Worst slums in America.....third world or western world?

[hudkina]

The poorest neighborhoods in Latin America are nothing like the poorest neighborhoods in the U.S. There is a huge difference between this:



and this:



The first image is an over-crowded shanty town with probably tens of thousands of people living without electricity or running water. The second image is a mostly abandoned working-class neighborhood with very few (if any) residents. Most U.S. "slums" are actually just abandoned neighborhoods where residents moved to the suburbs looking for a higher standard of living.

[Northsider]

Sometimes it seems the average American thinks they can understand a whole continent based what they see from their window.

I wouldn't say SCC is full of average Americans, and I think you are overselling Latin America a bit. The truth is, outside of the city centers and elite neighborhoods, Latin America is nothing more than picture perfect 3rd world.

The episode took place in Philadelphia and many neighbourhoods there looks lot like poor districts in my city.

So it's not ok for "average American [to] think they can understand a whole continent based what they see from their window", but it's ok for you to do the same based off of a TV show? lol. I wish I could downvote.

[Yuri S Andrade]

Originally Posted by hudkina

The first image is an over-crowded shanty town with probably tens of thousands of people living without electricity or running water. The second image is a mostly abandoned working-class neighborhood with very few (if any) residents. Most U.S. "slums" are actually just abandoned neighborhoods where residents moved to the suburbs looking for a higher standard of living.

I didn't say Philadelphia's poorest areas were similar to the poorest areas in Latin America. I said they were similar to my city poorest areas. You can check by yourself. The whole eastern part is the poorest.

About this photo, yes, it represents the poorest urban areas in Brazil, but virtually has electricity and running water there. Anyhow, the place was awful. Some weird guy was raising goats there.

[Yuri S Andrade]

Originally Posted by Northsider

I wouldn't say SCC is full of average Americans, and I think you are overselling Latin America a bit. The truth is, outside of the city centers and elite neighborhoods, Latin America is nothing more than picture perfect 3rd world.

That's not true and I'm not selling anything. It's funny how liberally you talk about third world as Chile and Haiti (or Santa Catarina and Maranhão) were the same thing, while the US is place in a completely different universe. Yes, the world is plain, comes inside a little box, to be very easy to understand.

Anyhow, how nice my third world Paraná state has a life expectancy of 74.7 years as opposed to 73.9 of the most American Mississippi. The first world Black Americans has a 72.9 one. But you know, I live in a shit hole, in "a perfect picture of third world", while everybody up there live in heaven.

Originally Posted by Northsider

So it's not ok for "average American [to] think they can understand a whole continent based what they see from their window", but it's ok for you to do the same based off of a TV show? lol. I wish I could downvote.

Where did this come from? I just made a comment about what I saw in the show last night. I've watched thousands of movies featuring areas as worse as this particular one. I have about as close as 100 American channels and I understand the US, its politics, its culture, quite well. Basically I'm exposed to American culture as much as any average American since I was born. I know about your country 1,000,000 times more than we can ever dream to know about mine. And top of it, unlike you, I don't have deformed views over foreign countries. I try to get the info beforehand to delivery balanced opinions about them.

[Yuri S Andrade]

Back to the topic, Los Angeles has very nasty areas, very third-worldish. Others come to mind: The Wire's Baltimore, the old Harlem, parts of Miami, some areas in the Appalachian, pockets in Deep South and Midwest, the deserts, the worst ghettos of any American large city. An other interesting thing is how the US today looks waaaaay more affluent than the country in 1970's, 1980's and even 1990's. We get used to see the current movies and TV shows, and when we watch something older, looks like a completely different (and poorer) place.

[eklips]

Anyone thinking that latin-America is "western" (whatever that means) must either:

- Have never been to most Latin-American countries, or has remained in a bubble while there
- Be an alienated annoying upper class latin-American.

Often, latin-American nations could be considered to be western on paper only.

For example, famous Mexican anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil Batalla published a famous study in 1987 called "Mexico profundo" ("deep Mexico") in which he argues that two Mexicos exist and conflict with each other. A "deep" one, based on the country's past indigenous civilizations who's presence is still massive, even amongst the so called "mestizos" urban working class majority, and an "imaginary" Mexico, thinking of itself an imitation of the "west", in which the daily cultural realities of most mexicans are ignored.

