Lima's Poor Build a Suburb Overnight

LIMA, Peru—On a given day they gather at dusk in the courtyards of dozens of former palatial mansions and elegant business houses that today barely hide Lima's decaying downtown slums.

As they await the next signal from their elected leaders, the slum dwellers roll their esteras, or woven fiber mats, around sturdy poles and put their household goods in sacks.

The signal is given as night falls, probably in Quechua or Aymara, the languages of Peru's highland Indians. Then, quietly, hundreds of people move out of the courtyards and alleys to board decrepit trucks for the ride to the city's outskirts.

There they are joined by hundreds of others from nearby shantytowns for a night of frantic work. The poles are driven into the sandy soil and the mats become walls and roofs.

By dawn what had been barren parcel of real estate is now one of Lima's new Pueblos Jovenes, or young communities, as the military Government here prefers to call the barriadas or slums.

That was how El Salvador, Lima's newest slum, was born last fall. Today it has some 130,000 inhabitants.

Many Live in Shantytowns

All told, more than a third of this capital's three million people live in such shantytowns, despite a housing boom that is shattering construction records each month.

Although every Latin‐American city has its exploding slums, nowhere are they as carefully planned and constructed as in Lima and other big Peruvian cities.

El Salvador was conceived perhaps three years ago, according to social workers interviewed in older slums. Probably the idea took hold after the birth of a slum at that time.

After the migration from the downtown mansions and other buildings and older shantytowns took place then, the squalid dwellings began filling up with new arrivals from countless Andean villages and towns. About half of Peru's 14 million people are Indians who do not speak Spanish.

Because no Indian will deny a kinsman or friend a place under his roof and some of his food, the former handsome downtown buildings, long since converted into tiny “apartments,” soon become overcrowded.

Those who drift down from the highlands into older shantytowns also quickly become problem to their hosts. The traditional organizational ability of the descendants of the Incas, however, produces a ready solution.

The elected leaders of the older communities organize the newcomers and begin seeking a new site to build a shantytown. A committee is formed to “survey” the site, usually an idle parcel of land.

The Site Is Mapped

Careful note is taken of existing buildings, if any, and the nearest police post. Then the site is mapped and divided into plots.

Meanwhile, the prospective “tenants” have begun to gather the basic materials needed for their new homes—poles and fiber mats. And at the given signal the operation begins.

Invariably the startled landowner calls the police, most of them cholos, or people of mixed ancestry. The police order the huts removed. Angry words are exchanged, shots fired, a few people killed and injured and the police report that they have left the area to avoid further bloodshed.

The matter is then placed in the courts and soon forgotten. And hundreds of new migrants begin swarming into the slum. Leaders are elected and committees formed to procure basic services from the city, such as water and electricity.

Shops are opened, public and private bus companies extend their routes and within a year or so the new community acquires an established look.

Adobe Replaces Mats

Gradually the mats are removed and walls of adobe rise. Billboards from nearby highways become roofs.

The committees, using volunteer labor, frequently collect rubbish and pave streets and perform other services normally expected of municipal governments.

But for the city fathers and most other Limefios, the shantytown does not exist.

At least’ that was the attitude until the last year or so. Since then the military Government, deeply concerned over the security problems inherent in these vast “ungoverned” slums, has tackled the problem on two fronts.

The existing slums are being given water, power, telephone

service and medical clinics as well as transport facilities. On the second front, the Government has granted tax

holidays and other benefits to builders of low‐cost housing. The state has also taxed idle land to the point that sites are, being dumped on the market.

Ample Funds Available

Because Peru has one of the most advanced savings and loan systems in Latin America, along with very stringent laws I against sending money abroad, ample funds are available for housing.

Some 300 private construction companies built 83,000 housing units in Peru last year, most of them costing $1,200 to $5,000. The goal this year, is 90,000 units.

The problem now is that few of the Indians care to buy or can afford even those modest homes. The 400,000 or so people rehoused last year were mostly cholos. Their removat. to the new developments has only accentuated the movement from the highlands to coaRtal urban areas.

And with the arrival of the Indians into the city, landlords have simply. given up whatever efforts they previously made to maintain their properties.