Santo Domingo

Located southeast of the island of Hispaniola, an island that the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti, its maximum altitude is 14 meters above sea level and is bathed by the waves and the breeze of the Caribbean Sea, which makes this city possess of a subtropical climate, with pleasant temperatures since its annual average is around 23ºC. The Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, includes the oldest constructions created by the Spanish in the New World.

Currently the total population of the city of Santo Domingo is about 1,154,708 inhabitants distributed in 105 km2 but, if we include the entire metropolitan area, its population would amount to about 2.5 million people out of a total of 8.5 million with that the Dominican Republic has. (1)

COLONIAL STAGE. (SS. XVI-P.XIX)

The city of Santo Domingo de Guzmán was founded on August 5, 1496 by Bartolomé Colón, brother of Cristóbal Colón, on the eastern bank of the Ozama River where a gold mine was located in the Taino community. There, some wooden and straw houses were built in what is now known as Villa Duarte. A few years later, in 1502, the urban planner Nicolás de Ovando, started a new building on the western bank of the same river (part that he occupies today). It seems that the reason for the transfer was due to several causes, among which the persistence of hurricanes (especially the one in July 1502 that destroyed the 45 houses in the city) that made it difficult to live in that area as well as the difficulty of access. to the towns of the Cibao when having to cross the Ozama river that was very mighty. (2)

The construction of the new city proceeded quickly, and regarding the name given to the town, the historian José Chez Checo tells us: “We know that it was Bartolomé Colón who erected it, giving it the name of Santo Domingo well for having reached it on Sunday or in memory of the father of the Colóns, who was called that ”. (3)

However, from my point of view, I think that the city owes its name to the Holy Founder of the Dominican order since, as it seems, the first settlement of the future city of Santo Domingo was carried out in the first days of August coinciding, then, with the commemorative day in which Saint Dominic from France disperses his friars; sending four to Spain and three to Paris, and he decides to go to Rome. In addition, the city is officially called Santo Domingo de Guzmán and has been the Patron of the city for centuries.

Ovaldo arrived on the island with 2,500 Spaniards, a human group made up, in part, of nobles and gentlemen, as well as qualified personnel such as: bricklayers, carpenters, blacksmiths, tanners, religious, etc. He begins the urban layout of the city that included a set of streets and military, civil and religious buildings. The chroniclers say that the then Commander of Lares designed the first street in America, Las Damas, and the first fort, the Torre del Homenaje. (4)

The layout of a certain regularity around a main square is already being made. This layout must be related, not only with the predominant trend in central and southern Spain, but also with the fact that in 1501, King Fernando el Católico recommended to Ovando, urban planner and Governor of Santo Domingo that: “Since It is necessary to found several cities on the island of Hispaniola and that it is not possible to dictate specific instructions from here, examine the places and situations of said island, and according to the qualities of the land and the people who reside there, cities should be merged into the places that seem suitable ”. (5)

In 1503 the new city of Santo Domingo could be inaugurated, thanks to the new urban regulations, with straight streets and easy traffic. The initial urban plain did not include a walled perimeter, at first, but some perimeter forts. (6)

From the beginning, the incipient city of Santo Domingo had a good urban layout as Bishop Alejandro Geraldini tells us, upon his arrival in Santo Domingo in 1520, in this way:

“… I was amazed to see such an illustrious city, founded a short time ago twenty-five years ago, because its buildings are tall and beautiful like those of Italy, its port capable of containing all the ships of Europe, its same wide and straight streets as with they do not suffer comparison the streets of Florence ”.

The Plaza Mayor, today called Parque Colón, was the central park of the time where political, religious, military, municipal and economic powers were united. Towards 1543 the construction of the walls began whose completion will be carried out in the 18th century. (7)

Already at the beginning of the s. XVI Santo Domingo was the port of departure for many expeditions and conquests of the New World such as the one led by Ponce de León to occupy Puerto Rico, Hernán Cortés towards the conquest of Mexico and Núñez de Balboa towards the exploration of the Pacific Ocean.

Already at the beginning of the s. XVI Santo Domingo was the port of departure for many expeditions and conquests of the New World such as the one led by Ponce de León to occupy Puerto Rico, Hernán Cortés towards the conquest of Mexico and Núñez de Balboa towards the exploration of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1555 the Englishman Robert Thompson points out that the city was inhabited by more than 500 Spanish households and that the Indians residing in the periphery were more. Thompson also points out that in the city of Santo Domingo there were large quantities of beef, sheep, pigs and chickens.

