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Jobs and Housing: Alternative Developments in the Venezuelan Guayana*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

John Stuart MacDonald  and
Leatrice D. MacDonald
John Stuart MacDonald
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Psychology, Chelsea College, University of London
Leatrice D. MacDonald
Affiliation:
Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London
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Extract

The appraisal of development projects is often complicated by the fact that they rarely occur in isolation. In Latin America, the effectiveness of public housing programs and the reactions of the people involved are, as a rule, bound up with the whole complex of heterogeneous developments we call “urbanization.” And when public housing reaches the villages, it typically goes hand in hand with agrarian reform. This is generally the case in Venezuela, where large public housing schemes have been in operation since 1958.

Consequently it is difficult to disentangle and then evaluate the impact of industrialization per se from social infrastructure development in the towns, or agrarian reform per se from social infrastructure development in the villages. The Guayana region of Venezuela is one of the few areas where a production-oriented project and a social welfare project have operated discretely, but within a uniform socioeconomic context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 13 , Issue 3-4 , October 1971 , pp. 342 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1971

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Footnotes

*

Fieldwork and data processing for this paper were supported by the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana, the Housing and Productivity Program (UCLA), the Institute of Social and Economic Studies (UWI), and the Joint Center for Urban Studies (Harvard/MIT).

References

1 The eastern Venezuelan oilfields, started in the mid-1930s, were all above the Orinoco; and most, if not all, of the pipelines and transshipment facilities led away from the Venezuelan Guayana. Iron mining was started in a small way by Bethlehem Steel in the Orinoco Delta on the eve of World War II, when it was suspended. Small-scale gold and nickel mining in the countries of Piar and Roscio continued at a slow pace after the gold rush to the southeast in the last century.

2 Bethlehem Steel resumed iron mining in 1948, when it moved operations up the Orinoco to what became Ciudad Guayana. However, iron mining only assumed massive proportions when U.S. Steel built its main camp there in 1952, dwarfing the pre-existing village of San Félix.

3 Corporación Venezolana de Guayana. For its program, see: CVG, Informes Anuales (Caracas: occasional)Google Scholar; Guayana (Caracas: 1963); The Guayana Economic Program (Caracas: 1966); The Guayana Region (Caracas: 1963); Plan de desarrollo urbano (Caracas: 1966). Friedman, J., Regional Development Policy (Cambridge: MIT, 1969)Google Scholar. McGinn, N. and Davis, R., Build A Mill, Build A City, Build A School (Cambridge: MIT, 1969).Google Scholar L. Rodwin and Associates, Planning Urban Growth and Regional Development (Cambridge: MIT, 1969).Google ScholarPubMed

4 For demographic perspectives, see: Banco Central de Venezuela, Encuesta sobre ocupación y desempleo en Santo Tome de Guayana (Caracas: mimeo., 1962).Google Scholar 5 vols.

Banco Central de Venezuela, Encuesta Sobre características demográficas, etc. (Caracas: mimeo., 1965). 2 Vols.Google Scholar

Chen, C., Movimientos migratorios en Venezuela (Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 1968).Google Scholar

Dirección General de Estadística, Encuesta regional de hogares por muestra Ciudad Guayana (Caracas: Ministerio de Fomento, 1968).Google Scholar

MacDonald, J.S., “Anticipating City Growth,” World Population Conference 1965 Belgrade (New York: United Nations, 1967). Vol. III, section B.5.Google Scholar

MacDonald, J.S., “Componentes de la urbanización en una nueva ciudad,” Conferencia Regional Latinoamericana De Población 1970 Mexico (Liege/Santiago: IUSSP/ECLA, in press).Google Scholar

MacDonald, J.S., “The Social Demography of A New City,” International Union for the Scientific Study of Population 1967 Sydney (Bangkok/Liege: ECAFE/IUSSP, 1968).Google Scholar

MacDonald, L.D., “Motives And Objectives Of Migration,” Social and Economic Studies, 17(4), Dec. 1968.Google Scholar

5 For socioeconomic background on the hinterland, see: CVG, Reconocimiento agropecuario forestal del Oriente de La Guayana Venezuela. (Caracas: Ministerio de Agricultura y Cría, 1961). Vol. VI.Google Scholar

Fairchild, D., “Report On El Palmar 1962” (Cambridge/Caracas: CVG/Joint Center for Urban Studies, mimeo).Google Scholar

Schwerin, K., Oil and Steel (Los Angeles: UCLA, 1966).Google Scholar

MacDonald, J.S., “Identifying Types Of Rural SocioEconomic Structure,” Community Development And Local Government 1968 Port-of-Spain (Santiago: ECLA, 1969)Google Scholar.

Mission IRFED, “Region De Guayana,” Rapport Annexe Pour Un Développement Equilibré et Harmonise Du Venezuela. (Caracas: CORDIPLAIN, Mimeo., 1965).Google Scholar

6 See Appendix I. Also:

Obrero, Banco, 1965 Política De Vivienda B.O. (Caracas B.O., 1965)Google Scholar

Dirección de Malariología, Programa Nacional de Vivienda Rural (Caracas: Ministerio de la Sanidad, 1966).Google Scholar

División de Vivienda Rural, Dirección de Malariología, “Campaña del Programa de Vivienda Rural,” Congreso Católico Internacional de Vida Rural (Caracas: mimeo., 1961).

7 Source: J.S. MacDonald, sample survey of 600 household heads in Cd. Guayana 1965, unpublished tabulations.

8 For details of sampling procedure, see Appendix II.

9 Destructive criticism was not hidden by refusal to be interviewed. The migration survey in Cd. Guayana and the housing survey in Piar and Roscio both encountered less than 4 percent refusals.

10 An ethnographic study in 1963-1965 of the city's oldest shantytown showed, in microcosm, the general lack of mutual comprehension between the residents, who did not know what the planners were doing (nor why), and the planners, who treated the city as if it did not yet have any residents. See L. Peattie, The View From the Barrio (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1967).

11 Fundación de la Vivienda del Caroní.