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Will the return of cars save Panama's small-time capitalism?

photos and story by Eric Jackson

Panama's public officials are, as a whole, uninformed and culturally shallow, to the point that they readily embrace all the stupidest urban policy mistakes that the gringos ever made in decades past, militantly defending them as Panama's sovereign right to be a First World country even though experts worldwide have reached consensus about the erroneous nature of such blunders as designing cities around cars.

Panama's public officials also tend to be so vain that they usually trash the projects of their predecessors in office to the extent possible.

When Mayín Correa was mayor, she had this idea of making Avenida Central between Plaza Cinco de Mayo and the Casco Viejo more people-friendly, by closing it to traffic and sprucing it up as a pedestrian mall. This plan was in turn part of a plan for new government office buildings to bring in more pedestrian traffic and a redesign of vehicular access to the Casco Viejo.

That stretch of Avenida Central was converted to the Peatonal, but the rest of the plan failed to materialize, Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro had other priorities and meanwhile new shopping malls with more space for stores, ample parking, air conditioning and better security arose to clobber Avenida Central as a retail center.

Still, the Peatonal became a popular gathering place for working and middle class city dwellers and a center for the smallest of business ventures, even as many of the stores along it declined.

Now some of the store owners have approached the municipal and national governments, demanding the restoration of traffic and the expulsion of the small vendors. The city council is receptive and Housing Minister Balbina Herrera, who wants to be the next mayor, also likes the plan.

Architect Raisa Banfield, a leader in the city's growing urban preservation movement, calls the notion that bringing back cars will restore the Avenida Central business area to its former glories "a crass error" and sees it as one more example of the folly of designing the capital for cars rather than people.

It just might be the case that the merchants around the Peatonal don't really believe that cars will rescue their businesses, but that they think that cars will create a good excuse to eliminate the small vendors whom they view as competitors, nuisances or both.

The Peatonal is a place to socialize, but a lot of the people who

hang out in that traffic-free spot have little money to spend

Specialized merchants, particularly the fabric stores, still hold their own in the area. The

Peatonal, however, with or without cars, is not going to win a competition with the malls

The upper-end fishing boat business
Blades lashes out at tourism reporting
Will the return of traffic save Avenida Central?

El Mercadito
De facto urban renewal

Competition by vilification and litigation loses ground
Business & Economy Briefs