Thirty-one years later, another Englishman, the pirate Francis Drake in 1586, occupied the city without resistance and looted the city's warehouses, appropriating flour, chickens, pigs, wine and clothes of all kinds. He spent a month in the city trying to get a good ransom for his abandonment. He initially asked for 250,000 ducats but in the end lowered his claims to 25,000 ducats, an amount that was paid with great effort. (8)

The three most important buildings built in the first years of the 16th century, as soon as the planning of the city began, were undoubtedly the so-called Alcázar de Colón, the Dominican Convent and the Cathedral.

The Alcázar de Colón was built on a site on the cliffs that face the Ozama River, granted to Don Diego Colón, Christopher Columbus's first-born, by King Fernando el Católico, to build a palace. The construction of the Alcázar was carried out between 1511 and 1514 and for its construction it had 1,500 indigenous people in addition to qualified Spanish labor. The predominant material is coral rocks and noble wood and its architectural style is Mudejar Gothic with some Renaissance characteristics. Its structure is rectangular, divided into two levels with five arches per level and it has two external bodies joined by a large central corridor and two galleries. Originally this palace had 55 rooms of which today only 22 and 72 doors and windows are preserved. (9)

The Church and the Dominican Convent is one of the oldest buildings in the American continent since its construction began with the arrival of the Dominican friars in 1510. In 1517, the convent was enabled by the friars, although it was not yet finished in its entirety. It will not be until 1532, when its official inauguration takes place with the presence of the friars Pedro de Córdoba, Reginaldo de Montesinos, Bartolomé de las Casas and Fray Antonio de Montesinos. This last friar was the one who said the famous Advent Sermon in 1511, and who reprimanded the court of Diego Colón, for the mistreatment of the Indians, thus initiating the so-called Law of People, which became one of the main controversies of the s. XVI, thus generating the first controversy in the New World.

In 1534 the Convent began its classes, and in 1538 it became the first university in America, which was called the University of Santo Tomás de Aquino and later, the Primada University of America, today we know it as the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) .

The Church and Convent has a beautiful façade, with a lot of splendor, since the Gothic, Baroque and Elizabethan Gothic architecture stands out, which predominated, to a great extent, in all the constructions of the time in Latin America.

Inside there are valuable images and statues, works made by the Sevillian brothers Jorge and Alejo Fernández, and the 16th century entrance featured five altarpieces by one of the most famous Spanish painters of the colonial era Juan Martínez Montañés.

Over the years, to this day, the Church has suffered great modifications and severe damage to its architecture, one of these modifications already occurred in 1545, with the passage of a hurricane that caused serious damage. (10)

The Cathedral of Santo Domingo is the first cathedral in the New World. It was built on the first temple that had been built as a simple hut with a green roof and it took more than forty years to finish its construction (1514-1546). In 1521, with the arrival of Bishop Alejandro Geraldini, work began to build a more sumptuous cathedral.

It was built with calcareous stone and occupies a surface area of ​​about 3,000 m2. Numerous architects worked on it, mainly in the Gothic style, although different architectural styles are appreciated: The vault is Gothic, the Romanesque arches and the Baroque decoration. It has three access doors: A) the Main one communicates directly with the Colón Park and is in the Gothic style; b) the Main Gate is in the Plateresque style, which is accessed through an atrium; c) the Puerta del Perdón or Geraldini Gate, located to the south in the Plazoleta de los Curas, has a legend: It is said that political prisoners, upon entering this gate, were automatically pardoned. (eleven)

One of the most impressive elements is the vaulted ceiling, as well as its fourteen side chapels that contain murals, stained glass windows and crypts, such as the Baptism or the Santísimo.

Apart from its architecture and its great historical-cultural content, its interior contains great artistic works, paintings, tombstones with the remains of archbishops, old furniture and many other interesting elements that date from this period of colonization.

