The production of cities of sacrifice in the Peruvian Amazon: The case of “Nueva ciudad de Belén”, Iquitos, Peru

Abstract

New land production by the Peruvian state has been an urban development politic applied since middle century XX. This has been associated, principally, with the creation of new cities and the extractive activities such as mines, petroleum, agroindustry, and resettlements of the population localized in risk areas. Regarding the latter, academic research on urban resettlements has been focusing on analyzing social and spatial dynamics from within and out but it hasn’t discussed the urban production contradictions and environmental suffering. This article pretends to analyze, how the Peruvian state produces sacrifice cities, by expanding on the case of “Nueva Ciudad de Belen” in Iquitos, Perú. The research is based on the concepts of sacrifice zone and environmental suffering, and the contributions of urban political ecology and environmental suffering.  We used a qualitative approach, by reviewing academic papers, thesis, books, governmental documents, and others. The preliminary results of the study show us that the new cities created, based on modern urbanism, repeat the same mistakes in other cities, but the singularity is even that people adapted to Ambiental suffering, they try to resist and look for new ways to live better.