May 2020, Year XII, n. 5
Jorge Muñoz Wells
The Trusted Mayor
Telos: In Italy the Prime Minister is indicated by the Parliament. However, every time there are talks about changing the Constitution and going for a direct popular election, people use the expression ‘The Mayor of Italy’. This seems to imply that Mayors have more power to impact their citizens’ everyday life even than the Head of the Government. Does this apply also to Peru?
Jorge Muñoz Wells: In Peru, the municipalities are the closest institution to citizens within our governmental structure, in the case of the Metropolitan City of Lima, the relationship with its inhabitants is carried out through by 42 District Municipalities, which make it up, to respond to the needs of the population.
This relationship of trust between the city administration and the citizens of Lima means that citizens trust and demand the utmost from their ‘Mayors’; mainly because our decisions have a direct impact on their lives ...more
Editorial
According to Italo Calvino, cities are made up of many different things: memories, desires, signs of a language… Since colonial times, Lima has been used as the main setting in Peru’s extraordinary literary tradition.
The city began featuring in the works of poets living in the Capital, and with their verses, they fashioned the epic story of the foundation and magnificence of the Viceroy’s Court. It was from here that the literature about the city began to evolve, over the following centuries, right up to the 19th century, when Riccardo Palma, with his Tradiciones peruanas (1872-1910), created a literary corpus where colonial and republican Lima take on the resonance of a spiritual space set within the collective memory of the limeños. ...more
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