Completed in 1541, it would not be until five years later that, at the request of Carlos I, Pope Paul III officially instituted it as the Metropolitan and Primate Cathedral of the Indies. (12)

We also know of the existence of a good hospital. The chronicler Fernández de Oviedo says that the city established by Ovando on the western bank of the Ozama River, had: "A very good hospital, well built and endowed with a good income, where the poor are cured and helped." (13)

A few years later, in 1552, the Dominican Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas points out that Ovando founded: "The hospital of San Nicolás and endowed it with a good income to receive and heal a certain number of poor people (about 45)". (14)

The demographic growth of the city of Santo Domingo will be slow during the Spanish colonial period since in 1600 it barely reached 25,000 inhabitants. According to data from Alcaser and other scattered ones, Santo Domingo would have about 30,000 inhabitants in 1650 of which 5,580 were Spanish and the rest were African, mulatto and mestizo.

In 1700 a new parish census was carried out during the government of Don Isidro Peralta, which produced a population of 13,000 inhabitants for the city of Santo Domingo. This strong demographic decline was due to the chickenpox epidemic that led to a sharp increase in mortality in the last decades of the s. XVII. To this deadly epidemic we must add several earthquakes that destroyed a large part of the city between 1673 and 1684 and that undoubtedly caused a large number of deaths and the exodus to other more open and safer places.

After a strong demographic and economic crisis, the city began an important recovery from the middle of the s. XVIII and very especially in the last quarter of that century. The strong growth of the city is confirmed by the large number of new streets and blocks that are built in that period of time. The chroniclers of the time, starting with José A. Castro Palomino, expressed the following about the city of Santo Domingo:

“(…) This city is quite extensive: it has eight spacious streets drawn by cordon, which run parallel from East to West and another ten that cross them from North to South, it is surrounded by walls, as appropriate for being the Plaza de Armas.

The main buildings are the Cathedral, which is majestic, with three naves and carved entirely of ashlar stone, its architecture is Gothic, like the oldest. There are three convents of religious of the Orders of Santo Domingo, San Francisco and La Merced; the first founded by Emperor Car los V with University. The Jesuits had a college in this city. There are also two monasteries of nuns, three parishes and three Hospitals ”. (15)

Another chronicler from the same period, the Frenchman Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Méry, describes the city of Santo Domingo as follows:

“(…) The interior of the city has, with its wide streets, drawn by string and aligned with precision, an appearance that pleases. There are ten that go from North to South and as many that run from the Levant to the West. The city is built in the fashion of the ancient populations of Spain and Italy.

Most of the houses built from the beginning are made of a kind of marble that the neighborhoods produce and the most recent ones are built of wall, a kind of earth rammed into a mold. This consists of forming a box of boards between two masonry pillars, a reddish clayey earth (mud) is poured into the box that is rammed and squeezed, until a kind of wall is formed that fills the interval between the two pillars. This compressed earth acquires a surprising hardness, in such a way that sometimes the masonry pillars are omitted.

The houses of Santo Domingo are quite beautiful, with two floors, of a simple and almost uniform taste. For the next fifteen years, a growing number of wooden houses have been built and covered with palm leaves or yaguas. The roofs are ordinarily in platform, destined to collect the fluvial waters for the cisterns. The apartments sometimes have silk or wool hangings; but that they do not go until half the height only and they say that it is an imitation of the fashion of Spain. The floor of the city is very high in its southern part, which protects it against the fury of the waves and serves as an invincible dam ”. (16)

Finally, by way of synthesis, Luis Joseph Peguero points out the following about the city of Santo Domingo:

“Luckily, it has 18 main streets; 8 alleys; 8 seats; 12 slopes; 55 tables 19 churches; 2 hospitals; 2 universities; two parishes, surrounded by walls, and defended with a castle and 14 very strong bastions.

It has in addition to the streets mentioned and outside of them eight lots with many neighbors, without order of streets that are: Santa Clara, President, Admiral, Santana, S. Francisco, S. Antón, that of S. Miguel and that of S. Lázaro ”. (17)

THE CITY IN THE XIX CENTURY.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the city of Santo Domingo was under French rule from 1800-1809 and, later, it was also invaded by the Haitian Toussain L´Ouverture for 42 years, from 1822 to 1844. The Haitians were finally defeated and had They had to retire to the western part of the island in 1844, proclaiming on February 27, 1844 the birth and independence of the Dominican Republic. (18)

The so-called New City was the first sector outside the city of modern Santo Domingo. Its beginning marked a milestone in an old city, which due to the socioeconomic needs of urban expansion, overflowed its walls.

