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The Vegan Marxist
2nd September 2011, 21:00
http://venezuelanalysis.com/files/imagecache/block_node_images/images/2011/09/entrega-viviendas-en-ciudad-caribia-540x405.jpg (http://venezuelanalysis.com/files/imagecache/images_set/images/2011/09/entrega-viviendas-en-ciudad-caribia-540x405.jpg)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez explains the distribution
of housing, schools, medical clinics, and green spaces in
Venezuela's first socialist city, Caribia (agencies).

Venezuela Inaugurates First Socialist City
By CORREO DEL ORINOCO INTERNATIONAL

The Venezuelan government, together with the private sector and international partners, is finding creative solutions to the nations housing deficit, including the construction of new, communal-oriented cities.

Pushing forward with its large-scale public housing program that seeks to construct two million new homes in the next 6 years, the Venezuelan government opened the doors of 602 apartments to needy families in the socialist city of Caribia last weekend.

The delivery represents part of Mission Housing Venezuela, a social program launched earlier this year with the explicit goal of eliminating the Caribbean nations housing deficit, estimated at 1.5 million.

In the future, there will not be a single family that doesnt have dignified housing like the ones being handed over today in Caribia City, President Hugo Chavez said during the inauguration ceremony on Saturday.

Broadcasting from the presidential palace of Miraflores in Caracas, the Venezuelan head of state praised his governments efforts in making affordable homes a reality, commenting that such a program would never be possible under a capitalist system.

Only with a socialist government would this be possible, Chavez affirmed.

A SOCIALIST CITY

Caribia City, a socialist megaproject first conceptualized by Chavez in 2006, is envisioned as a planned, holistic community, complete with schools, health clinics and employment opportunities for its residents.

With the recent birth of Mission Housing Venezuela, the citys development has been accelerated as the social program incorporates the work of various ministries and building strategies to boost housing availability.

The government is planning a total of 1,400 new homes, totally furnished, to be delivered to residents of the city this year and a total of 20 thousand to be provided in the urban center by 2018.

Located in the sector Camino Los Indios just outside the capital of Caracas, the majority of the first residents to benefit from the initiative have been the victims of torrential rains that left more than 100 thousand people homeless at the end of last year, as well as those living in high risk areas too dangerous for permanent residence.

Im happy and really pleased with this new home, said Jessica Suarez, mother of three, upon receiving the keys to her new apartment last Saturday. Now were going to be able to start a new life, she stated.

The new units are financed by the Venezuelan government with varying rates of subsidies including up to 100 percent, depending on a familys income.

JOBS CREATION

The governments investment has been 2.9 billion bolivars [$674 million] up to this point and were approving another important allocation in order to accelerate the work, Chavez said of his administrations financial commitment to the project.

Officials report that each 3 bedroom apartment has a cost of 290 thousand bolivars [$67,000] and is being constructed by a Venezuelan-Cuban enterprise formed under the auspices of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americans (ALBA) regional block.

Nearly 2,000 Venezuelans have been employed by the project.

This is a city for the people not for the machine of capitalism that allows a small group of people to benefit at the cost of the rest, Chavez declared on Saturday.

ANOTHER HOUSING INITIATIVE: PETROCASA

In addition to the acceleration of Caribia City, the Venezuelan government has also been speeding up its construction of Petrocasas to fulfill its housing commitment.

In the state of Carabobo, more than 27 thousand people have benefited from the construction of 6,000 homes fabricated from materials originating from the nations massive oil industry.

The idea of using the countrys dominant oil sector as a motor for housing construction was first proposed in 2004 as a way to adopt locally available materials to the needs of residents living in precariously built shantytowns outside major cities.

Petrocasa comes from the idea of designing a construction system that can utilize the raw materials of the petro-chemical industry. For this reason, we sought out the best technology in the world, selecting it from Austria, Italy and Germany in order to create the machines and the designs to build the first Petrocasa factory in the state of Carabobo, explained Enrique Majo, Director of the socialist business.

The homes are built with highly resistant plastic frames filled with concrete, steel and iron girders.

There are currently three factories in Venezuela producing the Petrocasa kits in the states of Carabobo and Apure.

The houses, which can be built in 10 to 12 days, are not plastic homes, Majo argued, but are of high quality, exceeding Venezuelan health and safety standards.

