News •
The railway line from Callao to Lima is the oldest in South America, while the line that climbs east past Vitarte and into the Andes reaches the highest point of any standard-gauge railway in the world. The growth of automobile transportation has given rise to the heavily congested traffic conditions that exist in contemporary Lima. Although there is now a well-developed highway system in the metropolitan area, including an expressway between central Lima and Miraflores, the vast majority of Limeños must cope with an outdated street network and rely on three basic modes of transport: minibuses (vans) that can hold up to a dozen passengers; small buses that can carry about two dozen people; and larger municipal buses, many of which operate in bad repair.
Because transport in Lima is at best highly inefficient and at worst chaotic, hundreds of amateur taxi drivers, unlicensed and often ignorant of all but the most obvious locations within the city, offer their services to the harried or unwary pedestrian at peak traffic hours. Heavy trucks, private cars, and motorcycles and bicycles of all shapes and sizes complete the traffic mix. Several plans for a subway or elevated rail system have been proposed for Lima, in part to overcome the obvious problems of the heavily congested and polluted centre but also to interconnect the peripheral suburbs more effectively and thus divert much traffic from the central city. The construction of an elevated rail system was suspended in the early 1990s.
Administration and social conditions
Government
The problems of controlling Lima’s growth have proved difficult, but those of municipal administration have become almost insoluble. Metropolitan Lima consists of the department of Lima and the province of Callao, which are further divided into dozens of political districts. Each province and each district is administratively autonomous, so that citywide planning and development can be undertaken only by means of negotiated decisions. The capital district of Lima, with its long-established expertise in urban administration, has repeatedly called for the creation of a metropolitan authority that could more efficiently confront the many issues facing the region. Local district autonomy, however, which was won only after great political effort, has become a major obstacle to any unified approach, although a municipal law enacted in 1984 created a Metropolitan Council for Greater Lima (an assembly of district mayors) as well as agencies for improving cooperation between district councils and sharing technical assistance.
The system of generating and spending revenues in metropolitan Lima provides an example of the problems of interdistrict coordination. Since 1983 each district has been able both to generate its own revenues and to utilize them as it sees fit. Thus, there has been a growing disparity in the quality of services between the wealthy districts, which can generate adequate revenues for their needs, and the poor districts, which not only generate inadequate revenues but also are in most need of such services as water, sewers, electricity, and paved streets.
The differences in income and expenditures between rich and poor districts are, to some extent, paralleled by distinctive party affiliations and voting behaviour. The poorer districts have generally supported candidates from left-wing parties, while the more affluent suburbs have supported centre-right candidates. This interparty rivalry has hampered efforts at improving cooperation between districts as well as between the municipal and national government.
Services
The rapidity and scale of Lima’s growth have placed great strains upon the provision of public services. Potable water, which in the past was obtained from the Rímac and from shallow local wells, now must be brought in via lakes and diverted rivers from the high Andes. Equally difficult has been the provision of electricity. Only with the completion in the early 1970s of the expensive hydroelectric project on the Mantaro River has affordable power been available for Lima’s industry and residential population. These sources of water and power, however, have been at the expense of the impoverished Andean departments that have provided them.
Within the capital itself the problems of providing services have been legion. Most municipalities have had barely enough income to finance their routine operations, with nothing left over to finance new projects. In addition, municipalities that have been able to allocate money for improved services often have been unable to adequately plan and execute what usually have been complex and highly technical projects. Finally, even when these projects have been built it has seldom been possible, given the penurious state of the majority of the population, to require payment for the actual cost of the services.
Caught between the need for inner-city renewal and suburban expansion, most municipalities have turned to the national government and such international agencies as the World Bank for assistance. Their argument has been that Lima’s problems have become national problems and, as such, require national solutions.
Cultural life
In spite of the many and complex problems that confront those who live in Lima, it is still the dominant and most vibrant cultural centre of Peru. Lima contains the most distinguished universities in the country—including the oldest university in South America, the National University of San Marcos (1551), and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (1917)—as well as numerous other schools. Nearly all of the major academies, learned societies, and research institutes are located in metropolitan Lima, as are the national cultural institutions.
The numerous museums in the metropolitan area display the richness of Peru’s pre-Columbian and colonial past. Within Lima itself are the well-restored burial sites (huacas) of the pre-Inca coastal cultures, and south of the city stand the remains of Pachacamac, one of Peru’s largest pre-Hispanic religious centres. Dozens of other prehistoric sites await funds for excavation and investigation, but almost all are threatened by urban construction.
Lima has several daily newspapers—El Comercio (“Commerce”), founded in 1839, is the country’s oldest—and numerous weekly periodicals, among which the magazine Caretas has become established as the newsweekly of Peru. There are several television and radio stations, and Internet cafés have sprung up throughout the city. Bookstores and book readers, however, are in the minority: the electronic media and a continual shortage of paper have combined to limit the circulation of the printed word. For many lower-class Limeños, the most popular reading materials are the comic books and dime novels that can be rented from street-corner stalls.
Recreation in Lima takes many forms, but perhaps no sports are more important than football (soccer) for men and volleyball for women. Local football clubs have large and devoted followings. Other popular sports include horse racing, cockfighting, bullfighting, swimming, and tennis. Golf and polo are enjoyed by some of the more affluent residents. Dozens of cinemas, theatre clubs, and discotheques provide nightlife, and there are scores of peñas, nightclubs featuring folk music. The music of Lima, as symbolized in the works of Chabuca Granda and Alicia Maguiña Málaga, is always popular, and it has enjoyed a renewed interest on the part of the public at large.
A delicious variety of food can be found in the fashionable international-quality restaurants of central Lima and the bay area and in the hundreds of lesser cafés, chifas (Chinese restaurants), picanterías (serving traditional dishes), and cevicherías (seafood restaurants specializing in seviche, or cebiche, a typical coastal dish of marinated fish). Fortunately for Lima, the migrants from other areas of Peru carried with them their highly flavoured regional dishes, making the city a gastronome’s delight. Added to these foods are excellent local beers, grape brandy (pisco), wines, and other drinks.
One of the consequences of the massive migration to Lima has been the reinforcement of cultural ties between the capital’s new urban communities and their localities of origin. Provincial and district clubs and associations celebrate weekly with songs, dances, and foods typical of the distinctive regions. Much of Peru’s folklore can be learned in the heart of Lima itself.