resi- dential communities formed by low-income families in which the This is a revised version of a paper presented to the Seminar on Continuity and Change in Contemporary Peru of the Center for Inter-American Relations on April 13, 1973. I would like to acknowledge the valuable suggestions of Abraham F. Lowenthal, Alfred C. Stepan, Patricia H. Marks, Ruth B. Collier, Henry A. Dietz, Marcia Koth de Paredes, and members of the Peru Seminar. Alfred Stepan assisted with several important points of fact and interpreta- tion, which are acknowledged in the notes, and also called my attention to useful documentary sources. houses are constructed in large measure by the residents them- selves and which are generally, but not exclusively, formed ille- gally.1 The growth of settlements in Lima has occurred in the context of a massive increase in the city's population. As can be seen in Table 4.1, the population of the Lima metropolitan area increased by a factor of more than 20 from 1908 to 1972, growing by nearly 240 percent in the thirty-two-year period from 1908 to 1940 and by nearly 540 percent in the thirty-two years from 1940 to 1972. The growth of the settlement population has occurred primarily during the second of these two periods. Starting from a negligible level in 1940, it rose to over three hundred thousand ·by 1961, representing 20 percent of the metropolitan population, and over nine hundred thousand by 1972, representing 27 per- cent of the metropolitan population. There has been substantial additional growth since 1972. This growth of the settlement population must be seen as stem- ming both from the problems and from the opportunities posed by rapid urban growth. The problems posed by urban growth for city dwellers and development planners are well known. In the context of rapid growth, major efforts are required merely to maintain previous levels of welfare in such areas as housing, em- ployment, and health facilities. The widely held goal of increas- ing welfare is often unobtainable. The growth of squatter settlements in Lima has helped to ease one of the major problems associated with rapid urban growth- the shortage of low-income housing. This shortage was first noted at least as early as 1922 with the publication of Alberto Alexan- der's Estudio sobre la Crisis de la Habitacion en Lima, 2 and the problem has received wide attention since that time. Settlements help ease the shortage by providing rent-free housing for well over a hundred thousand low-income families 3 and offering opportuni- ties for improvement of housing by the residents and for commu- 1 The requirement of illegality has been loosened in this definition to permit the inclusion of government-sponsored settlements which are similar to other settlements in most regards except for the fact of government sponsorship. The defiilition thus follows roughly the current use of the term pueblo joven in Peru. 2 Lima: Imprenta Torres Aguirre, 1922. 3 This estimate is based on the population figure in Table 4.1 and on two assumptions: that there are roughly five individuals per family, and that a sig- nificant proportion, but substantially less than a majority, of families in settle- ments are subletting. If settlement growth since .1972 were included in this calculation, this estimate would be even higher.