The current state of Belize City
Economy:
The city's socio-economic status is mainly low to middle
class,
but slanted towards the low end. According to Myrtle Placio (1990), 51%
of the citizens of Belize City were in the low income status, as based on
size of home, education level, and accessories in the home (refrigerator,
motor vehicle, bicycle, sewing machine, TV, etc.) while 38% are middle
class and 11% are in the higher income bracket.
The people are engaged mostly in the service sector, which employs
30% of the workforce in the country. Agriculture employs 25% of the
country while industry and commerce employ 23% and the government
employs 22%. (Woods and Perry, SPEAR; Fourth annual studies, 1991)
The country is currently trying to develop an export base that is
centered on the agricultural sector which produces sugar, bananas, and
citrus products. The main markets for these products are North America
(sugar and citrus concentrate), Europe (sugar, bananas, and citrus
products) and the Caribbean (citrus). These agricultural sectors are
almost entirely outside of Belize City; as are most of the government
jobs, that have moved to the new capital of Belmopan.
Belize is also, at the urging of the World Bank and the IMF, trying to
set up a tourist industry, based on the extensive beach land and the coral
reef off the east coast. Anecdotal information states that a few years
ago, a person could easily find a small hotel on the beach for about twenty
American dollars a night, but now most of the hotels are owned by foreign,
mostly American companies and charge close to one hundred dollars for a
night. The tourist industry is not fully developed yet.
Most of the country's urban poor live in predominantly Creole Belize
City. The city was home to over half of all unemployed Belizeans in 1980,
many of them involved in 'ketch an kill' jobs. In further contrast to the
upper and middle class sectors of the population, many lower class
households in Belize City were headed by single parents, usually women.
The female unemployment rate is 250% higher than that of men. (Merrill,
1993)
In numerous cases the migration of both parents to the United States
in search of work resulted in children being raised by older siblings, older
relatives or friends of the family ( Merril, 1993). As with the population
in general, a large portion of the urban poor are young. Forty percent of
out of school youth, ages 15-20 lacked work.
Housing and Neighborhoods:
According to Myrtle Palacio's study (SPEAR; Third annual studies,1990),
the instances of home ownership in Belize City were that 44% of the
citizens owned at least one home, while 56% rented. 90% had a radio and
91% had a TV. (as is common throughout Latin America) while only 55%
had plumbing facilities, running water and sewage. Of this last figure
50% of the homes that had plumbing were rented, suggesting the recent
proliferation of shanty homes.
An average of six persons resided in homes, while 50% of households
included extended families and 48% of households were conjugal. 38% of
women interviewed headed households and many of these women looked
after large families (4-17 persons). They predominantly rent small one
to two bedroom houses without adequate plumbing facilities and are
mainly in the low income socio-economic strata. The current owners of
the houses were away living in a better part of Belize city, primarily in
Kings Park.
A quick correlation of the above data shows a vast portion of the
population of Belize city in low income households of four or more persons
headed by women who were unemployed. The houses had one to two rooms
and in most cases lacked plumbing and running water. A majority of those
lower class citizens who owned their own homes live without adequate
pluming, most likely in the new shanty towns on the outskirts of Belize
City, in large, extended family households. Almost everyone has a
television.
There has recently been an effort to gentrify some older parts of the
city, mostly centered around Queen Street, Barrack Road and Hydes Lane.
Cords alley and the other Alleys off main street generally remain out of
the snare of gentrification and still house large families, in rented homes
with no plumbing.
A high proportion of people currently living in Belize City were born
there. The two areas with the highest frequency were the Eyre st./ Cork
st. and Dolphin st./ Iguana st. areas. The two areas were on the high and
low ends of the socio-economic strata. The former is primarily Mestizo
and White (richer) and the latter Creole (poorer) (Myrtle Palacio,
1990).
I do not have any statistics or data on the instances of individual
family movement by any socio-economic groups within the city.