The book has been translated into english by the way, for those who are interested.

[PaulBP]

chile is certainly not west. but we are better than many western nations in many things. sadly some cultural inffluence come here like retarded music or movies from the west. i wish that we can realize that we are not part of it and make our own way apart from that that decadent civilization.

[PaulBP]

Originally Posted by vid

Haiti isn't part of Latin America? Many definitions I've heard of that term try to include Louisiana and Quebec!

haiti isnt part of latin american civilization. same with louisianna, jamaica, quebec, guyana, surinam, belice.

[Yuri S Andrade]

Originally Posted by eklips

Anyone thinking that latin-America is "western" (whatever that means) must either:

- Have never been to most Latin-American countries, or has remained in a bubble while there
- Be an alienated annoying upper class latin-American.

Often, latin-American nations could be considered to be western on paper only.

For example, famous Mexican anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil Batalla published a famous study in 1987 called "Mexico profundo" ("deep Mexico") in which he argues that two Mexicos exist and conflict with each other. A "deep" one, based on the country's past indigenous civilizations who's presence is still massive, even amongst the so called "mestizos" urban working class majority, and an "imaginary" Mexico, thinking of itself an imitation of the "west", in which the daily cultural realities of most mexicans are ignored.

The book has been translated into english by the way, for those who are interested.

It's so funny how people always have this stereotyped view of "Latin American elites" as they lived in a world apart as opposed to the armies of poors. Do you realize the way the different social classes relate here is no different from everywhere else in the world? Do you realize in a country like Brazil almost 70% of population is middle class (upper/mid/lower) and not super rich or wretched.

You see, I know many French people who live here in my city and they find no major differences between here and their home country in terms of social behaviour or culture. Really, let's try to think outside the box. Like I said before, you cannot pretend to understand a 500 million people huge region just because there is a poor uneducated indigenous Mexican janitor in your workplace. You just can't.

And are you aware Mexico is completely different from Colombia which is very different from Argentina which is not like Brazil? Everybody knows the indigenous influence in Mexico is huge. As much as 80% of Mexicans are mixed. The picture though is completely different in Brazil, for example. Each country has its own particularities and although people think it's a cliché, Latin America is indeed really really plural. You cannot fit the entire continent into strict labels. And besides being very different, the exchange between the countries are relatively small. Individually, they usually turn much more to Europe or to the US than among themselves, whether it's economy or culture.

Really, I would expect this kind of over-simplification from an average person. But come on! We are in the SSC! We have instantaneous and accurate information of everywhere.

[eklips]

I know a french guy who has lived in Francophone West Africa, and appart from material wealth issues, found these places to be very "culturally close". Does this mean that Togo or Benin are "western" then? Based on my memory of what this guy has told me?

How do you define middle class? Even in France, most estimates hold the working class at around 60% or 70% of the population. Anyways, the whole concept of "civilizations" is bogus since it ignores differences within societies and between societies of a same "civilization", and it arbitrary makes a hierarchy and selection of what is important and what isn't in order to constitute a "civilization".

In most societies the dominant social classes have very specific ideological discourses to justify their positions. And in post-colonial countries, these ideologies often have to do indirectly with the colonial past. We have seen this for example in Tunisia during the recent elections where the minority "westernised" upper class has tried to impose a political model to the rest of the population (but failed).

Similar things happen in Latin-America, so in this sense it is not a "unique" phenomenon. There are however some specifities concerning latin-American upper classes, after all, it is the world's most economically unequal region.

You are however right in pointing out that it is a heterogeneous region (but then so is the supposed "west", sub-saharian Africa, the middle east etc.), however this is yet another region as to why it can hardly be considered "western" as a whole.

[Yuri S Andrade]

OK, maybe it's not your intention, but are you implying Togo and Brazil have the same (distant) relation from Europe? Do you realize about 8 million Europeans immigrated to Brazil since 1870? People here have been Catholic, speaking Portuguese, having European social, cultural, economic, legal institutions for the past five hundred years? An European dynasty was ruling the country as few as 120 years ago.

