Diario las Américas Newspaper, June 23, 1957, Page 25

tacular as that of Guayaquil. They jumped from 2,600,000 stems in 1947 to 16,700,000 five years later. By then Ecuador had become the biggest banana exporter in the world, a status it has maintained ever since. In both 1955 and 1956 some twenty-four million stems were exported, bringing in thirty- six million dollars a year — near- ly half the value of all of Ecua- dor’s exports. More than 60 per cent of these banans pass through Guayaquil, to move in the ships of many nations down the broad Guayas River to the Pacific. Guayaquil also handles most of the cacao exported by Ecuador. Though early in this century, the country yielded its place as the world’s number-one. producer, first to Brazil and then to the African Gold Coast (now Chana), cacao is still near the top of its export list. Today, as in the past, the bitter- sweet perfume of cacao beans spread out to dry in the streets fills the air at the north end of the Malecoén, where the long-esta- blished export firms have their of- fices and warehouses. There sacks of coffee are also piled high. Close to thirty million dollars’ worth were exported last year, about 40 per cent via Guayaquil, The port’s share of Ecuadorian imports rare- ly falls below 90 per cent. Here, too, expansion has been consider- able: the dollar value of total im- ports doubled between 1951 and 1954, the peak year in Ecuador’s economic history. I well remember the stir caused in Guayaquil some thirteen or fourteen years ago when the first concrete buildings rose to seven floors. During the heavy tremtrs of the early forties, they cracked or collapsed, and people declared that the sagging peninsula on which the town was built would only support the traditional light wooden struc- tures. All this is now forgotten. Young engineers and architects have learned new _ techniques. Pneumatic hammers drive thou- sands of lignum vitae trunks or concrete piles into the ground, and one high cement building after an- other replaces the shabby structu- ‘Tes of the past. For ‘the first time Ecuador has fits own construction companies — one with both highway and build- ing sections. Edificaciones Ecua- torianas recently started, thtough its subsidiary URDESA (Urbaniza- dora del Salado, S. A.), the first complete real-estate development to be carried out with private capit- al in Ecuador. In May 1955, on pas- tures where cattle grazed among the dry hills at the edge of town, URDESA started laying out some eighteen hundred lots, of two, four, or eight hundred square meters each, -loosely divided into three zones according to size. In Gua- yaquil such dry, level land is re- latively scarce, and the price per square meter rose gradually along with the demand. Five per cent must be paid in.cash the rest over @ period of ten years. f By the end of 1956, over two thirds of the lots had .been sold, enought to repay the company’s original outlay for acquisition of the total 375 acres and basic de- velopment, Since this part of the peninsula is slighty higher and well drained by two arms of the Estero Salado reaching from ‘the sea, little, filling in was necessary. URDESA has built miles of con- crete-paved avenues, sidewalks, footpaths, and other amenities of modern urban life. Monotony has been avoided in laying out the Streets; ample green spaces and small parks are provided (through few of. the .first thousand trees planted last year survived the care- - SUNDAY, JUNE 23, 1957 Rubber and plastics factory, built. in 1955, Guayaquil prosperity is soundly based on trade, agriculture, manufacturing. lessness of construction workers and the aggressiveness of “side- walk superintendents”); a shopping center is under construction; two private schools have opened. | By the end of this_year two hundred modern, single-family houses, large and smal, will be rea- dy and occupied. Even the cheap- est construction includes steel frames, walls of concrete blocks, asbestos-cement roofs and tiled fllors — solidly built and very suit- able for the tropics. A one-stroy three bedroom house, covering 72 square meters on a 250-square-me ter plot, costs fifty-five thousand sucres (about three thousand dol- lars at the present rate of ex- change), including the land. A two- story, semi-detached house, cover- ing the same area, costs ninety thousand sucres. Naturally, resid- ents are free to choose both archit- ect and style of ‘house. The UR DESA subdivision will house Gua- yaquil’s bankers, business and pro- fessional men, officers of the arm- ed forces, and white-collar workers who .can secure mortgage loans from the Social Security Agency. “Ah, URDESA, that’s the beauty of living!” a bootblack exclaimed enviously when I told him of my inspection trip to the new subdi- vision that morning. “Now you must go and see the reverse — where I live, in the new western section of town.” “I was there,” I told him, “three years ago.” “Then you haven’t seen a thing.” - He was right — that section has since grown out of all proportion. In fact, the suburbs are mainly responsible for Guayaquil’s doubl- ing in area during the last five years. It now covers over seventy- five hundred acres, with buildings thrown together literally overnight in the midst of the mangrove swamps and on the salt plains that are partially flooded at high tide. Thousands of people formerly crowded into the centers of town are surging toward the outskirts. Some are obliged to leave because their old-fashioned dwellings must make way for new office buildings or apartment houses. Others vol- untarily vacate the still-remaining shabby houses, especially around the market, turning them over to the country people who come down from the Sierra by the thousands looking for work. “To take possession” is the fixed phrase now for changing one’s sta- tus from that of a tenant in the center of town to that of an in- dependent proprietor near one of the estuaries. The newcomer rams four wooden posts or a few sticks into the ground and nails on a shingle with his: name. Roof and walls are quickly added, often with the help of neighbors at night or during the week end — and the next day one more family is estab- lished. Much of this land is municipally Proud of progress in its leading port, Ecuador showed this view of Guayaquil on a recent stamp. owned; the rest belongs to various estates. To the crowds who move in, it makes no difference. Does not the Municipality represent the people? How then could it object? This population movement goes = back to 1951 when some of the * worst sections of town were im- proved. Barrio Garay, for example, not far from the center of the ci- ty and at the edge of the Estero Sa- lado. The salty waters of