The Petrocasa system is in compliance with quality and safety standards. The residential units are anti-seismic, non-flammable, durable and hurricane resistant, the Director assured.

Many organized residents, participating in the their grassroots community councils, have taken the initiative in preparing the grounds and erecting their new homes.

Neida Marin, a spokesperson for the community council Cacique Guacara in Carabobo, described the leadership role that activists have played in the transformation of their living environment.

We, the organized community, received the dimensions and profiles of the Petrocasas and we created teams with the participation of men and women from the area. We put together our homes in stages and in less than a year we had an entire neighborhood built, Marin said.

The activist informed that 530 Petrocasas have thus far been constructed in her residential area, substituting what were once flimsy built shacks for new dignified homes.

This neighborhood is the product of a big struggle. The community council got organized and formulated the project and with the assistance of [the state petro-chemical company] Pequiven and the institutions involved, we could solidify the construction of our homes, she declared.

Initiatives like Petrocasas and Caribia City are part of the reason why the Chavez administration will meet its goal in the coming months of constructing 153,000 homes in 2011, Housing and Habitat Minister Ricardo Molina reported last weekend.

Our conviction is that we will meet the goal because, according to our calculations, many homes are in stage of being finished. Beginning in September, different construction processes throughout the country will be coming to a close, Molina stated.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6460

TheGodlessUtopian
15th September 2011, 04:57
I really loved this story.

ВАЛТЕР
15th September 2011, 11:21
Wow! Good going Venezuala and Comrade Chavez! Really happy to see these kind of projects taking place! :)

RED DAVE
15th September 2011, 12:46
In the USA, we used to call this: "sewer socialism." It's the social democratic concept that through gradual improvement of the lot of the working class, socialism will arrive. This is no more socialism than the housing projects built in the USA after WWII.

Socialism is working class control of society, not housing projects built by a bourgeois state.

RED DAVE

ВАЛТЕР
15th September 2011, 12:56
In the USA, we used to call this: "sewer socialism." It's the social democratic concept that through gradual improvement of the lot of the working class, socialism will arrive. This is no more socialism than the housing projects built in the USA after WWII.

Socialism is working class control of society, not housing projects built by a bourgeois state.

RED DAVE

I don't think this is quite like the projects in the US. This is a construction of an entire city, complete with hospitals, and schools. The projects in the US are far from socialist and are more akin to the Ghettos of Warsaw during WW2. I support this project as it helps the working class, if it comes up as good as it is written it should be a step forward for Venezuela's working class. I am far from a revisionist, but I support any action which will help the working class.

Sperm-Doll Setsuna
15th September 2011, 13:39
I don't think this is quite like the projects in the US. This is a construction of an entire city, complete with hospitals, and schools. The projects in the US are far from socialist and are more akin to the Ghettos of Warsaw during WW2. I support this project as it helps the working class, if it comes up as good as it is written it should be a step forward for Venezuela's working class. I am far from a revisionist, but I support any action which will help the working class.

They are in fact very similar. Many of the major post-war housing estates were, on paper, to provide extensive service to the residents and significantly raise the living standards. There would be new health centres, better flats, community space and adequate parkland and schools, and in many cases they initially did raise the standard slightly. But there was no political will, and furthermore no money, no profits to be made from that, so the plans were scaled back, services cut, and the housing left to decay into slums. There were often times social-democratic ideas behind in the plans, a honest desire to improve living standards for the working class, but there was no space for that to be realised as the planners had hoped, and the half-arsed programs were left to fall into pieces.

Such things can be progressive, but without wholesale political change, they will be insufficient and prone to other issues, such as the cutting of services and policies like the NYCHA Three-strikes-you're-out policy, estrangement of the community and so, so forth. The participation of private investors and construction groups is only one of many tell-tale signs that Venezuela is nothing but capitalist (not even state-capitalist, either). The construction speed is also not very remarkable for such a big country as Venezuela, and many more than 1.5 million flats need to be built to provide adequate housing and sanitation for the countless residents of the shanty towns that cling to the hills around the major cities.

Smyg
15th September 2011, 17:01
While I agree with Takayuki and Red Dave, it's still nice to see attempts to improve the standards of living.

El Louton
15th September 2011, 17:06
Brilliant to see one government who doesn't just cut public services but instead increases them!