Impacts of urban growth on Andean smallholders. A study of perception in the rural–urban zone of Huancayo, Peru.

• Main Author: Andreas Haller
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú 2017-05-01
• Series: Espacio y Desarrollo
• Subjects: ciudad andina; urbanización; agricultura de montaña; cambio de paisaje
• Online Access: http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/espacioydesarrollo/article/view/17579

In the Central Andes, the processes of physical, demographic and sociocultural urbanization have diverse impacts on smallholders who live on the periurban interface between city and countryside. How is urban growth perceived by campesinos who live on the outskirts of mountain cities? How do urban people who live on the new peripheries perceive the impacts of urban growth on smallholders? Using the intermediate city of Huancayo—the most important Andean city of the Central Peruvian sierra—as a case in point, the present study analyzes the quantitative growth of built-up land as well as the change in land cover around the city between 1988 and 2008. Moreover, the study explains the positive and negative impacts as perceived by smallholders living on the outskirts of Huancayo, and reveals the opinions of urbanites from nearby residential zones. The results indicate that urbanites are empathetic toward smallholders; a fact that proves the strong rural–urban interaction in Andean intermediate cities and bears great potential for social inclusion and sustainable development in the periurban zones of Huancayo.