this river- like Pacific _inlet used to lap against the poles supporting the shacks of oyster fishermen and charcoal burners. The town council filled in the area and built six-to- ten-foot-high roadbeds section. The people, no longer fore- board, were overjoyed. The water supply was also improved, though the terrain did not permit installa- tion_of a sewage system. Still, life became quite bearable, and people with a little money started improv- ing their houses or-building new ones of pumice-stone blocks or brick. A street was also extended southward to anew suburb called Puerto Liza; where another estuary dug like a book into the back of the: town. Electoral campaigns brought rosy promises of further urban development. People moved farther and farther out and the town council could not keep up. As the city limits stretched a hundred meters, the people would move five hundred meters. Now they are dis- itlusioned as they watch the town council’s redevelopment inside the legal city limits, which is as far as its authority extends. Just as disturbed are the young architects and specialists on urban development who worked for years to lay out a modern city plan. One, Gustavo Gavilanes, of the City Planning Commission, accompan- ied me on a tour of the city. He first showed me the districts where the last two town councils have introduced improvements. ‘They have laid out mew walks, promen- ades, and parks — of which there had been extremely few in the past — and have continued the slow and costly work of paving old streets and building new ones. We then looked at the zones where the municipality or the So- cial Security Agency or private building companies plan to invest millions in urban renewal. Finally, .we drove on toward the swamps and salt plains. “Necesity forced us to anticipate the outline of tut- ure streets here,” he said, pointing at white marks on the ground, “but the moment our backs are turned, people remove or redraw them as they lake possesion. At best, they leave a narrow space for a path or a_ bridge, but never for a decent thorough- fare or a square: or a school.” He pointed to a neatly painted shingle hanging from a wooden frame: “Santos Vacas over there has stak- ed out his lot right on what one day will have to be a road. Yester- day one more group of people came— to our office complaining that the new diagonal main road from the Salado will pass right across their ‘properties.’ Some will have to sacrifice half their house, others a & wall or a fence.” Suddently we came upon a man wearing the. typical white cotton trousers and straw hat: He was walking about with a measuring tape, staking out new claims. ‘Don’t you want to live somewhere decent?” Gavilanes asked him: “In a neighborhood where your child- ren would have room to play, even if you have to wait a year o two?” “Oh, we'll be all-right here,” the HEMISPHERE across the § ed to jump about from board to § Those who have not seen Guayaquil in ten years or so would hardly recognize it now. man replied. “There are four hun- dred and fifty of us, all belonging {Go a sports club. Once we are all out here, the municipality is bound to provide services.” Some of the squatters in the man- grove swamps will be taken care of by low-cost housing projects mow under discussion by the Gov- ernment. President Camilo Ponce, impressed by the experience in Ambato (See Houses not Hovels,” August 1956. AME- RICAS), hopes to rehouse at least a thousand families a year both in Guayaquil and in the Sierra through Social Security Agency construction. Another result of Guayaquil’s fantastic growth and its prosperity compared to the rest of the coun- try is the constant rise in the cost of living. Whereas the index in Quito for the middle-class consum- er has gone’ up only about 8 per cent since 1950, people in Guaya- quil today pay an average of 27 per cent more for their food, rent, and clothes. Besides, prices con- tinually fluctuate. Guayaquil has become the most attractive market for the eggs, chickens, butter, cattle and vegetables produced in the Sierra, sometimes two hun- dred or more miles away, and the cost of transportation and varying road conditions naturally affect “prices, But on this point no serious com- plaints are heard, since wages are afso the highest in the country, People are stimulated by the feel- iug that the town is moving ahead. Visible proof is the building of the new port. Until about twenty five years ago, all the ships that handled Ecuador’s foreign trade used to anchor in front of Guaya- quil in mid-river. Launches carried the freight to and from town, re- quiring only simple wooden piers. But from about 1930 on, the ships serving the west coast of South America grew steadily larger, while the Guayas continued: to: silt up. Finally, nearly all except the bana- na boats refused to sail up the river; they deposited and received freight and passengers on the is- land of Puna, athwart the mouth of the Estero Salado and the Guayas, or off La Libertad a small port farther north. Would it be cheaper and better to drag the Guayas, or build a new ° port on the Estero Salado? Foreign and Ecuadorian technicians studied the problem for years. Now at last the vote has been cast in favor of the new port. In time this will bring about a complete reorienta- tion of Guayaquil life, since the site lies about six miles south of town. Cattle ranches that provide part of the milk consumed by Gwa- quil now occupy this region. They willsoon give way te strects and houses bordering the docks. The World Bank, which in 1954 granted an $8,500,000 loan to speed up the road program, has already accepted in principle the request for amother loan to fin- ance the building of the new port. To comply with one of the Bank’s conditions, the firm of Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Hall, and MacDonald has been called in as a consultant, and its engineers began work in ° Guayaquil last December. The projects importance for Guayaquil and the whole of Ecuador can hardly be exaggerated. Another ambitious plan is the linking of Guayaquil to the rail- road and the eastern half of Ecua- dor by a two-mile-long bridge across the Guayas. This was prom- ised by President Camilo Ponce, who took office last September, as a symbol of union between Sierra and Coast. Though it seems far be- yond the realm of possibility now, the idea appeals mightily to the guayaguilenos, who are growing ac- customed to having all that is big- gest and best in the country, Model of privately built, 375-acre URDESA subdivision, still under construction. Curving streets, trees, small parks, shopping center are among modern city-planning amenities provided clase buyers. for upper-middle