Buenos Aires: A Tale Of Two Cities

[Noesdeayer]

rickulivi:
Say what? I can't tell if you are trying to convince yourself or others that Recoleta is not a bubble.Of course,it is a bubble.Just like Park Avenue and Beverly Hills are bubbles.Y que ? So what ? The world is full of such bubbles.What you don't mention about seeing daily in Recoleta are thieves and violent street rip offs and pick pocketing.But I'm sure that happens there as well.
What is truly an atrocity is that in a country as rich as Argentina there is so much visible poverty especially after 12 years of Peronist social inclusion.I have recently returned from Colombia where I saw much less begging on the streets of Bogota and Cartagena than in BA.as well as the streets themselves being much cleaner.Why could that be? Perhaps with Macri things will change for the better.so that at least today's Argentine youth are able to look forward to a future of work and continuity.

 

[Silvie]

If you live in Recoleta, you see and experience the poverty of Buenos Aires first hand. No need to see the slums in the villas to understand how difficult, and sad, life is for the poor and the less fortunate ones.

I've heard a beggar saying that he didn't want to come to sleep in shelters in the southern part of the city because they really make a lot more money begging in areas like Recoleta and they prefer to sleep in the streets over there.

 

[Gringoboy]

Ah yes, selective begging. A discerning beggar no less.

 

[Girino]

I've heard a beggar saying that he didn't want to come to sleep in shelters in the southern part of the city because they really make a lot more money begging in areas like Recoleta and they prefer to sleep in the streets over there.

I was appalled at the quantity of beggars in fancy areas of residential Recoleta and Palermo at night. We are having more of them also in San Isidro. ever saw one in Olivos or Florida, though. There are "squad" of families that go through our garbage at around 5 PM to about 10 PM. Children, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers.
We had a couple of people squatting outside of my building for a few days, last winter. I am sure there are shelter somewhere, Argentines are very accommodating, so I couldn't understand why they stayed here.

On lived on my sidewalk for a solid two months - the guy from the kiosko gave him coffee and medialunas in the morning, the bakery gave him bread, he even had cigarettes. I walked past him on the street when he was standing and looked like any other average Argentinian guy - you would have never said he lived on a cardboard on the sidewalk.

 

[Ries]

I was just in the south on Friday- I went out to Temperly/Adrogue to work with some Argentine Blacksmiths.
Now, granted, that area is pretty middle class.
But, taking the Roca from Constitucion, you go thru many southern suburbs, and not all are by any means affluent.
And yet, the people you see, on public trains, are all so much more polite, aside from tossing garbage out the windows on the tracks, than the people I see on public transport in places like Seattle. Unlike in the USA, I saw no one who smelled of urine or feces, no public vomiting, no muttering or loud cursing at invisible people, no fighting.
I have taken collectivos and trens in the southern part of Buenos Aires- and never felt in danger at any time.
Granted, there are places where, at night, I would be in danger.

But, compared to downtown Seattle, or LA, or SF, where there are thousands of mentally ill, drunk and stoned homeless people living on the streets, yelling, haranguing people who walk by- Buenos Aires is mellow and quiet.

Currently over 5000 people live in tents on the streets, and under the autopista, in Downtown Seattle, an area about the size of the microcento here.
They are surrounded by piles of garbage, human excrement, used needles, empty bottles. They are often agressive, not begging, but DEMANDING money, drink, or just unintelligible things. They kill each other, sell drugs, and are just scary- every day, in broad daylight. They block traffic, and sometimes cascades of debris spill out onto the interstate. A couple have died by either falling or jumping into traffic in the last year.

Buenos Aires is a childrens playground in comparison.

Temperly was fun. Got in some forging, some team striking, and some blacksmith intercambio of technique, information, and culture.
And now you can use your sube card on all the trains, its so much more convenient than in the past, with moneda.

 

[TomAtAlki]

For those that think that people that live in Recoleta live in a bubble, I am not sure what their definition of a bubble is!

