Urban territories and the pandemic: the need for critique

Manuel Dammert^[1]

The urbanization process in Latin America during the 20th century—despite differences between countries—had three central features: informality and precariousness of housing, reverse urbanization (from land to city), and a type of consolidation of urban structure and conditions organized (with emphasis in recent decades) by commodification and asymmetry in the relationship between social, public, and private actors. In other words, structural problems of the mode of production of urban space affect the quality of life of residents and configure a regime of multiple urban inequalities. At some point, or perhaps from the beginning, urban debates assumed access to housing as a private matter and housing policies as economic policy. Urban social policy, in many cases, was understood as the partial improvement of certain areas of public access, or a commitment to local governments or participation. In so many cases, urban fragmentation was imposed not only as a model for the city, but also as a strategy for public (and private) intervention. And thus, both reinforced each other.

The pandemic and the measures implemented by almost all governments in the region have brought the inequalities in our societies to the forefront. Faced with such uncertainty, it is irresponsible to make predictions. Above all, it is irresponsible to be swayed by the belief in a future filled with solidarity, like an updated version of the idealization of the urban poor from four decades ago (a renewed, unanalyzed J. Turner), or to continue repeating the importance of private enterprise (with a distant role for the State) as the main solution (are we back in the 1980s or 1990s?). Perhaps the only certainty is that inequalities will deepen and the institutional mechanisms for accessing resources will be altered. In short: greater inequality, poverty, and uncertainty.

A fundamental dimension of discussion must be cities. Intra-urban inequalities are alarming and require proper diagnosis, understanding, and placement as a central focus of urban social policy. Let's be clear: urban policy, as we have known it, has failed, even before this pandemic. This is due to factors such as state capacity, the absence of general frameworks on the subject (there is no national urban development policy or metropolitan plan for Lima), or the various political circumstances the country has faced in recent decades. We can choose one or all of these reasons; the result is the same. The pandemic makes pre-existing conditions visible and intensifies them. The conditions that are alarming today—such as overcrowding or urban poverty that doesn't even appear on maps or in censuses—are not new. They are a core part of our urbanization model.

Housing, along with labor markets, is one of the central axes of these inequalities. The quarantine teaches us that housing is not the city. We need movement, rhythm, and interaction. But, at the same time, it teaches us a lesson about the importance and public and social nature of housing. Three components are fundamental: location, conditions, and security. The growth of Lima, or almost any city, is based on the constant reproduction of new peripheries: new precarious or low-quality housing on the city's outskirts, demanding solutions for access to services and risk mitigation. Regarding conditions in Lima and Callao, 437 homes have inadequate physical characteristics, 71 lack sanitation facilities, almost 150 depend on trucks or tankers for water, and 800 are overcrowded (the "stay at home" slogan being ironic).

And the security of continuing to live in a home—whether due to irregular immigration status or renting—will remain an invisible, though increasingly common, problem. Nearly one in four homes in Lima is rented.

Let's simplify the picture: at one end are those with properly registered rental contracts who pay taxes. The urgent issue, however, lies at the other end: informal rentals, guaranteed primarily by verbal agreements between the parties, where problems are resolved through negotiation or violence. Eviction is one option for resolving these conflicts, linked to structural conditions, and the State has done very little about it in the past. News reports of evictions of both domestic and foreign tenants, or altercations due to non-payment of rent, may become increasingly common. This situation urgently requires State intervention.

Another key aspect is mobility. Cities are movement and location, always simultaneously and at different scales. Mobility conditions are also part of our city model; mobility is central to any strategy for facing the inevitable end of quarantine: How does the population move within and between scales (neighborhood, district, city, regions)? How can we improve in a few weeks a transportation system that has accumulated flaws over decades? Without public action, mobility will perpetuate inequalities. And the prevailing motto of "every man for himself" is simply a refusal to treat it as a public issue.

I insist: it's difficult to make predictions about specific futures, and certainly much innovation and collaboration are needed to find "solutions" to problems that have plagued us for a long time. However, perhaps a starting point is recognizing the inadequacy of considering solutions based on the successful experiences of high-income areas or on the interventions offered by the "urbanism à la carte" (so neoliberal, as V. Delgadillo would say) of the last decade. In any case, what we should be asking, now more than ever, is why what is now exploding in our faces, and supposedly taking us by surprise, was excluded from public debate. To paraphrase A. Gorelik, it seems that for a long time (and for many until now) much of urban studies (activist, academic, management) built "a calm swimming pool where, amidst the city's turbulent transformation, urban imagination swims in its impotence." Despite the pessimism of these times, let's hope we manage to shake things up and rethink the model of city we want.

^[1] Manuel Dammert-Guardia. Center for Social, Economic, Political and Anthropological Research, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Coordinator of the CLACSO Working Group on Urban Inequalities.

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