Santa Cruz is a dynamic and vibrant city on the tropical lowland plains of Eastern Bolivia. To learn about urbanization and migration in Santa Cruz stay here and read my paper. You can also learn more about other Bolivian cities with links from this page.
An Introduction to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
This city does not fit with the traditional images of Bolivia as an Andean nation, with its windswept Altiplano where descendants of the Inca herd their llama to the hauntingly soulful sound of Andean pan pipes. It is surprising to remember that nearly two-thirds of Bolivia's area is actually the tropical cloud forest and lowlands of the Amazon Basin. The rise of Santa Cruz represents a significant challenge the historically unquestioned political and cultural hegemony of the highlands and the majority of the country's population that resides there. As more and more people flock to the East, La Paz and the rest of the western highlands will have to contend with the challenge of an ever increasing economic and political force that is Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
Santa Cruz is not a new city. Founded in 1561 by a band of Spanish explorers working their way northwest form Paraguay under the leadership of Nuflo Chavez , it was one of the first Spanish cities in Bolivia. From the date of its founding until the 1950's the town enjoyed autonomous isolation from the rest of the nation, with the exception of a few boom years. The first brief period of prosperity came in the late 1800's when rubber from the Amazon's rubber trees was harvested. This first boom quickly turned to a bust when cheaper Asian rubber entered the world market.
The town experienced another growth spurt during the Chaco war against Paraguay in the 1930's. When the war ended and the soldiers who had survived the war returned home, the city once again returned to isolation where it remained until the popular revolution in 1952.
The new revolutionary government of the MNR under the leadership of Victor Paz Estenssoro immediately began a program to expand into the department of Santa Cruz by offering cheap land and support to those highlanders who would "March to the East" and colonize the tropical plains. Highlanders began to flock to the lowlands on the new highway which connected Santa Cruz and Andean Valley city of Cochabamba. The paved two lane highway was the first link between Santa Cruz and the highlands in the history of the city. While migrants poured into Santa Cruz by way of the new highway, tropical resources and agricultural products flowed out. Goods were also carried for export on world markets by way of the new railroad links to Brazil and Argentina.
In a push to develop the nation's economy, the government implemented a plan to cash in on the resources of the east and have them generate wealth for the entire nation. With the aim of expanding the national economy and developing the country, the government began a program of import substitution that relied heavily on the exploitation and development of resources in the region, particularly agro-business cash crops of sugar, Rice, and cotton, tropical lumber, minerals, and petroleum and natural gas.
Since its reluctant emergence from 500 years of happy isolation, Santa Cruz's transformation from a quiet lowland town to a rapidly growing urban center in less than 50 years has been complete and dramatic. The city continues to grow at extremely high rates. In 1950, just before the popular revolution and land reform, the population of the city of Santa Cruz was approximately 43,000 people. By 1976, the population had grown to about 256,000.1 That represents a growth of six times its original size in just 25 years. This rapid urbanization has not slowed yet. The city continues to increase at a rate near 8% each year as is has since 1976. The city's very dynamic population makes maintenance of up-to-date statistics difficult, but the most recent estimates place the population above 800,000. It has surpassed Cochabamba as the second largest city.
As in many other developing nations, especially in Latin America, it is impossible to discuss urbanization with out addressing the powerful force of migration. Since the early 1950's, when government programs focused on developing the east, a steady stream of migrants form the highlands have been moving eastward to colonize and farm the lowland plains and jungles. Thousands of others opt to try their luck in the growing city. Santa Cruz is a city of migrants. The massive growth of the city must be attributed to the incredible influx of people migrating from both the highland and lowland regions of the nation and of foreigners. In 1979 approximately 44% of the city was migrant and this demographic distribution does not seem to be changing drastically.
