http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/6/the_city_that_built_itself
*Nice illustrations. Well, not "nice," but *good and useful* illustrations.
(...)
"Because of Pérez Jiménez’s tendency toward self-glorification, two-thirds of the blocks in 23 de Enero were still empty as of January 1958, years after their completion, waiting to be dedicated on the next anniversary of the dictator’s ascension. But on the twenty-third of the month, as Pérez Jiménez was overthrown, rumors spread through the subsequent citywide celebration that plentiful, free apartments were available in the partially uninhabited project.
" The rush on apartments carried over from the superblocks to the open land surrounding them, where Caraqueños began building houses out of urban refuse, establishing clusters of makeshift ranchos that would soon become full-fledged barrios. The dictatorship’s greatest symbol of regimen and progress was taken over and folded back into the Caracas it was to have replaced.
"This admixture of Latin America’s two most prevalent forms of shelter, modernist housing blocks and improvised slum dwellings, is not unique, but the scale, site, history, and density of 23 de Enero—over eighty thousand residents live in the parroquia’s superblocks and ranchos—make it exceptional. (((And wait till they've got broadband in there. Oh wait, that didn't take long:)))
["PITTSBURGH, May 5 /PRNewswire/ – BPL Global, Ltd., a smart grid technology company dedicated to leading the transformation of energy and information delivery, announced today that its BPL implementation in Caracas, Venezuela has been deemed successful by La Nueva Electricidad de Caracas (EDC).
["The BPL deployment in Petare, a popular community in the East side of Caracas, has been operating in a trial mode serving numerous multi-dwelling units (MDU). It operates on the existing aerial medium voltage power lines, providing Internet service to low-income areas that are underserved. This project includes an elementary school with more than 1,000 students, enabling children access to the Internet.
["The BPL activities fit with EDC's overall strategy of providing services that benefit the communities' goal to continually improve quality of life in Venezuela. EDC is helping the community by leveraging the existing power grid to provide citizens and less privileged communities with access to the Internet. Other services that EDC would like to offer include: VoIP, IPTV, VPN and IP communication services.
["Since some areas have no Internet access, the services are expected to have a positive social impact. So far, enrollment of the broadband-enabled buildings has exceeded the 20 percent goal for the pilot.
[""Our broadband solutions allow for much broader access to high-speed Internet," said Geraldo Guimaraes, executive director, Latin America for BPL Global. "We're excited about the economic and quality-of-life benefits these kinds of programs can bring to entire cities. The sophistication and versatility of our design makes it possible to work with a range of electrical infrastructures, operating environments and service requirements."
["Recent estimates from the Computer Industry Almanac indicate that only 13 percent of the Venezuelan population, or 3.3 million people, have Internet access. The access provided through EDC and BPL Global will enable significant growth in the number of people with broadband access in Venezuela, especially areas of difficult access...."']
(((Meanwhile, back at the high-rise Venezuelan Modernist Bolivarian barrio:)))
"As the barrio is constructed rancho by rancho, individual housing needs are satisfied and replaced by collective needs: roads, water, schools, stores. Individual building efforts are subsumed by collective ones, which not only determine the physical shape of the neighborhood but define daily life in the community. Bolívar describes the resident of the barrio as neither homo economicus (economic man) nor homo faber (working man), but rather homo convivalis, a being constituted by human relationships that persist irrespective of the government in power. (((Aka "Social Web 2.0," but don't let on as it makes Facebook seem kinda downmarket.)))
"During the few months I spent in Caracas last year researching and exploring parroquia 23 de Enero and talking with its residents, I often passed Friday evenings in a parking lot overlooking the barrios with my friend Maricarmen. We ate fat slices of dense pound cake and drank bottles of the ubiquitous Polar beer as twilight settled over the hills.
"The massive polychromatic boxes hovered before us, engulfed at their bases by a hive of burnt-red ranchos, each buzzing with laundry lines and water tanks, (((and electrical power broadband so they can Twitter))) linked by tangles of black cable that arced through the sky from one row of ranchos to the next. The thump of reggaeton and the slap of dominoes on nearby tables filled the air, puncturing the city’s dull rumble. As darkness arrived, the blocks and ranchos melted into the far-off handmade street lamps flickering from barrios across the ravine, weaving a pattern of faint lights mirroring the dim stars above. (((The pattern of faint lights of Caracas teens downloading free reggaeton tracks while playing Warcraft with kids in distant Djakarta.)))
"When I first arrived in Caracas and met with a group of community organizers who lived in 23 de Enero, I asked them how residents see the distinctions between different superblocks and barrios. Like the ranchos that surround them, the superblocks are always being renovated, and they are in vastly different states of repair. Some have peeling facades and trash-strewn front yards. Their elevators require full-time operators, and the exterior trash chutes disintegrate as they descend from the top floor.
"Others have luscious gardens and functional chutes. Their elevators run smoothly on their own, and the paint is brilliant. I heard rumors that a few large families had even connected vertically aligned apartments into duplexes. The physical conditions of the structures seemed to me to reflect distinct traditions of collective maintenance or neglect. But everyone I asked evaded my questions with a quizzical look and told me I was missing the point. They felt at home throughout La Veinte Tres, not only in particular barrios or blocks...."
(((After that it gets even better!)))