In the mid-nineteenth century, what is now Ciudad Nueva, west of the city of Santo Domingo, was a great plain called Sabana del Estado or del Rey. This area began at the San Gil fort, up to the Independencia park, and continued along the Guibia road, until it reached the Estancia de Don Damián Báez. In that extensive strip of land parallel to the shortened walls, some huts began to be built next to the walls. These buildings grew rapidly and this caused, in February 1884, the promulgation of a decree ordering the demolition of the wall to extend the streets of Las Mercedes, Santo Tomás and La Miseri cordia due to the urban growth of the city. (19)

Thus, at the end of the s. XIX, part of the city wall had been demolished. The bricks from the wall were used to rebuild houses and buildings. The entire colonial zone underwent severe transformations, balconies were added, houses were painted and, unfortunately, some monuments were destroyed. From this century on, the city expanded considerably outside the wall. (twenty)

In the economic aspect, we must highlight the beginning of the process that led to the emergence of the sugar industry from the Ten Years War that began in Cuba in 1868. That conflict caused a flow of capital from the island, allowing that already in 1873 several sugar mills were founded in the vicinity of Santo Domingo.

It was in 1879 that Francisco Saviñón, a native of the town of San Carlos, brought the first steam engine to Santo Domingo to be installed in a sugar mill he owned: La Encarnación. Upon reaching the banks of the Ozama, the industrial procession was received with overflowing enthusiasm, led by Saviñón and Félix M. Lluberes, who were close relatives and men who first dedicated themselves to politics and later to the business world. Saviñón invests resources to install the La Encarnación sugar mill to the west of the city, and three years before in its vicinity, Rafael Abreu had installed the Bella Vista sugar mill three miles away from the city of Santo Domingo, in the place that today maintains your name. The purchase of the machinery and accessories to install the mill were acquired for the sum of 13,430 dollars / American gold. (twenty-one)

Economic and social development led to urban development, enabling the strengthening of the city and the installation of electricity from 1896, the proliferation of new societies, clubs, libraries and bookstores, and an important flow of political ideas that motivated the debate. by the existing press in those years such as the Diario del Ozama and the Eco de la Opinion (1879) and El Telegrama (1882). (22)

SANTO DOMINGO TODAY.

Postcard of Commerce Street (1920)

At the beginning of the 20th century, the construction of cement and concrete buildings was allowed on the ruins of colonial houses. The modern city is also created with the new extramural extensions that attract builders to the outskirts. (2. 3)

The strong population growth of the city is notorious. If in 1920 Santo Domingo had only 31,000 inhabitants, thirty years later, in 1950 its population had multiplied by six until it reached 181,000 in an area of ​​2,530 ha. Logically, with the demographic explosion, the urbanized spaces increase considerably, giving rise to the modern city. (24)

Well into the second half of the twentieth century, the pressure contained for decades broke into the closest and most desirable areas, located to the northwest of the diaphanous city known at the time. Old estates were divided between relatives and relatives; Lands destined for obsolete infrastructures were cleverly transformed into properties for the urbanization of a growing Dominican middle class, which required new spaces for their settlement.

In just 50 years, a kind of poorly outlined widening, they are acquiring an idea of ​​the whole, until today, it becomes a municipal entity formally designated as the Central Polygon of the City of Santo Domingo, the space with the greatest commercial activity , of greater real estate interaction, of greater representativeness of the scope of the current Dominican society. The commercial center has moved, from the old Calle del Conde, the main commercial artery of the colonial city for more than 450 years, to the network of originally domestic avenues and internal streets of the Polígono Central, which constitute the not so obscure object of the desire in the capital's real estate activities.

Piantini, Morales, Saviñón, Tavares, Esteva, Serrallés, Demorizi, Rancier, Hernández, Corripio, -as owners- and Bernal, Frómeta, Pou, Baquero, Haza, Pellerano -as designers-, are some of the surnames that resonate in the most frequent stories; But many are the founders, the people themselves who, in less than two generations, have seen their modest and open living spaces transform into apartment towers and high-density shopping centers, served by an infrastructure of services that is as precarious as it is urgent.

At the beginning of the forties, Santo Domingo changed little by little: the NS penetration routes, the Máximo Gómez and the Fabré Geffrard had enabled a greater range of displacement by its inhabitants, in 42, some institutions that attracted towards the outskirts to residents, such as the Nuevo Matadero Cami, on the Sánchez highway, the Dr. Martos hospital for tuberculosis on the Duarte highway, and the Miraflores aerodrome. Our area of ​​interest was not only occupied by La Encarnación, other farms completed the panorama, among which were those of Jorge Se rralles, Belarmino Lluberes, Luis Manuel Piantini, the Henríquez family, the Hernández, the Michelena, in what we know today. like Naco, many from San Carlos.

