Entries by Manuel Vigo | Informal City Dialogues
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Forefront Intro: Slow Jam
Can Lima finally untangle its transportation mess? In the third Forefront story of the Informal City Dialogues, Manuel Vigo explores the city’s attempts to dig out from its crushing congestion.
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The Wizards Behind the Curtain in Lima’s Totally Insane Bus System
Lima’s 32,000 private buses would grind to a halt if not for the city’s dateros, who provide critical intel in coded language to drivers working in cut-throat competition.
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Putting His Kids Through College, One Orange at a Time
For informal vendors, even life’s biggest expenses are saved for bit by tiny bit.
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In Latin America’s Largest Textile District, Buildings Stacked On Top of Buildings
Growth in Lima’s Gamarra neighborhood happens largely without official oversight, but the recent tragedy in Bangladesh may bring more scrutiny.
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A Plan for ‘Meal Centers’ Where Goods and Services are Exchanged for Food
At Lima’s Innovation Workshop, participants voted for a proposed system in which need-based pricing and a network of community gardens would revolutionize food distribution.
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High Costs and a Shortage of Doctors Keep Traditional Healers in Business
From snake-infused booze to bat-carcass tea, Peru’s centuries-old cures can still be found in modern Lima thanks, in part, to a formal medical system that’s hard to access.
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Debajo de una Superficie Pulcra, Emerge un Mercado Negro
Polvos Azules, uno de los centros comerciales más transitados de Lima, es casi indistinguible de un ‘mall’ convencional. Nunca adivinarías que casi todo ahí es ilegal.
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Through Riots and Police Barricades, a Market for the Poor Staggers On
Lima’s plan to shut down La Parada market as part of its plan to modernize the city has only one problem: Come hell or high water, the people aren’t leaving.
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A Covert Operation to Keep Lima’s Construction Workers Well-Fed
She isn’t a contractor, an architect or a carpenter, yet Maritsa has found a way to cash in on her city’s frenetic construction boom: By feeding its workers, one meal at a time.
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Sustainable Transport, Organic Food and Other Visions for 2040
At a Futures Scenarios Workshop in Lima, participants who today don’t even have running water imagined a city in which bikes and co-ops reign, and strangers share tables at restaurants.
With generous support from