I happen to live in that so called bubble, but when I walk to two blocks to my local Disco, who greets me with an extended hand, on the outside door? A man without legs, sitting on his wheelchair. I mean no legs, no upper legs. Nothing. Then I walk to my feria, another two blocks away. And who do I find sitting daily in the same spot in the sidewalk? A lady and her bag. And who tries to sell my a little packet of hand towels? The same short guy with poor legs. And when i turn a corner, who do I find? The man trying to sell me some dusters. And when I sit for a coffee, a ten year old kid approaches me begging. And as I leave, I am approached by a young father with his three sons asking for money. And as I walk towards my apartment, I pass several old and young ladies sitting on the sidewalk asking for money. And then I see coming towards me the same fellow on crutches, because part of a leg is missing, and asking for money. And as I am about to turn the corner towards my building, I see the same person sleeping in his sleeping bag next to the ice cream shop, in exactly the same spot every day. And when I enter my building, I am greeted by our doorman who lost his son, who was run over by a bus. And as I walk towards the elevator, I remember the former doorman that two years ago was killed also by a bus, three blocks away from our building.

I live in Recoleta, and it is not surrounded by a bubble. In fact, I think you see and feel more poverty in that area than you do in other less prosperous parts of town. If you needed to beg, where would you go? To Liniers or to Recoleta?

I forgot to tell you, when I sit for lunch at any of the restaurants in the area, and I engage in small talk with the waiter, I am reminded of the two hours by bus that it took him to get to work, and the two hours he/she needs to spend commuting to go home at night.

If you live in Recoleta, you see and experience the poverty of Buenos Aires first hand. No need to see the slums in the villas to understand how difficult, and sad, life is for the poor and the less fortunate ones.

Willie Sutton (?) was asked why he robbed banks. His answer, "That's where the money is"

T/

 

[Gringoboy]

I've travelled to numerous areas of Cap Fed and GBA mainly on my motorbike, using GPS which really comes into its own in the city.
Even on a bike, getting to Adrogue was an experience I'd rather forget and when I got there, I wondered why I was there. To me, it was just another dodgy neighbourhood that looked just like any other. Mansions cheek by jowl with shanty towns, but then that's paradigm of Buenos Aires.
Villa Soldati is where I went once to deliver something to a customer and I'm pretty sure it's home to many of the fletes and trucking companies. Not the sort of place you go to by choice.
On a quiet Sunday I like to fire up the bike and head down Libertador from Olivos and casually ride around Plaza de Mayo and surrounding areas and if I feel like a real challenge, do the same trip mid-week at about 5 pm.
I've also been to Lugano, Liniers, Mataderos, Villa Urquiza and Crespo, not to mention Caseros and I always ask myself the same question. Why do they all practically look the same?
I'm not a city lad anyway, so that's probably why and the moment the rubber hits that invisible line somewhere near Pilar or Escobar, I'm more than happy to kiss the city goodbye.

 

[ElQueso]

For those that think that people that live in Recoleta live in a bubble, I am not sure what their definition of a bubble is!

I happen to live in that so called bubble, but when I walk to two blocks to my local Disco, who greets me with an extended hand, on the outside door? A man without legs, sitting on his wheelchair. I mean no legs, no upper legs. Nothing. Then I walk to my feria, another two blocks away. And who do I find sitting daily in the same spot in the sidewalk? A lady and her bag. And who tries to sell my a little packet of hand towels? The same short guy with poor legs. And when i turn a corner, who do I find? The man trying to sell me some dusters. And when I sit for a coffee, a ten year old kid approaches me begging. And as I leave, I am approached by a young father with his three sons asking for money. And as I walk towards my apartment, I pass several old and young ladies sitting on the sidewalk asking for money. And then I see coming towards me the same fellow on crutches, because part of a leg is missing, and asking for money. And as I am about to turn the corner towards my building, I see the same person sleeping in his sleeping bag next to the ice cream shop, in exactly the same spot every day. And when I enter my building, I am greeted by our doorman who lost his son, who was run over by a bus. And as I walk towards the elevator, I remember the former doorman that two years ago was killed also by a bus, three blocks away from our building.

