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Walkathon to raise money for legal battles to save Panama City
 

All across Panama City the worst sorts of real estate speculators and developers, generally with government support, are tearing down historic buildings, bulldozing green areas, appropriating city parks for private condos, threatening national parks with tourist traps or redundant housing developments, overloading infrastructures and in general behaving in greedy and antisocial ways.

They are meeting with increasing citizen resistance, including from those investors and developers with senses of taste, decency and longer-term thinking. Pending legal actions have to date stalled attempts to grab parts of the Cerro Ancon and Soberania national parks, but on the other hand have been insufficient to stop the demolitions of three historic buildings that were once homes of Panamanian presidents and the demolition of a lot of other architecture that should have been preserved. There are looming court battles over the taking of public parks for private luxury highrise condos. Neighbors in El Cangrejo have seen some victories in their quest to keep Parque Andres Bello from being walled in by highrises, but the threat hasn't gone away and meanwhile other additions to the area's saturated infrastructures have worsened Via Argentina's twice a day traffic gridlock and caused raw sewage to overflow into the park and onto the streets and sidewalks.

Out of the many small neighborhood battles, concerned residents are coming together to forge an alliance that can provide the human and financial resources and the city-wide coordination required to carry on the legal, educational and non-partisan political battles needed to save the capital from the forces of greed and stupidity. They're also moving to promote healthy growth and development, for example by giving the needs of those who live here higher priority than automobiles.

This is the Alianza Pro Ciudad, which, to start its existence with some sort of a financial footing, will hold a fundraising walkathon on Sunday, June 3. The event will begin in the parking lot of the El Carmen Church on Via Espana at 8 a.m. and end up at the Municipal Seafood Market on Avenida Balboa. Participants are being asked for a minimum donation of $5.