Urban Densification of Informal Settlements in Lima, Peru - Study Case of Vallecito Alto in Lima, Peru

Abstract

According to the international literature, numerous studies have been made on the urban process of expansion, several studies on the densification processes in formal settlements and very few ones focused on the densification in informal settlements. Indeed, it seems that the urban process of densification taking place in informal settlements has never been clearly understood and seems to be difficult to analyse. Hence, through different approaches, the following work focuses on the urban densification processes, taking place in informal settlements in Global South. More precisely, it highlights the urbanistic problems and relations between urban densification and its associated factors (population growth, policies…) in the informal settlements of Lima in Peru. Divided into different approaches including some fieldwork, this work will present the theoretical concepts related to the subject of urban densification. It will focus as well on analysis of existing data and, finally it will bring complementary information from personal data collected onsite. It will highlight the urban densification trends in the last decades in informal settlements like Vallecito Alto and at different levels, from the metropolitan level to the settlement level, therefore showing that the urban tissue tends to be denser in the metropolitan region of Lima. It will also reveal that, when looking at different scales, the urban densification trends tend to vary from one place to another, especially for peripheral districts like Villa Maria del Triunfo where urban densification is taking place but is dominated by urban sprawl, mostly characterised by land invasions. Even if this research generally enables a better understanding of the densification process in informal settlements, and that some densification trends could be stressed for the analysed study case, it also brings other questions about the way in which densification takes place in other parts of the world.