While the nation as a whole continues to face serious economic problems, Santa Cruz has generally prospered. Attracted by the opportunities of the lowlands and discouraged by the increasing economic and social problems in the highlands, a steady stream of migrants has continued to flow into Santa Cruz since the government's initial program to colonize the East. The prosperity of the region has not benefited the entire nation to the degree that the MNR originally hoped but it has transformed the once isolated town into a national financial center. It's economy continues to be marked by booms and busts but the influx of migrants has remained constant because as one industry fails, another rises to take its place. The development of large scale agriculture begun in the 1950's and the government's policy of import substitution under President Hugo Banzer paid off in the early 1970's with a boom in agriculture. First with exports of sugar and rice. The dramatic fall in sugar and rice prices did not cause a slow in migration because it coincided with a cotton and petroleum boom in 1975. Responding to this continued economic growth during the 1970's, ten percent of the entire highland population migrated to the lowlands.
In the late 70's a new industry developed in the region and its development paralleled the period of decline of the mining industry that, with subsistence agriculture, had traditionally been the mainstay of the highland economy. As world prices for tin fell the industry failed and in 1983, nearly 40,000 workers lost their jobs when the national mines closed . Many looked to the opportunities offered by the blossoming cocaine trade. It is impossible to know exactly how the drug trade has affected the region's economy because of its illegal nature. In addition to petroleum income, cocaine plays an Though undocumented, cocaine obviously plays a very significant role in the sustaining the economy of the city. Most of the revenue from the cocaine business is accumulated and spent outside of Bolivia but the wealth that does remain is conspicuous in Santa Cruz. One Cruceña explained to me that it is common knowledge who in the city is involved in the drug industry because so many new, large, expensive houses are built often by families who weeks before hardly had enough to keep their water flowing.
Petroleum also helps to support the economy through the booms and busts in the rest of the economy. The department benefits disproportionately to the rest of the nation from petroleum because of the Davenport agreement. Drafted in 1955 with the aim of attracting foreign capital to the region it allots the department 11% of all national petroleum profits. La Paz no doubt regrets this concession but the Cruceñans will not relinquish such a claim any time soon. All of these factors and migrants add up to very rapid growth and urbanization of this once isolated quiet colonial frontier town.
What does such intense migration and rapid growth mean in terms of the urbanization of the city? Santa Cruz is clearly a frontier boom town and this is reflected in the atmosphere of this colonial outpost turned economic/ political urban center. The urban geography of the city today reflects both its colonial past and its recent explosive growth.
In many ways the development of Santa Cruz follows the classic Latin American city plan with the exception of its economic prosperity and huge proportion of recent migrants. Like the classic model, the city is centered around a central plaza. On each side of the Plaza 24 de Septiembre are the church, the government offices, and shops and entertainment centers. This core of the city is laid out in a quadrant grid over which is superimposed a series of concentric ring roads. Santa Cruz currently has four of these rings that spread out form the central business district.
The urban plan of Santa Cruz is nearly a text book example of the traditional model of a Latin American city which has a central business district (CBD) that consists of the colonial center and newer developments such as high rise office buildings. Around the CBD are several concentric rings, each representing a varied level of maturation and stabilization which decrease the further from the CBD. The fist zone is the Zone of Maturity is an area of generally superior residences, either maintained colonial homes or self-constructed homes that have been gradually improved over the years. The second zone is the Zone of In Situ Accretion. This is a zone in transition. The housing is of generally lower quality and there is much variation in housing types within the zone. The zone is progressing towards stabilization, so many of the self-built homes are brand new while others have been improved upon for many years and equal the housing in the Zone of Maturity. The third zone is the Zone of Peripheral Squatter Settlements which is characterized by impromptu settlements on land acquired by land invasions or questionable land sales. The housing is very basic and there are no municipal services. Cutting through the rings is a Commercial or Industrial Spine which is bordered by an Elite Residential Sector.
Like the model, the four concentric ring roads in Santa Cruz create divisions between various zones of the city. The ring raids are intended to be a fast way to get around the city without having to put in large thoroughfares that would crosscut the city center.
