[URBAN NOTE] "Venezuela's 'skyscraper slum' provides haven for poor"

[rfmcdonald]

Andrew Cawthorne and Jorge Silva's Reuters article explaining how the Centro Financiero Confinanzas skyscraper in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas was, after being abandoned in 1993-1994, repurposed by squatters as a high-rise residence caught my attention. It evokes dystopia and the arcology all at once.

Squatters seized the huge concrete skeleton in 2007, then-President Hugo Chavez's socialist government turned a blind eye, and now about 3,000 people call the tower their home.

Though many Caracas residents view it as a den of thieves and a symbol of rampant disrespect for property, residents call the "Tower of David" a safe haven that rescued them from the capital's crime-ridden slums.

It appears - at least for now - to have escaped the violence and turf warfare that followed similar building takeovers in Caracas over the last decade, often launched under the banner of the late Chavez's self-styled revolution.

Communal corridors are freshly-polished, rules and rotas are posted everywhere, and non-compliance is punished with extra "social work" decided by a cooperative and floor delegates who make up a mini-government.

"Without ethics or principles, all is irrational," reads one typically didactic poster in a public area.

Work was sufficiently advanced by the time the tower was abandoned for the first 28 floors to be habitable, though the squatters have had to brick up dangerous open spaces, and put in their own basic plumbing, electrical and water systems.

Families pay a 200 bolivar ($32) monthly "condominium" fee, which helps fund 24-hour security patrols.

(Via Noel Maurer.)