MARGINAL SHANTYISM. 1980S
1.974/ 1.460 shanties
The last major reaccommodation: La Mina
At the end of the period of the big housing
estates, shantyism in the city had been reduced
to 1,460 shanties, according to the census of the
Municipal Institution of Housing of 1974. There
remained pending the case of El Carmel, with a
strong neighbourhood cohesion and inhabitants
who were unwilling to be transferred elsewhere.
Other shantytowns mainly accommodated gypsy
families who had not been dealt with in the
reaccommodation programmes. Some shantytowns,
showing a great degradation and precariousness,
were inhabited by a neglected, fluctuating
population. The empty shanties were re-occupied
spontaneously or because the selfsame Public
Administration favoured such re-occupation, as in
the case of New Can Tunis, by shanty-dwellers from
other previously demolished shantytowns with
a highly destructured population.
The last major
reaccommodation, in La Mina neighbourhood in
the mid 1970s, was of a very different character. A
large part of the inhabitants of El Camp de la Bota
and other shantytowns, such as that of Sant Pau,
were resettled at this new housing estate, built by
the Municipal Institution of Housing within the
municipal district of Sant Adrià. This involved
a forced concentration of persons of diverse
provenance who shared a great precariousness and
dependence on social supports, precisely when the
economic crisis was causing mass unemployment
among them.
La Mina only started to emerge from a situation
which, in all rigour, may be termed “vertical
shantyism” at the beginning of the 21st century.
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