Unlike many North American cities, the urban center has not decayed and in fact is one of the most expensive and prestigious neighborhoods to live in. This region within the first ring contains the CBD with businesses owned primarily by native Cruceñans and a few elite international businesses. It is the center of commerce with expensive western stores and high class hotels. Within in this first ring, most of the housing remains the domain of the wealthy Cruceñans with a very few especially prosperous lowland or international immigrants.
The region between the first and second rings is inhabited primarily by middle and lover income Cambas (lowlanders) and a few Kolla (highlanders) entrepreneurs who have been particularly prosperous have been able to enter into this section of the city. When the Cochabamba - Santa Cruz highway was first built, it ended at the second ring and the main bus terminal is still located there. The highway has since been extended but the second ring remains developed with light industry and motor services, gas stations, service stations, steam shops, and body shops.
The architectural style of the homes and businesses is notably more recent than that of the colonial center of the city but it is not as varied or stylish as that in the Américas district corridor that crosscuts the rings. This exclusive area of high income was claimed by wealthy Cruceñans when the petroleum industry was nationalized and the US community which had been living there left the country. A similar scenario played itself out one of the two other wealthy regions in the city. In the zone between the second and third rings, the neighborhood of Equipetrol was adopted by the wealthy and transformed form a Gulf Oil camp that had housed the foreign petroleum workers during the period of foreign oil exploitation.
The third high income district, Ubari, is also located in this region between the second and third rings and is a much newer development whose growth began in the late 1970's with the increase in drug trafficking. The neighborhood is located just on the outside of the second ring. The second ring is the primary entertainment district, where the most night clubs, restaurants and some shopping is located. It is in these restaurants that the drug dealers make their business arrangements. On any given night the restaurants are filled with well-dressed men talking it out over a drink or two, or the entire restaurant might be closed for a private party. The architecture of the neighborhood is very modern and the progressive Miami influence is obvious.
The regions between the second and the fourth rings are the lower and middle income residents and the migrant barrios. Following the traditional model, the closer in to the center, the more developed and stabilized the neighborhood. Some of the areas between the third and fourth rings and especially outside of the fourth ring are examples of classic urban sprawl of squatter settlements and recent migrant neighborhoods.
Growth and development of the city has been very rapid and very recent. The center of the city was first paved in 1966 and the city planners have been working outwards since then. In anticipation of rapid growth and dynamic and changing urbanization, the roads are no longer paved with asphalt but with locetas. Locetas are hexagon shaped pieces which fit together to pave the streets as a sort of modern day cobblestone. Locetas work well in Santa Cruz where the development is so fast and variable that it is not practical to lay roads which will inevitably need to be torn up when sewers need to be put in or when roads need to be moved. By now the city has essentially stabilized with in the first two rings and much of the region between the second and third rings has also been paved. In efforts to control the urbanization and in hopes of conforming growth to an organized and controlled plan, several very comprehensive projected plans for the city have been developed but the rapid expansion of the city is too fast for planners to keep up with. Many of the regions that have not been stabilized with services such as paved roads, electricity and water do not lack the services because the regional government can not afford to provide them, but because planners hope to control growth by limiting the services they offer to different regions.
Needless to say these tactics have not been effective. Because the city is located on the flat plains of the tropical lowlands there is an abundance of land urban sprawl continues to expand into the jungle surrounding the city heedless of any master plan. The region outside the fourth ring is essentially spillover form the area between the third and fourth rings and is generally unplanned, sporadic settlement that is claimed by migrants though land invasions. Most people build their homes very slowly over years adding on amenities as they can afford to. Most people move in before the building is even entirely constructed and can live in the shell of a home for year before services like water or electricity are added.
