Unboxing the Black Box of Peruvian Planning

This paper reviews the social and professional embeddedness of planning, describes its legal framework, and reviews territorial governance and everyday planning transactions. The findings suggest that the social embeddedness of planning is constrained by Peru’s persistent inequality challenges. Its planning approach has hardly evolved from modernist models centred in zoning and building codes. Its fragmented and profuse legal framework constitutes a black box for planners and citizens, while territorial governance is subject to the state’s low interest and capacity to plan, manage and steer spatial development. These results demand a fundamental revision of the planning system, its approach and governance.