The middle class in Brazil, a lower middle-class household is one where the income per person is between R$ 280.00 and R$ 1,080.00 a month. The middle-class ranges from R$ 1,080.00 to R$ 2,700.00. Further information:

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

Classes Sociais e Renda no Brasil - Censo 2010



(...)

Bogus or not, if someone wants to define the Western Civilization, it's impossible, no matter what criteria chosen, to set Latin America apart from the rest. And about inequality, of course the region is unequal but nothing so extraordinary. Again that's another gross misconception.


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Back to the topic, the lowest-income counties in the US:



We'll probably find very third-worldish communities over there.

[-Corey-]

Originally Posted by Northsider

...just remembered why I have your posts blocked. I should have known better.


"The West" is synonymous with development. Development is synonymous with wealth. But it gets fairly difficult to describe South America as "developed" once you get outside of the major cities. Hell, even in the major cities the outskirts are nothing more than unpaved roads and shanties...[to be completely general]

So now then we can finally say that Argentina and Chile are "Western countries" since they are considered 'developed' according to the 2011 UN HDI. lol

[hudkina]

But the point remains that even Argentina and Chile have half the per capita GDP of most Western nations.

[Yuri S Andrade]

And? Switzerland GDP per capita is 3 times as high as Portugal's. Norway's is twice as bigger as the US. In short:

--- Civilization has nothing to do with money (something that changes all the time), but about common cultural features in a given area;

--- Latin America and the world for that matter, are much more gray than black and white.

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I remember an old thread here, I'm not sure if it was in Northeast or Midwest sections, about urban decay/urban poverty in the US, featuring really bad neighbourhoods.

Just found it while I was typing: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=300803

Scary!

[Northsider]

I remember an old thread here, I'm not sure if it was in Northeast or Midwest sections, about urban decay/urban poverty in the US, featuring really bad neighbourhoods.

Scary is getting chased out of a favela in Recife, not cruising through an empty neighborhood in NYC

So now then we can finally say that Argentina and Chile are "Western countries" since they are considered 'developed' according to the 2011 UN HDI. lol

UN? lol! What a f'ing joke. Again, downtown Buenos Aires and its immediate surrounding rich areas carry the entire country for Argentina. I would imagine Chile is the same way. To say Argentina is more western than US or Canada is just completely asinine.

[Yuri S Andrade]

My God!!! Do you have the slightest idea of how Argentina economy works? About the claim the US/Canada being "more western" than Argentina, that's just laughable.

[Northsider]

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

My God!!! Do you have the slightest idea of how Argentina economy works? About the claim the US/Canada being "more western" than Argentina, that's just laughable.

Says the person who gets his info from Animal Network.

[apinamies]

I don't know about culture but there is big things which don't support Latin America being "Western".

1) Politics. USA and Canada are EU allies in many things. (Not all things that is true) Latin American countries are not allies of EU.

2) Development. Australia, USA, Canada etc. And Western Europe are all developed countries. Practically all Latin American countries are developing countries. GDP per capita differences are huge.

[Jennifat]

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

Back to the topic, the lowest-income counties in the US:



We'll probably find very third-worldish communities over there.

100% of the United States has access to clean drinking water. 100% of the United States has access to electricity. Virtually 100% of the United States is literate.

Even people who live in poorer communities in the United States don't live in third-world conditions, where people are forced to walk around in sewage and eat food dug out of the garbage.

[Northsider]

Originally Posted by Jennifat

100% of the United States has access to clean drinking water. 100% of the United States has access to electricity. Virtually 100% of the United States is literate.

Even people who live in poorer communities in the United States don't live in third-world conditions, where people are forced to walk around in sewage and eat food dug out of the garbage.

Not to mention buildings in poor areas of the USA are BUILDINGS, not scraps of corrugated metals and scrap concrete. Also, most roads are paved as well...in Latin America once you leave the central city it's a crapshoot.

You know what's up, he's just a troll. There's a reason I have his posts blocked.