Lope de Vega Avenue is one of the most important arteries in the city, intersecting with Gelffrard Avenue, shortening the distance. In this avenue the triangle of Parque la Lira appears, standing out as a green area. Those lands belonged to Don Luis Manuel Piantini Monclús, who married Flor de Oro del Castillo. They owned a house and a mill on their land dedicated to raising cattle. They say that the idea of ​​dividing the land was his, and also that of the Country Club road layout (Lope de Vega), probably to get there more comfortably from his farm.

To the north, the Ensanche La Fe and the services of the Quisqueya Stadium, the Hippodrome and several State Secretariats were already consolidated to the area of ​​Villas Agrícolas II, with its three access roads, the east, the center and the west; to the south, residences of the high social class and the national oligarchy; and to the west, the ring road, the Fabré Geffrard, where they had begun to establish, on both sides of the avenue, some timid occupation of lots and subdivisions of blocks of 100 x 200 meters with the opening of trails, but without services . The city was a great horseshoe on an empty stomach, and its closure was the bright line of the Greffard that stood out from the white of the material among the bushes of the surrounding fields. Since its opening, where it is intercepted by the road to the Country Club, -now Lopez de Vega Ave-, a group of families very far from the center of the city began to settle in this area. As the airport move looms, some visionaries are beginning to speculate about its development.

In less than a decade, the layout of Calle 18, today Gustavo Mejía Ricart, is consolidated, from Lope de Vega to the lowlands to the west, where it meets today with José Tapia Brea. Consolidating a nucleus of individual homes that each occupied the entire 10,000 m2 block. Towards the corner with Cardenal Spellman Avenue (current Winston Churchill), the Pérez Morales family will build their family residence, where the Blue Mall stands today. The residence, with modern and horizontal lines, was carried out between 1952-1953, and remained until the decade of the 90, later going through several uses, an amusement park for the family known as Arcadas and for adults the Beer House. It is then demolished to make way for the new shopping center. In 1957 the Pérez Morales family sold the first piece of land to Mr. Celso Pérez. Towards the east it was succeeded by the residences of Luis Amiama (1957) and Tunti Sánchez, whose property is expropriated at the end of the tyranny of General Trujillo. Later, the State donates the property to the nuns, being the only one that remains with the original conditions of occupation.

This being the first proposal for urbanization of rural lands, they will later be the ones that will be populated more slowly. The sale of the plots was not a necessity and it will be done as a slow process, often at the insistence of friends and relatives. Doña Yolanda's son, Arch. Juanín Pérez Morales, will develop some real estate projects in the 1970s, single-family homes and three-level apartment buildings such as the Dolmen complex, when the density of the sector was still low. In the same way, he will also venture into riskier solutions that modified the height profile of the sector in the following decades. Los Tres Robles, behind the Blue Mall, with the maximum height allowed in its time (6 levels); and Monticello, which exceeds the limits after the approval of the new regulations (12 levels). Ensanche Flor de Oro Vda. Piantini The Piantini Monclús are related to the Morales Monclús, and they had their pastures towards the southern part of the Fabré Geffrard. They finished their lands before reaching the February 27 and the lands of La Julia, by Francisco Caro. Dedicated to cattle, they transported, like all the cattlemen in the Galá section since 1942, the cattle to the Cami industrial slaughterhouse, on the Sánchez highway, along the bridle path that formed the Geffrard when descending towards Independence. Until a few decades ago, Doña Sofía's milking booth was seen in Lincoln, where the La Cadena Supermarket parking lot is located today.

The connection with the Alma Mater is already observed. The city grows towards the west and exceeds the limits of W. Churchill; the development of the Evaristo and Julieta extensions compete with Piantini and the Cast Yolanda. NACO is just beginning to develop along the Tiradentes axis. (25)

In 1959 the procedures for the layout and execution of J. F. Kennedy Avenue began with resources from the construction company; a central thoroughfare with independent fringes on both sides to separate residential functions from rapid transit. This approach was built for a short time, since Doy Gautier insisted from the City Council, to keep the south side of NACO as residential and thus affirm the need for the marginal, and to the north, between the new avenue and San Martín, dedicate it only to businesses and industries. This plan succumbed to commercial interests and when it was abandoned, it made no sense to leave the marginal, so it was eliminated and added to the road. By 1960, the city had reached a population of 369,900 inhabitants in an area of ​​6,210 hectares.

