When reading about the industrial residential arrangements and comparing them to the PREVI-Lima project, the idea of bottom-up versus top-down communities came to mind. In both cases, the places where the local residents lived were “planned” in a top-down mentality, a contrast to the bottom-up concepts of emergence as discussed previously. And yet, within the top-down structure of urban organization lies the ability of the people of Lima to complete the housing project after the original planners were unable to do so. What makes the PREVI-Lima project so much more successful and humane than the industrial towns of the 19th century?

One initial point of interest in the top-down urban plan of these two sets of residential projects is that of the grand scheme. In both cases, housing was a necessity and a problem that needed to be solved. With the industrial towns, however, the housing was an afterthought. As described by Lewis Mumford in the book Slums and Urbanization, the plan started with the idea of profit and how to maximize gains from the prime placement of industries and railroads, and then an attempt followed to try and place as many dwellings for as little a price as could be engineered in the leftover space. Even in the less-than-livable towns this planning scheme created, there were still the basic elements of town planning: building structure and (some) utilities, doors and (some) windows, streets, etc. But it is the shirking of these efforts to the last priority that leaves them in such a lacking condition.

For the PREVI-Lima project, it’s as if all these factors that failed in the 19th century industrial towns were flipped and corrected, and in such a way that residents of the unfinished plan were able to understand and incorporate their own residential development into the local economy and community. The top-down order here was that of resident first, with profits and business coming from within the created community. As described in “The Experimental Housing Project (PREVI), Lima: The Making of a Neighbourhood,” “the PREVI experience demonstrates the importance of having a planning team with a comprehensive urban approach; since only with a complex and collective understanding of the urban phenomenon beyond the residential is it possible to create optimal strategies that enable its eventual users to continue the project’s development.” The top-down planning here felt it was important to include elements that keep the community alive and able to expand, as opposed to the strict, bare necessities of living provided by the industrial towns. These elements include the abilities for families to expand their houses, increase their income within the housing project, and the provision of purposeful pedestrian axis, traffic separation, and designated public spaces and plazas.

For top-down projects, as with any plan, those doing the planning and setting the wheels in motion have the greatest effect on the outcome of a project. With the PREVI-Lima project, its clear that with a comprehensive and purposeful design, a town can be created with enough momentum to even complete itself.