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Venezuela Settlement Patterns
Venezuelans referred to their few major cities as
"poles of
attraction". These poles indeed functioned as magnets,
drawing
the population from the interior of the country to the
urban
centers. The 1971 census evidenced the mobility of the
population
when it indicated that a larger percentage of urban
dwellers had
come from some other place in the country than from the
city
where they lived. For example, less than 30 percent of the
population of Caracas had been born there.
By the 1970s, the population of Caracas was spilling
over
into smaller towns and cities in adjacent administrative
units.
As a result, the Metropolitan Urban Commission was
established in
1973 to be responsible for city planning for the entire
metropolitan area. By the late 1980s, a rapid-rail
transportation
system connected the capital with some outlying towns.
Another
means of relieving congestion was the Caracas Metro (C.A.
Metro
de Caracas--Cametro), an extremely modern subway system
that
served a limited area of the capital.
The government sought to encourage reverse migration,
from
urban to rural areas, but the results proved
disappointing. The
National Agrarian Institute (Instituto Nacional
Agrario--INA)
conducted a program providing incentives for rural
colonization
and resettlement, but ironically, the more economically
successful settlements produced such high population
growth that
they became, in effect, new urban centers. The government
also
attempted to create other poles of attraction through
publicly
funded industrialization projects. The best example of
this
policy was Ciudad Guayana, which at its founding in 1961
was
planned to accommodate no more than 300,000 persons. By
1990 the
government projected that the city, with its industrial
complex
and concentration of government services, would boast a
population of one million before the end of the twentieth
century. During the 1960s, the government also initiated a
project to open up the sparsely populated public lands of
the
Orinoco Delta. Through swamp reclamation, the government
expected
to make some 1.6 million hectares available for year-round
agricultural use. Other programs included the planned
settlement
of families along the country's frontiers, especially in
the area
of Bolívar state near the Brazilian border.
In spite of these various attempts to manage migration
patterns, Caracas continued to overshadow all other
cities. In
fact, there have been years when the capital grew at the
incredible rate of 7 percent annually. Such growth caused
tremendous economic and social problems and triggered
crises in
the delivery of public services, especially as oil
revenues
dwindled.
Different sections of the country reflected quite
different
life-styles. Caracas was a modern, sophisticated,
cosmopolitan
city. Its citizens contrasted sharply with the
llaneros,
persons of the interior plains and cattle-ranching areas,
who
continued to lead a rugged existence. By the same token,
the more
conservative Andean peasants also shared few values or
perspectives with their fellow citizens from the capital.
The effects of rapid urbanization are strikingly
apparent in
the poor barrios of Caracas, with their ramshackle
ranchos
(see Glossary). Most of the inhabitants of these barrios
came
from fairly good-sized towns or were actually born in
Caracas,
rather than gravitating directly from the hinterland to
the
capital city. Studies have shown that residents of the
barrios
were, on average, even younger than Venezuelan society as
a
whole. In addition, the average family of four children
was
overwhelmingly the product of informal unions, and many of
the
children were not recognized by their fathers. In fact, in
cases
where the father left to form another family or
disappeared
altogether, prevailing social attitudes held that the
mother
should support the child herself, perhaps with some
assistance
from her own family.
The Venezuelan Children's Council (Consejo Venezolano
para
los Niños--CVN) was the government agency in charge of
protecting
the welfare of minors, but it seldom instituted judicial
proceedings to compel fathers to support their children.
In
accord with the Hispanic tradition of maternal
responsibility for
rearing children, mothers were reluctant to complain to
the CVN,
and the council itself had few means, and perhaps even
less will,
to seek out those fathers who had left the household and
who no
longer demonstrated a sense of obligation to their
children. The
sprawling capital, with its labyrinth of nearly one
thousand
separate barrios, served as an effective haven for such
individuals.
Data as of December 1990
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