Historic Lima Gets A New Heart

Luis Jaime Cisneros [*]

Although not a metropolis every urban planner would dream of, Lima no longer has the dubious title of one of Latin America's dirtiest and most polluted cities

I Nobody who strolled through the centre of Lima in the 1980s could have imagined that some day the Peruvian capital would be called a "garden city". Air and noise pollution, lack of public services (public toilets, proper lighting), traffic chaos, vandalism and the invasion of the city centre by thousands of street vendors drove out not only tourists and private businesses but local residents who only ventured there to go to work.

In June 1989, a group of urban planners, architects, historians, artists and art critics decided to set up the Lima Foundation, a private, non-political, non-profit organization to save the old city centre. "We all had jobs in the historic centre and could see how it was really going downhill," says journalist Augusto Elmore.

The Foundation's first victory was getting the city centre onto UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1991. This enthused public opinion and spurred the city authorities to embark on a far-reaching renovation programme in the mid-1990s with the Foundation's help and support. "Historic city centres are places where culture, tourism and economics can rub shoulders, and their restoration must benefit all social classes and foster a spirit of unity," says urban sociologist Gladys Chavez.

Those in charge of the programme took this to heart and reckoned that revamping the centre would have a beneficial effect on the rest of the city, which is home to eight million people (a quarter of the country's population). They focused on renovating 116 blocks covering 123 hectares and including 570 monuments--baroque churches, Renaissance mansions, universities and convents, all of them examples of Spanish urban colonial architecture.

The programme borrowed ideas from earlier plans to restore Havana, Mexico City and Quito--all of whose historic centres are World Heritage sites--and was a joint effort by local authorities, civil society and the private sector. "The Foundation drafted renovation projects and passed them on to government bodies--the city authorities, the National Cultural Institute and the urban investment fund--for execution," says Juan G[ddot{u}]nther, the 63-year-old architect in charge of the Foundation's projects.

Traffic control

One of the first measures taken was to reorganise street trading. "To get to the Plaza Jos[acute{e}] de San Martin square, in the centre, pedestrians and motorists had to weave their way through thousands of vendors, who either had stalls or laid out their wares and their knick-knacks on the pavement and in the road," says Elmore. Today, you can get through the streets more easily, because only officially licensed street vendors are allowed into the centre and many of the others have been moved into shopping galleries outside the old city centre.

Another priority was tackling air and noise pollution. "Anyone who works in the centre suffers from it every day," says G[ddot{u}]nther. "It gives me a sore throat and a lot of my colleagues get skin rashes." So the traffic system in the centre was changed to limit the number of buses and taxis, which are now regulated and painted yellow.

Restoration of the main public spaces, such as the Plaza Mayor, began in 1997, along with the renovation of churches, monuments and San Marcos University, founded in 1551 and the oldest in Latin America. "But it was more than just restoration. These places got used for new purposes," says Chavez. He cites the example of the Lima Biennial Art Festival, which holds exhibitions in large aristocratic mansions, as well as schemes to encourage local tourism such as the "Return to the Centre" campaign and the renovation of the Chinese quarter.

Much of the work was carried out with technical and financial assistance from UNESCO and foreign governments, such as Spain, or with the help of Cuba. But the Foundation also lobbied the private sector, and various banks and big firms, such as the Southern mining company, the Backus and Johnson brewery, Telefonica de Peru and Coca Cola, all of which gave money for the renovation work. An "Adopt a Balcony" campaign to restore 300 colonial balconies in the centre (at a cost of about $5,000 each) was funded by private firms.

Suggestions for fighting poverty

In the past few years, Lima residents of all classes, especially young people, have begun to return to the centre. "We enjoy coming here now because it's like being in a city within a city," say Jimena and Kike, two students crossing the Plaza Mayor.

G[ddot{u}]nther says the impression of neglect and alienation people used to feel when they walked through the city centre is a thing of the past, but he fears the changes might not stick. Air and noise pollution have not gone away. "Abancay Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares, is a nightmare, with four times the maximum level of pollution set by the World Health Organization," he says.