As alluded to above, Mestizos and Whites were least represented in
the low socio-economic status, and most frequently indicated in the
middle and upper class status. Creole and Garifuna were predominantly
low and middle class. Mestizos and Whites, as a group, reside in the Eyre
st./ Fort st area which had the highest frequency of high socio-economic
status. (Joseph Palacio, 1990)
Shopping:
55% of the people frequent the local market and 63% of these go
once a week. 72% of the people shop downtown at least three times a
week. 69% get around Belize City on foot. 62% of people go to border
towns to shop. 82% visit the country side frequently and 80% go outside
the country frequently.(Myrtle Palacio, 1990)
Health and Care:
The most common health care problems in Belize city were listed as
flooding, rats, mosquitoes and 'base boys' (because of their practice of
mentally harassing passerby's). Many of the above listed problems have
direct roots in the use of open canals as sewage disposal systems, causing
many bacterial infections whenever the canals overflow, or open sewage
attracts rats. The canals are also infested with mosquitos, and a cause of
Malaria.
With all the health problems listed above, less than 50% of health
care facilities were fully staffed. (Myrtle Palacio, 1990)
Drugs:
A note needs to be made about the recent proliferation in the drug
trade originating and trafficking through Belize City. The lack of
Educational and employment prospects for the urban poor in the 1980's led
to dramatic increases in crime, and especially in the drug trade. By the
mid-1980's, Belize was the fourth largest exporter of Marijuana to the
United States. By 1987, Crack gangs had established a foot hold in the
youth population of the city. By 1991, gang membership and gang warfare
had escalated dramatically, moving off the street corners of the poorer
neighborhoods and into the schools and major public spaces of Belize City.
(Merrill, 1993)
Summation:
Belize City is greatly stratified economically, as based on race with
the black populations of Creoles and Garifuna in the lower classes while
Mestizo and White populations are mostly in the middle and upper classes.
Most of the poorer people live in small, crowded houses that many times
are rented from members of the upper classes. Almost everyone is
connected to electric lines and connected to the 'outside' world though
television or radio, yet half of homes are not connected to basic plumbing
services. Most people travel around the city on foot and almost everyone
travels outside the city to shop occasionally in border towns and visit
relatives inside and outside the country.
An editorial in Amandala, the most widely circulated newspaper,
that was published in May 30, 1986, (reprinted Foster and Succotz, 1987)
summarizes the current state of Belize city much more eloquently than I
can. It follows:
"Belize city is a port where the harbour waters are too shallow, a city
whose land is too low, and a commercial center whose streets are too
narrow and sidewalks almost non-existent.
It is a city so incongruous that the title of capital was taken away
more than a decade ago and given to a village which had become a town.
It is Belize's only city, and it continues to swell and expand against
all odds and without any plan.
What is there about Belize City that convinces people to migrate here,
persuades others to build their homes in a haven for hurricane and
criminal activities?
Well, to begin with, Belize City has history. It was settled by
buccaneers, who used it as a safe port. It was later inhabited by
woodcutters, who used its main river to float their logs to the Caribbean
Sea, en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
Today, Belize City is still primarily a port. Its waterfront workers
unload the foodstuffs for the nation, and see Belize's sugar and lumber on
their way to foreign destinations. But the city is also now an industrial
center-garments, beer, soft drinks, rums and wines, batteries, nails,
flour, cigarettes, furniture products, and so on. The city is also the
nation's center for commerce, so that there is money in the city.
Above all, Belize City has culture. It is a drug influenced culture, one
which copies America to slavishly, and one which has no stomach to
sacrifice. But it is the culture which gives Belize City identity and makes
it flashy and attractive, like a Saturday night hooker.
But when the rains come, as they have this week, they wash off the
city's makeup an expose her as a tired and wrinkled old hag. Our city
becomes ugly when it rains. The city becomes a place where many human
beings punish, when it rains hard and long.
When it rains, we are only poor and provincial citizens of a muddy,
dirty hole called Belize City."