| Lima's Costa Verde is a ten-mile coastal "green zone" of new beaches, parks, and commercial development adjacent to six economically and socially diverse municipalities that has been expanded as part of regional tourism development since the 1960s. This project argues that the contemporary Costa Verde's is a geographical manifestation of the inequalities among its six municipalities, produced by a deregulated and decentralized governing structure that has allowed local actors to remake the coastline through the uneven allocation and development of space for recreational activities. My study of the Costa Verde's coastal shelf geography demonstrates how political economy and natural forces are entwined in the production of the space in a manner that reflects dominant inequalities and contributes to their reproduction in the physical geography of the area. This is apparent in the levels of pollution that poor bathers are subject to, the differing ways and degrees to which different municipalities have developed their stretches of the Costa Verde, and the sort of recreational activities that currently take place on the beaches. Neoliberalized decentralization has granted autonomy to municipal governments and wealthy residents, who imprint their individual goals on their coastal shelves, free from any broader imperative to take into account the interests of the poor or their rights and access to this public space. |