There are two housing projects which were planned with the aim of proving low income housing. Guayapay and CONAVI were built outside the third ring but were too expensive to be low income housing so the recent migrants continue to take land from the expanses around the city.
he societal divisions present in the city are represented in the urban geography of Santa Cruz. The intense regionalism and desire for independence and autonomy that has characterized Santa Cruz since its founding lends itself to sometimes extreme prejudices against the highland migrants . Cambas truly believed themselves to be superior to Kollas claiming, among other things that they are more directly descended from the Spaniards and are not Indians as many of the Quechua or Aymara speaking Kollas are. Thus the society of Santa Cruz is a very hierarchical one that places Cambas at the top and Kolla migrants on the bottom. The ethnic division of the city reflects this. The city is divided almost in half with the highland migrant barrios in the west and the lowland migrant barrios in the east. There are essentially no highland migrants in the interior zone of the CBD or the Zone of Maturity. except for two important areas around the two open markets in the city center especially Mercado Los Pozos. Markets are the domain of the highlanders whose successful entrepreneurship has transformed the markets of the city and made them essentially Kolla strongholds. Highlanders they have claimed some of the housing directly around the markets in the first ring but the majority of the highland merchants live outside the second ring in the migrant neighborhoods and commute to work everyday.
In addition to these societal considerations, there are several reasons that the city has developed in such a markedly divided manner. The bus terminal and the end of the Cochabamba- Santa Cruz highway in the South west of the city and the fist migrants to the city settled in this area of the city. The majority of migrants come to Santa Cruz with familiar connections already in place and often stay with relatives until they can find rentals on their own. Differences in the ways the two groups conceive of space also influences this pattern of development. Communal society and relations are very important for Kollas while privacy is more valued by Cambas. For this reason, Kollas are eager to rent out rooms in their homes for increased family income and recent migrants would rather rent from a family than be isolated from a community by renting a private home in another sector of the city.
Cambas value privacy very highly and see it as a sign privilege. They strive for independence above nearly all else. Unlike the Kollas, opening their homes to renters is not an acceptable option and they avoid it unless financial conditions necessitate it. Setting aside the explicit discrimination against highlanders in housing and other situations, even if Kollas wished to rent outside of the highland migrant barrios, they would be hard pressed to find a rental outside of the highland migrant sections of the city.
The architecture of the two halves of the city is varied as well. Perhaps in a response to the wide, open, desolate plains of the Altiplano, highland architecture focuses on creating internal space. Housing units are ideally a series of structures all facing inwards around a courtyard. In the city, such a layout is not as possible but the internalization of space remains very important . Kollas build tall walls which line the street and contain all the space of the lot inside them. These complexes can contain several multiple-storied structures which provide rooms for the extended family and perhaps some renters as well.
The architecture of the highland structures in unique and also represents the region from which the migrants have come. The traditional building material in the dry, barren highlands is adobe brick which withstands the harsh climate of the Altiplano very well. Migrants often build their two story homes out of this in a manner consistent with highland culture. In the humid, hot, rainy climate of the tropical lowlands adobe does not last since the thatched roofs do not extend beyond the walls to protect them form the intense rains. Kollas do not know how to use the building materials of the region so many choose lamina siding which is cheap and easy to erect as a first dwelling on squatted land. While a better option than adobe brick, the lamina does not take into account the number insects that live in the lowland tropics and find perfect homes in the walls of lamina structures.
In contrast, Camba homes desire an externalization of space similar to homes in the United states. To achieve this Cambas built their homes set back from the street with front lawns or gardens. If there is a wall it is usually a metal fence which allows for the vision and the sense of space to extend beyond the property. Most lowland migrants build homes out of mud and wattle on one story which allows for better air circulation in the hot humid climate. The recent lowland migrants often build traditional pauichis the traditional bamboo huts of the region.
Social spaces in the two areas also incorporate these notions of internal and external and communal and private space. In highland barrios, the social center is the chicheria where Kollas can drink their traditional chicha corn beer and celebrate with highland music. Chicherias, though they try to be discrete to avoid Camba scorn, are unmistakable for their especially tall walls and heavy doors which entirely conceal the space within from the passerby. For the Cambas, one of the most popular pastimes, after barbecues in the yard, is cruising the streets. In a similar configuration of space, where socialites can be private in their own separate cars while projecting their activities outwards to include the entire street and all it contains.
