Pedal harder, mum, it’s the plebs! RESIDENTS of the Mayling Country Club, a gated community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires that boasts tennis courts, a polo field and a private restaurant, often carp about the Pinazo river, which runs through four holes of their verdant 18-hole golf course. If one doesn’t aim carefully, the river, which is flanked by weeping willows and navigated by ducks, swallows all the balls launched its way.A few miles downstream, residents of Pinazo, an informal settlement that has sprung up along the riverbank, have very different complaints. During heavy rains the river overflows, inundating their makeshift aluminium-and-brick homes with sewage. Its gangs are so tough that even police fear to go in, says Pablo Atchabahian, the local health-secretary.Such inequality is the norm in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where a quarter of Argentina’s 40m citizens live. For the majority, life is hard. Less than half of homes have sewerage and a quarter lack access to piped water. A third have no gas; almost as many stand on unpaved streets. But amid this poverty, islands of luxury are popping up. A report by the...
via The Economist: The Americas http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21588416-capitals-exclusive-closed-neighbourhoods-face-heavy-new-tax-barbarians-gate?fsrc=rss|ame
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