opinion

The waters overflowed, leaving in their wake a trail of desolation and death. Without having been a hurricane, the rainstorm's toll appeared similar or worse. The solidarity was broad and encouraging, but having passed the first moment, that of direct action and immediate assistance, it is necessary to ask: Why did it happen? Moreover: Why does it happen? --- because the situation isn't unexpected.

Is nature solely responsible: intense rains and high tide? Or is it necessary to also identify what Allan Lavel calls the "social construction of threats"? Understanding "threat" as the probability of the occurrence of a physical event that causes damage, the central question is: How are we, the inhabitants, creating threats against our own existence? Because, although the threats appear to be natural, in practice they express themselves with human actions.

We have degraded the environment by way of deforestation, the destruction and obstruction of rivers and streams, as well as by pollution of the sea and indiscriminate urban sprawl.

The cities in particular are very complex entities that provoke and build interrelated threats. On one hand they plan and build neighborhoods and townsites without including the necessary drains and sewer systems, and sell them with manipulative and deceptive advertising; and on the other, the search for satisfaction of necessities and the absence of real housing solutions sends the urban poor searching for --- as best they can --- spaces to inhabit and survive.

There is a galloping urban growth, developing in a style that is generating risks and greater vulnerabilities for us.

"The dynamic and logic of territories must be constantly redefined in order to be able to respond to this set of problems." (Pascal Girot)

Only if we are conscious that the greater part of the threat is socially constructed can we advance proposals about how to reverse the situation that puts so many people in danger.

The trend is toward accelerated urbanization, disorderly urban growth, destruction of the natural environment, urban poverty, lack of institutional development, vulnerability and economic, political and social repercussions.

Disasters are going to continue to take place in the big cities, as the urban model is exclusive, without real capacity for planning and reordering, subordinate to the market and without a viable proposal for urban reform that humanizes the cities. There is, moreover, a great deficit when it comes to designing policies about urban risk and vulnerability.

Evidently the harshness of the threat takes hold with greater force in the areas of urban poverty. The future trend is increasingly impoverished urbanization. And in Panama, "It is probable that a greater proportion of the poor will in the future concentrate in the urban areas," says the World Bank.

Some 56 percent of Panama's inhabitants live in urban areas. There are in the urban areas some 232,000 poor people, of whom 47,000 are living in extreme poverty. Almost one-quarter of the poor live in cities.

A considerable part of the urban population is vulnerable to or at risk of poverty, as they live just over the line of total poverty. At the same time they are vulnerable to the threat of calamities like the floods of this past September 17.

Minors under 18 years of age represent about half of the poor urban inhabitants. This carries grave generational implications. In San Miguelito there are 90,100 poor people, out of the special district's approximately 300,000 inhabitants --- that is to say, 40 percent of the country's urban poor.

The majority live in individual houses and have no property titles to their homes. Invasion is one of the preferred means of obtaining land for houses. One-third live in houses with walls of wood or scrap materials. Some 22 percent of the houses have dirt floors. On the average these houses shelter more than three people each. Two-thirds are self-built, using savings, the help of family and friends, and last of all with credit, which is scarce. Many of these houses are situated in areas of risk and built without adequate safeguards to confront the setbacks of catastrophes.

Popular housing is grouped into three categories: the emerging neighborhoods, the housing areas built by the private or governmental sectors, and the deteriorating central areas. The first two are susceptible to floods and landslides, and the third to fires and collapses due to the dilapidation and abandonment of the buildings. It is necessary to confront this with an urban development strategy on the bases of orderly land use, a sustainable and holistic urban reform, and a determined effort to do something about poverty.



Also in this section:
Bush, Speech to the UN
Kerry, Speech at New York University
Jackson, How the US election is likely to turn
Soca De Vote, Getting Caribbean-Americans to the polls
Liut, Goss's qualifications as seen through his stands on Haiti
Gutman, Of cretins, killers and kleptocrats
Carpio, G3 in the Greater Caribbean
Gutman, The sweet smell of revenge
Bernal, General History of Panama
Leis, Floods and building standards

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