Saturday, May 12, 2007
Like mushrooms after a spring rain
I have neglected the Venezuelan housing situation for a little while now. That is a shame because new subsidized housing is springing up around Venezuela like mushrooms after a spring rain.
For many years housing was a weak point for the government. Yes it always constructed first rate housing – Chavez refused to construct the plastic walled, tin roofed junk previous governments called homes – but it consistently failed build the large quantities that Venezuela needs. Part of the responsibility for that was disorganization and incompetence within the government and part things like the devastating opposition led oil strike not exactly being helpful.
Yet that has now been all turned around. Last year the Venezuela government built a record number of new homes.
Combine that with their very high quality (those not familiar with what these homes are like should review this inside look at public housing in Venezuela) and clearly the housing sector is now running on all cylinders and is a big plus for the government. [as an interesting aside, you could tell the housing situation was now turned around just from noting how the opposition media practically stopped talking about it]
Given all this I thought now would be an appropriate time to look at some of the new housing going up as we speak. Apologies in advance for any bandwidth problems.
Note most of these homes are being built in Miranda state. But they are representative of what is happening all around Venezuela:
Zamora
Santa Sofia
Independencia
Valles del Tuy
Eulaia Buroz
Cristobal Rojas
Chavari
Calabaza
Brion
Paez
And here are some of the inhabitants of all this new housing. I bet they look kind of scary to your average escualido – they could be Chavistas
As can be seen, while the opposition bitches, moans, and whines Venezuela keeps moving ahead and offering a better life for its citizens day after day.
Oh, by the way, the ugly head of shortages manages to pop up even in this otherwise happy picture. You see, consumption of cement is up over 20% so far this year do to the massive public works projects going on throughout the country. So far there haven’t been any shortages. But in case demand keeps increasing at this level they’ve already made plans to start importing cement from Cuba.
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For many years housing was a weak point for the government. Yes it always constructed first rate housing – Chavez refused to construct the plastic walled, tin roofed junk previous governments called homes – but it consistently failed build the large quantities that Venezuela needs. Part of the responsibility for that was disorganization and incompetence within the government and part things like the devastating opposition led oil strike not exactly being helpful.
Yet that has now been all turned around. Last year the Venezuela government built a record number of new homes.
Combine that with their very high quality (those not familiar with what these homes are like should review this inside look at public housing in Venezuela) and clearly the housing sector is now running on all cylinders and is a big plus for the government. [as an interesting aside, you could tell the housing situation was now turned around just from noting how the opposition media practically stopped talking about it]
Given all this I thought now would be an appropriate time to look at some of the new housing going up as we speak. Apologies in advance for any bandwidth problems.
Note most of these homes are being built in Miranda state. But they are representative of what is happening all around Venezuela:
Zamora
Santa Sofia
Independencia
Valles del Tuy
Eulaia Buroz
Cristobal Rojas
Chavari
Calabaza
Brion
Paez
And here are some of the inhabitants of all this new housing. I bet they look kind of scary to your average escualido – they could be Chavistas
As can be seen, while the opposition bitches, moans, and whines Venezuela keeps moving ahead and offering a better life for its citizens day after day.
Oh, by the way, the ugly head of shortages manages to pop up even in this otherwise happy picture. You see, consumption of cement is up over 20% so far this year do to the massive public works projects going on throughout the country. So far there haven’t been any shortages. But in case demand keeps increasing at this level they’ve already made plans to start importing cement from Cuba.
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