A construction project that some neighbors don't want

photos by Eric Jackson

El Cangrejo is a popular middle class neighborhood with some upscale new apartment towers coming in over the past few years. It's also the scene of traffic gridlock twice a day and that problem gets worse with every large new apartment building. Thus there is and has been neighborhood opposition to every such development in recent years.

Now there's a plan to put a big apartment tower right up against the neighborhood's park, and that's extra added reason for neighborhood protests. Although the Torrijos administration passed a new urban planning law, the real estate and construction industries more or less dominate the government these days so it's likely that the neighbors will lose this battle, too. It will, however, provide a test of the new law.