Argentina has recently experienced torrential downpours that have claimed a significant number of lives and have caused large electricity blackouts in major cities. Moreover, the storms are yet another result of what the author calls "chaotic urbanization" and a lack of infrastructure funding. The city of La Plata, where 51 residents were killed by the downpours last Tuesday, was built at a natural drainage point. La Plata and the capital city, Buenos Aires, lack adequate drainage systems causing water to rise quickly in downtown areas. Argentina struggles to attract foreign direct investment that could fund infrastructure improvement projects because of its history of default. Adding to this problem is the high rate of inflation; argentines exchange and spend their pesos quickly, causing banks not to have enough money to fund the large loans necessary for building infrastructure.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/04/argentinas-deadly-storms
4 comments:
Countries such as France and Germany place high emphasis on infrastructure making sure that they have correct information countries such as Argentina and others need to learn a lesson and put more emphasis on infrastructure to be more successful
I think the government knows that infrastructure is a problem, but with the difficulties that Sarah mentioned, fixing it seems like something that is easier said than done. Hopefully these storms will encourage other countries to invest as a humanitarian effort to prevent this from happening again.
Chaotic urbanization is definitely a perfect way to describe the seemingly strong development within nations that in the end doesn't withstand natural disasters or heavy use. I saw this a lot in Haiti. Before the earthquake, their infrastructure was weak, but after the earthquake there was such panic and chaos that the rebuilding process was not thorough. Earthquake-smart infrastructure is too expensive and takes too long to build so the alternative is chosen because of the short-term benefits and rush to recover.
There was another one point that I found problematic with Argentina. The government, instead of worrying about the residents, fixing infrastructure, and improving its financial reputation, turned the storm into a political contest. They were the ones who were responsible for all the works they didn't complete, and even after Ms. Fernandez put politics aside temporarily, the residents were still not satisfied.
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