Abstract
Counteracting law violation and the haphazard occupation of marginal land as an explanation for how risk becomes inherent to informal urbanisation, I demonstrate in this paper that hazardous conditions are an outcome of practices that seek to comply with planning law. Risk on the steep slopes of Lima is reproduced by unchanged and inflexible planning regulations and instruments, and not by their absence. Building on scholarship at the nexus of planning and informality, and borrowing from socio-spatial and legal geography, I argue that planning law and legal texts regulate the spatial layouts of human settlements in ways that produce concrete abstraction and exacerbate unintended outcomes.Using extensive case study research and ethnographic methods, I unpack three perverse spatial configurations on the peripheral slopes of Lima: the grid layout resulting in excessively steep access ways, electricity poles in the middle of staircases and dangerous evacuation routes. I demonstrate how manoeuvres of fragmentation, homogenisation, and hierarchical ordering, active in planning processes and legal texts, lead to material and corporeal violence that maintain dwellers in perpetual landscapes of risk.
Highlights
How did an electricity pole make it to the middle of the staircase? I came across this curious sight while walking through a settlement on the peripheral slopes of Lima
I end the paper by reflecting on why planning law and legal texts become black-boxed, and how the difficulty of deci phering the role they play leads to the maintenance of human settle ments in perpetual informality and within landscapes of risk
Recognising that actors do not operate in fully regulated environments and can deviate from or interpret laws in their own ways, I contend that an emphasis on bricolage within practices of law translation are insufficient to explain spatial outcomes that are consistently repeated - as opposed to being one-offs - as seen in Lima
Summary
How did an electricity pole make it to the middle of the staircase? I came across this curious sight while walking through a settlement on the peripheral slopes of Lima. Excluded by economic and polit ical forces, the urban poor access land and housing markets on hazard-prone marginal land such as steep slopes, flood plains, valleys, marshy areas and watercourses (Davis, 2006; Hardoy et al, 2001) The risk they are exposed to is, predominantly attributed to the precarious character of the land, and to the violation of planning laws. Technicians and civil engineers, within and outside government institutions are routinely involved, as are technical tools such as settlement layout plans (planos de lotizacion) Despite this engagement with planning regulations, in struments, and professionals, the resultant spatial configurations trap inhabitants in cycles of everyday risk. I end the paper by reflecting on why planning law and legal texts become black-boxed, and how the difficulty of deci phering the role they play leads to the maintenance of human settle ments in perpetual informality and within landscapes of risk
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
