Talk:Villa miseria

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This article should incorporate content from the corresponding German Wikipedia article (de:Villa Miseria).

[edit] German-to-English

If you understand German, see de:Villa Miseria. From what little I get of German, I see there's a lot of content that is not mentioned here (stats and figures). Unfortunately the editor(s) of the German article did not include sources... --Pablo D. Flores 11:24, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

PS to myself:

I used an online translator on the German text. The result was pretty much some horrific English, but I could make sense of the first part and got this (with some additions and rewordings):

The highest proportion of inhabitants in marginal settlements (more than 15%) is found in Rosario's metropolitan area. This proportion is between 8 and 10% in Buenos Aires and Córdoba.
Even though criminality in the villas is significantly higher than in wealthier neighborhoods, it is not comparable to that of Brazilian favelas. There is little, if any, organized gang warfare. Villas miseria, however, are considered by most citizens as havens for criminals, from minor thieves to drug dealers.

The rest was even worse:

For decades efforts are undertaken by the government, the situation in much-read Miserias to improve. So who that in flood areas settlements often in subsidized low-rent housing quarters, lain, resettled, more favorably lain in the context of a Promeba (Programa de Mejoramiento de Barrios) of program mentioned after Brazilian model landed property conditions are legalisiert and the infrastructure (river, drinking water, WCs) is improved. The most gigantic resettlement program plans at present Rosario, there is in several steps more than 40,000 subsidized low-rent housings to be built, in order to eliminate the problem of the Verslumung.

The problem with this text is its currency and verifiability. I have no idea whether these data are correct as of today. I seriously doubt that the figures still hold. In a 1996 document I found on the net, it says Rosario has a 25% of the population living in villas miseria (but this is Rosario, pop ~910,000, not the Greater Rosario, ~1.3M). Undoubtedly more people have fallen under the poverty line in these 9 years, but also the government has regularized some settlements or moved people to legal terrains.

I also got a very good source (El derecho a la vivienda en Argentina, Informe misión de investigación, 2004 (in Spanish), Centre of Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and I'm placing some of the info in the article now. The German article might have valuable data still.

--Pablo D. Flores 12:32, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Check www.promeba.org.ar. -Mariano

[edit] Immigrants?

""and a smaller number are recent immigrants from neighbouring countries (especially Paraguay and more recently Bolivia). ""

a small number???? lol at least half of them are immigrants or their children and granchildrens


I'll look for the data in a while. But I read this like a lot of times, Where do you think that most of the 2 millions Bolivians in Buenos AIres live?


-Trelew Girl-


I seriously doubt there are 2 million Bolivians in Buenos Aires. To begin with, INDEC says that there are 316,739 people born abroad in Buenos Aires City, plus 596,766 in the rest of Greater Buenos Aires. That makes 900,000 people. Even if they were all Bolivians (!) and half of them had lied to the census recorders, there wouldn't be 2 million. As for where they live, remember that low-quality pensions and many types of precarious homes are not considered villas miserias.
Furthermore, the article is about Argentina, not BA only. Outside BA, I'd say that most of those who live in villas are internal migrants (in Rosario and Santa Fe, in particular, people from Chaco).
I suggest everyone that we avoid simplistic assertions and discriminatory statements, and treat the subject with the proper respect. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


You doubt it? really? go outside lol.

Anyway here you have numbers, in other places says 2 millions i'll found them later, anyway if you add the Paraguayans (they are even more than the bolivians!!!) and the Peruvians. You have a great number around 4 million according to the govermment and obvously they live in villa at least i can speak fo Buenos Aires and Cordoba.

""Con cerca de 1.200.000 inmigrantes y descendientes, la comunidad boliviana es la segunda con mayor presencia en el país, después de la paraguaya. Unos 300 mil bolivianos lograron la radicación. Y el resto espera el lento proceso de blanqueo que anunció el Gobierno.""

http://www.clarin.com/suplementos/zona/2006/02/26/z-03416.htm

-Trelew Girl-

Please sign your posts using four tildes ~~~~. Where's the source of Clarín's claim? I mean, is there an official or otherwise trustable source for those figures? Moreover, "Bolivian community" does not equate "Bolivians living in villas miseria". BTW even Clarín cut your "2 million in BA" to "1.2 million in Argentina".
As to your suggestion to "go outside", I don't live in Buenos Aires so it wouldn't be useful. And subjective impressions about the number of Bolivian-looking people in the streets (!) are not useful either. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)



It cut my "2 millions" because it's counting Bolivian natives, if you count their children they are even more than 2 millions.

I know that we can't put our experiences as sources but I've lived in Buenos Aires for 21 years, I went to a school two blocks away from the largest shanty town in BA, and about 70% of the children were Bolivian/Peruvian/Paraguayan or children of them. I've read an article this year in "La Nación" it says that about 70% of other big shanty town in BA were Peruvians or Bolivians.

Anyway, I'll find you more reliable sources later.

(Talk)</
See the tables I included in Talk:Buenos Aires. The good ol' INDEC says there are exactly 119,114 Bolivian-born people in Buenos Aires and the GBA. Many, of course, have had children (and grandchildren), but those were born in Argentina and therefore are not Bolivians. Some came decades ago, probably became naturalized, and probably do not identify themselves with the Bolivian community anymore. Clarín says "1.2 million Bolivians and descendants", so it is counting both the natives and their offspring. And we don't know where they got their data from.
The above is just for the record. I'm sick and tired of discussing this particular issue without verifiable hard facts. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 13:48, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the name?

Verbitsky 1957? The name was known before 1952 during Perón's first 2 periods, when he made them invisible by building surrounding high walls. Jclerman 01:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you cite any reference about this? User:Ejrrjs says What? 22:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I haven't found yet a published reference. First, let me precise my statement to avoid historic confusion. Peron didn't built the walls himself, but they were built during his regime. Since it was an authoritarian regime I assumed he ordered and/or knew about the walls. I saw printed articles in the mid 50s, but I don't recall the names of the magazines and/or newspapers (some of the rare independent press published then in Bs.As.). One article, in particular, had photographs. I do recall, vividly, having seen them. I mean both the photographs and the wall: it surrounded completely the Villa, with a narrow lateral or back opening not visible from the main road. I saw it several times in a Villa Miseria located, roughly, in the area of La Boca/Riachuelo. In the 50s, students of ciencias exactas and sociologia had programs of extension universitaria. Engineering students taught classes of technical subjects (construction, electricity, plumbing) in order to empower the dwellers (a) to get better paying jobs (than being unemployed and scavenging rubbish dumps) and (b) to build modest dwellings (to replace the cardboard & tin shacks). The sociology students were doing counseling and representing the (largely illiterate) dwellers, and teaching reading/writing skills and, many times, caring for the children. Needless to say, these activities were neither sponsored by the university nor by the regime. In fact, they were considered subversive by the regime. They were abruptly interrupted in 1954 when the university was attacked and depleted of docents, while 200 students were jailed, some after being abused or tortured. If you are in Bs. As., you should be able to find collections of magazines and newspapers of the 1950s in some library. I don't have access to such material in Tucson, Arizona, EEUU, where I reside. Instead I'm reviewing like 100 meters of shelving space, in the university library, with books about the period, in order to document my memoirs (ms in progress). --Jclerman 00:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)