With so many migrants arriving in the lowlands in such a short period of time the previously isolated lowlanders are resentful and the fierce regionalism that has always existed has developed even further. Cambas have always felt resentment towards their western countrymen and the political and cultural dominance of the Andean regions. Their reaction is an extreme regionalism that in many cases converts into outright prejudice against Kollas, as with housing and creation of exclusively Camba neighborhoods. It is a response to the threat that so many migrants pose to the cultural autonomy and political independence that Cruceñans have always prized.
It is not simply a symbolic response. By promoting the bi-polarity of the Camba/Kolla identity, Cambas can use prejudice and a constructed ideology of race to keep political, social, and economic power in the hands of lowlanders.2 Cruceñans have little desire to share their wealth with the rest of the country simply for equality's sake since they do not think of their prosperity as tied to that of the rest of nation. The Cambas' independent pride is fierce.
In Santa Cruz, Kollas are socially inferior to Cambas and reminders of this class distinction are everywhere. Everyone understands that to "be treated as Kolla" is to be treated with disrespect3. It is not uncommon to hear Cambas complaining about the "Kolla de mierda" (my translation to "piece of shit Kolla" does not convey the intensity of the insult in Spanish). Since massive population growth makes available living spaces extremely scarce, Kollas are often refused housing in neighborhoods other than lowland migrant barrios.
While creating social stratification, this fierce maintenance of difference between Cambas and Kollas masks and simplifies a much more complex and confusing process of cultural interaction. The cultural practices of the two groups are actually significantly affecting one another and even blending and mixing in a peculiar way that is reflected in the urban character of the city. It is easiest note the ways Kollas have changed to adapt to life in the lowlands. The housing styles and chicherias as neighborhood centers are examples of this. Behind the tall walls of housing complexes and chicheria gates, Kollas can congregate and celebrate their native culture without interference from condescending Cambas.
Though loathe to admit it, Cambas have been influenced by Kollas as well. And they are even less willing to admit the significant growth of their region is deeply indebted to the Kollas and their hard work and entrepreneurship. It is significant that the only pockets of Kolla influence within the two central zone of the city are around the Los Pozos market and the Mercado Los Siete Calles. The skillful entreprenuership of Kollas allows them to monopolize and in fact has created the street markets where most Cambas now shop. In the Kolla controlled open markets, bargaining offers the opportunity for lower prices which compete with the neighborhood stores where Cambas traditionally bought food. Previously Cambas would not go to an open market more than once every few weeks but now will make a shopping trip every few days. The fresh vegetables that Kollas specialize in are now staples of Camba diet in addition to traditional yucca and citrus fruits.
It is a very unusual Camba who will frequent a chicheria but many enjoy the Peñas that are becoming common in Santa Cruz. A peña is a popular event in the highlands where people gather with the instruments typical of the region (various sizes of pan pipes, churrangos, drums, etc.) to play folkloric music, sing, and dance. The instruments and musical style are popular in Santa Cruz and there are now peñas in the center of the city, the neighborhood that is almost exclusively Camba. These peñas almost exactly replicate the highland ones but they are completely Camba affairs because most of the most popular ones are located in the CBD, an essentially exclusive Camba region of the city.
The urbanization of Santa Cruz de la Sierra is representative of urbanization in cities throughout Latin America. It's city plan is an almost perfect example of the classic model for a Latin American city. It has experienced an incredibly rapid process of urbanization and growth since the 1950's due to massive urban migration which is a pattern that can be seen throughout the region. But because of the city's long history of isolation and autonomy the native Cruceñans have developed a fierce sense of independence and regional pride that at it's most extreme was manifested in the secessionist revolts in the 1920's. Now does not seem to be such a strong possibility but , as Santa Cruz continues to grow it will continue to become a greater and more forceful challenge to the traditional center of political, economic, and cultural power in the Andean highlands. While the trends of economic recession and out migration from the West continue, and Santa Cruz continues to develop, the economic, political, and cultural challenges it poses to the traditional hegemony of the highlands will only increase.