I live in Recoleta, and it is not surrounded by a bubble. In fact, I think you see and feel more poverty in that area than you do in other less prosperous parts of town. If you needed to beg, where would you go? To Liniers or to Recoleta?

I forgot to tell you, when I sit for lunch at any of the restaurants in the area, and I engage in small talk with the waiter, I am reminded of the two hours by bus that it took him to get to work, and the two hours he/she needs to spend commuting to go home at night.

If you live in Recoleta, you see and experience the poverty of Buenos Aires first hand. No need to see the slums in the villas to understand how difficult, and sad, life is for the poor and the less fortunate ones.

If you like, I can take you to places outside of bubbles where you see and feel more poverty than the beggars who go to the poor places to ask for money. Of course beggars go where the money is to beg - why would they beg from poor people who are not likely to willingly give up their hard-earned money?

Recoleta is not a bubble because the poor that exists in Argentina never touches it - obviously some aspects of poverty reach into Recoleta. It is a bubble because the people who live there think that poverty in Argentina (even if more specifically Buenos Aires) are the beggars on the street and other poor that interact with them in such a relatively impersonal fashion. They are paranoid that someone is going to enter their apartment and tie them up and steal their belongings and maybe kill them - their fear is so all-pervading that it creeps me out a bit. And although home invasions happen from time to time, it is far less likely to happen to them than people who actually live in poor areas and on top of that, when it does happen, police descend on Recoleta to protect those rich people.

I lived in Recoleta for some 7 years, all told, and just recently moved out (3 weeks ago). I remember about two, maybe three years ago, we didn't see that many police on our street, just an occasional patrol officer. Two blocks away, Quintana and Montevideo, an elderly couple had a home invasion and since that time we had a constant police presence - as many as 4 or 5 just on Quintana, between Libertad and Callao. All the time. Literally 24 hours a day. Both PFA and Metropolitana.

You don't get that kind of response in the poor working class neighborhood where my brothers-in-law live, and where we recently opened a vegetable stand, in Valentine Alsina, on the other side of the Matanza river, outside of CABA. You don't even get that kind of response in the middle class neighborhoods where I have friends, and where I now live as well. People are worried about home invasions all the time in the poor neighborhoods and in the middle class neighborhood of Boedo where I now live they are cognizant of the possibility but not so paranoid as what I saw in Recoleta.

You think the poor don't steal from each other? The smart ones would rather do that than go to rich town and take a chance on getting caught by the cops. In laces outside of Recoleta, Microcentro, Palermo, Belgrano and such, the streets are often torn up (how many times has Santa Fe been re-surfaced in the last 3 years or so? At least once a year! Some places outside the "bubbles" look like they haven't been resurfaced in decades), the sewers stink so bad it's difficult to breathe without gagging some times, in some areas.

Yeah, Recoleta is a bubble. It doesn't mean that no one there ever sees any effect of poverty, it just means that it is not pervasive, intrusive and dangerous a lot of the time. It's not the only bubble. A lot of places in town are fairly free from real poverty and danger. Recoleta just seems to be where many of the expats stay and who don't have a lot of reason to even go to places inside the city that are, say, local bubbles of middle class people much less the more dangerous places that are not middle class. Outside the city are other bubbles of closed neighborhoods surrounded often by villas or poor neighborhoods.

Bubbles all around, really. Recoleta is just one of the most obvious.

 

[on the brink]

Recoleta currently has a high crime rate, according to the papers. My niece was held up while leaving a restaurant, and both she and her fiancee were stripped of all clothing, and ended up standing on the sidewalk in their underwear.

A look at Google Earth shows that Villa 31 is only a stone's throw from Recoleta - that spells BIG trouble. Real estate prices reflect that - currently, Puerto Madero has the highest prices, followed by Las Cañitas and only then Recoleta.