Global links and spatial transformation in metropolitan regions: Lima in the nineteen nineties

This study analyzes the extent to which recent processes of global economic restructuring and the expansion of production networks, intertwined with local social and institutional processes, condition the spatial transformation of metropolitan regions.; The increasing number of intersections of global and local networks taking place in metropolitan regions can lead to their spatial reorganization around specialized networks of distinct urban functions. In this emerging spatial organization, places are not only defined by their accumulation of resources but by the flows of transactions, exchange of information, and their ability to attract skilled labor and visitors. Thus, the analysis of metropolitan space shifts its focus from places to the interaction among places.; These processes are studied by examining the transformation of Metropolitan Lima during the 1990s through the analysis of four districts that highlight the institutional and production processes of the current spatial transformation: the Financial District, the Garment District, the Historic Center, and a Peripheral Neighborhood.; Global networks can amplify ongoing social and economic processes that take place in metropolitan regions. However, the effect of these global networks on the metropolitan space depends on the ability of local actors to intersect global flows and articulate them with the local networks.; The convergence of global and local networks in Metropolitan Lima has triggered the emergence of new economic actors in new geographic areas and economic sectors as well as changes in industrial processes and relationships among workers and investors. These changes have contributed to blur boundaries between formal and informal economies and to increase social diversity in spaces of production and consumption, while deepening segregation in residential areas.; Metropolitan Lima's single-center organization of many decades has unfolded into multiple specialized metropolitan centers and networks of information-based, industrial, retail, and cultural activities. These specialized metropolitan centers have altered the distribution of activities and mobility of resources and have shaped land use and transportation patterns. They have generated a very high density of activities and flows of capital and information, creating a new hierarchy of arteries around transportation hubs, financial centers, international business services, and major industrial and commercial clusters.