Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In 2001, two huge earthquakes destroyed or badly damaged a quarter of the private
homes in the country, leaving 1.5 million homeless (in a nation of about six million
people). Of course, in a big shake, it's the poor whose homes crumble—seismic safety
is a luxury only the privileged can afford. (An earthquake of the same magnitude hit my
hometown of Seattle that same year, and there was almost no damage.) For protection,
the most that shantytown residents can do is to live in what they call “miniskirt hous-
ing”—cinderblocks for the lower half of the walls, and then light corrugated tin for the
upper walls and roof. If a miniskirt house tumbles down, it won't kill you. And when it's
over, you just scavenge a few two-by-fours, reassemble the frame, and nail your sheets of
tin back in place.
Exploring the city's poor neighborhoods, I found myself in an urban world where
it seemed that solid jobs were rare and half the workforce was in the informal eco-
nomy—basically selling things on the street. In most of the old center of San Salvador,
sidewalks were taken up by shanty shops jammed against the walls of local businesses,
forcing pedestrians to share the streets with cars.
San Salvador's informal economy bullies pedestrians off the sidewalks and into the
streets.
