Segregation and conflict in post-modernist Caracas: from Pérez’s Gran Venezuela to Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution^*

* A longer version of this article was published in Spanish as Almandoz, ‘Introducción: Caracas’. Another version was presented at the Symposium of Urban History, Bogotá: Facultad de Arte y Arquitectura, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNC), 5–7 November 2014. The article is drawn from the research project about ‘The City in the Thought of Urban Venezuela’, developed by the author with the sponsorship of the Decanato de Investigación y Desarrollo (DID), USB. Among other differences, the initial version recreates urban changes from Guzmán Blanco’s reforms in the 1870s, without focusing on the segregation process, as this article intends to.

ABSTRACT

Reviewing political and economic changes underwent since the so-called Gran Venezuela, characterized by the nationalization of oil and mammoth projects during the first presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP, 1974–1979), the article focuses on the socio-spatial segregation and urban conflict staged in Caracas until Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution (1999–2013). It is a timespan when, at an urban scale, the oil-booming and modernist capital of the 1950s – initial episode of the article’s review – gave way to a less progressive and more deteriorated metropolis, which has become one of Latin America’s most polarized and conflictive arenas. Drawn from a research project about ‘The City in the Thought of Urban Venezuela’, the article outlines, from a methodological standpoint, an urban overview throughout some images, which intertwines the political and intellectual discourse about the city with its changing structure and perception. In this respect, the article’s approach is arguably inscribed within the urban cultural history in Latin America. For decades after CAP’s second government (1989–1993), the article intends as well a closer examination of segregation in the public space, considering that Caracas has become Latin America’s testbed of political and spatial polarization, fuelled by the unrest characteristic of Chávez’s neo-populist revolution.

KEYWORDS:

• Caracas
• history
• twentieth century
• urban images
• political changes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Arturo Almandoz holds a joint appointment as professor at the Department of Urban Planning of Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas and at the Catholic University, Santiago de Chile. His current research interests include the relationship between literature and urban cultural history, and Latin America’s modernization and urban historiography. Editor of Planning Latin America’s Capital Cities, 1850–1950 (Routledge, 2002, 2010), he is the author of Modernización urbana en América Latina. De las grandes aldeas a las metropolis masificadas (Universidad Católica de Chile, 2013), and Modernization, Urbanization and Development in Latin America (Routledge, 2014), among other books.

Notes

* A longer version of this article was published in Spanish as Almandoz, ‘Introducción: Caracas’. Another version was presented at the Symposium of Urban History, Bogotá: Facultad de Arte y Arquitectura, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNC), 5–7 November 2014. The article is drawn from the research project about ‘The City in the Thought of Urban Venezuela’, developed by the author with the sponsorship of the Decanato de Investigación y Desarrollo (DID), USB. Among other differences, the initial version recreates urban changes from Guzmán Blanco’s reforms in the 1870s, without focusing on the segregation process, as this article intends to.

1 Burke, “Overture,” 10–11.

2 Fischer-Nebmaier, Berg, and Christou, Narrating the City.

3 Romero, Latinoamérica: las ciudades.

4 Almandoz, Entre libros, 190–212.

5 Rama, La ciudad letrada.

6 Romero, Latinoamérica: las ciudades, 15.

7 Almandoz, La ciudad.

8 González, “Caracas: Territory,” 226–30.

9 Dembo et al., “Caracas: modernidad.”

10 Violich, “Caracas: Focus,” 272, 279.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.; Bailey and Nasatir, 666.

13 Betancourt, Posición y doctrina, 107–8.

14 Almandoz, Modernization, Urbanization and Development, 95–6, 116–7, 142–3.

15 An expression coined in the 1970s, it meant the consumerism fueled by Venezuela’s oil-based association with Arab countries.

16 Rangel, El paquete de Adán, 43.

17 Almandoz, Modernization, Urbanization and Development, 127–9.

18 Naím and Piñango, El caso Venezuela.

19 Fossi, “Desarrollo urbano y vivienda,” 120–5.

20 Negrón, Ciudad y modernidad.

21 García-Guadilla, “Caracas: de la colonia,” 171–8.

22 There had been four republics in Venezuelan history since the first was declared in 1811. The Fourth Republic, established by the 1961 constitution and shaped politically by the above-mentioned Puntofijo Pact, became the political establishment abhorred by Hugo Chávez and his revolution.

23 Arráiz, Venezuela, 195.

24 Ibid., 197–200.

25 Romero, Decadencia y crisis, 90–5.

26 González Téllez, La ciudad venezolana, 110–1.

27 Sanjuán, “Democracia, ciudadanía y violencia”; Almandoz, Modernization, Urbanization and Development, 176–7.

28 González Téllez, La ciudad venezolana, 319–89.

29 Arráiz, Venezuela, 207–8.

30 Velasco, Barrio Rising.

31 Edwards, Populismo o mercados, 262–3, 283.

32 Krauze, El poder, 84–5, 341–51.

33 Mundó, “Caracas.”

34 Negrón, La cosa humana, 135–6.

35 Caldera, Frente a Chávez, 108.

36 Irazábal and Foley, “Space, Revolution and Resistance.”

37 Irazábal, “Citizenship, Democracy,” 14–6.

38 García-Guadilla, “Caracas: de la colonia,” 178–88.