Resourses vs Development

I am slowly beginning to be accustomed to Lima. It is a city of organized chaos. To me, nothing is sane, and the city should not be functioning, but to those who grew up in and live in the city, take it as normal life.
We got to take a double-decker, open-top bus tour last night throughout various portions of the city. One place that really caught my attention was a fountain park. The park is in the Guinness book of world records as the largest fountain park in existence. There are tall, short, round, random, colored and geometrically shaped fountains flowing in this park. Many people pay to enter and entertain themselves with the various displays and shows that the fountains have to offer. There are even fountains in which a person can stand, play and get soaked, just for fun.

Well, in the midst of enjoying the beautiful architecture and creativity of the park, I was struck with a hard question to which I still don’t have a satisfactory answer. We had visited the shantytown the day before. A dusty, bland looking community that is full of a vibrant and thriving life. They have very, very, very scarce resources and more often than not the people forego many basic necessities to “survive.” So I wondered a couple things:
A) How can a city justify (ethically) using water for recreational and entertainment purposes when citizens within its limits are not having their needs of basic resources and clean water being met?
Some of my thoughts on that were that maybe instead of having “green spaces” (a popular development of the current mayor) throughout the city that are not efficient, why not create these spaces that incorporate the natural landscape of the land, i.e. a desert and its natural plant life, in an effort to direct water resources toward sustaining life in the shantytowns.
Along the same lines, another question:
B) What purpose do these projects serve in an effort to address the standard of living in Lima?

Looking at the options of use for the resources and what is going to be the most beneficial in terms of sustaining human life, to me, the preservation of life is more important than the aesthetically pleasing look of a particular landscape. When is it ever OK to address and then to feed wants before needs have been met?
My newest major is geography, specifically wanting to focus on natural resources, such as water, and the conservation of those resources; so all of this interests me a great deal as a first-hand, and in-depth case study.
Erin and I have been talking about this now for a few days, and here is a little snippet of food for thought, yet another question:
“All of the improvements we have seen in the city have been aesthetically pleasing, but what are they doing for the people of the city?”

Jillian Eisma: BA International Studies & Geography