When the new planned center (made up of the Polígono Central and the neighboring polygon that is up to Luperón) became extremely dense, the vertical development of the city began from the eighties of the last century until today. Due to its importance, they would highlight the Novo-Centro occupied by the most luxurious offices and apartments that exist in the city. The property is in the hands of the Central Bank. With 76 meters high and 1,223 square meters, Novo-Centro is one of the spaces that will revitalize the metropolitan environment of the National District with a large shopping center and 14 floors available for offices. (26)

Another important skyscraper that has just been built is the Caney Tower. It is the tallest tower in Santo Domingo at 150 m. high, occupying 39 floors of luxury apartments and a helipad. (27)

The city's shopping centers are mainly located on Winston Churchill Avenue, where there are squares, such as Acropolis Center, Blue Mall, and large supermarkets. It is also the headquarters of most of the commercial banks, such as Banco Popular Dominicano, Scotiabank, Citibank, Banco BHD, Banco del Progreso, Banreservas, among others. (28)

Regarding urban transport, the panorama is quite complicated in the city of Santo Domingo: a car park that is largely outdated, insufficient space to park, problems even with water evacuation ... To this we must add economic implications, such as the large amount of time that is used in the displacements, and in the atmospheric contamination.

Since 2004, transport infrastructure occupies an essential place in the country's development strategy. Several important actions have been carried out in recent years, as evidenced by the construction carried out of a first metro line, with a north-south route, 14 km long, carried out by French companies with state-of-the-art technology. Now the problem of the circulation of the east-west axis remains to be solved, which continues to be one of the sectors most overloaded by the daily transport of people who live on the periphery and work in the center of the city. (29)

The International Airport of the Americas in Santo Domingo, (which replaced the old general Andrews airport in the early sixties) is one of the most important in the Caribbean and the fastest and safest means of communication in and out of the city of Santiago . It occupies the first place in terms of passenger transfer in the country and is located in Punta Caucedo, 15 minutes from Santo Domingo. It has 73,200 m2 of construction distributed over three levels and a basement; a 3,350 m runway. long by 75 m. wide and 10 boarding bridges that facilitate 140 daily flights to different countries of the world.

The eastern area of ​​Santo Domingo has renowned and well-attended hospitals such as the Dr. Darío Contreras Hospital, the El Almirante Local Hospital and the San Lorenzo de Los Mina Maternal and Child Hospital, among other centers.

The Pediatric Hospital is located in Santo Domingo Norte, which is part of a new health complex located on Konrad Adenauer Avenue. This Hospital has 220 beds distributed throughout its three floors and has state-of-the-art equipment. (30)

According to Roberto Salcedo, mayor of the city of Santo Domingo: “The migration from the fields to the capital city of the country in the eighties caused a disorderly population growth. This strong migration began to produce a disorder in the capital causing a disproportionate urban development, without any type of planning and improvised neighborhoods began to emerge, communities around the periphery of the city of Santo Domingo, without any type of services ”.

This rapid demographic increase and population density also led to the concentration in the number of poor in the National District, where the city of Santo Domingo is located, which, despite having the lowest levels of poverty in the country in 1997 33.7% of the population (190,000 households) is concentrated in pockets of poverty.

Most of the poor households are located in the eastern part of the city, specifically in the neighborhoods: La Zurza, Capullito, Simón Bolívar, Gualey, Domingo Savio and María Auxiliadora. In the northern area is the Palma Real neighborhood and in the southern area the Buenos Aires neighborhood. (31)

Garbage, in these marginal areas of the city, is frequently deposited outside the house; children bathe in the street, to get water you generally have to walk blocks and blocks and that is done by women and children, the “bathroom” (the latrine) is in the yard outside the house and they are sometimes common (like patios) for multiple neighbors.

This is how tens of thousands of people live on the outskirts of Santo Domingo in inhumane conditions. Let's hope that the new remodeling plans for these poor neighborhoods will improve their homes as well as their infrastructure and sewerage. (32)

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