What City is This?

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A People Behind Bars

Two things, soccer and politics, have appeared to shape the culture and city of Buenos Aires and seem to inspire passion and frequently violence among the people often leaving tangible impacts on the city. It should be noted that there are character traits of large cities that I am generally unaware of, and as such my ability to compare is limited to my brief time in Atlanta and years of suburbia. Visually what struck me first about the city was the jailed look of the buildings. There are bars on the windows, bars on the doors, even so far as bars across the balconies on third and fourth stories. What did this mean that the people who choose to make this city their home and place of business are so distrustful of their neighbors, their fellow citizens, that they would bar themselves from the outside world. And what did this mean for all 20 years of my life experience that would very shortly be living here alone. So many times I had read the Lonely Planet guide and listened to my parents warnings on being safe in a foreign country, most of which I dismissed. But here was the proof, a city too dangerous to open the windows to the street, even in the middle of the day.
The strange thing that seemed to counter this rather pessimistic view of the city was the frequent presence of children on the streets. This went against every instinct I had about a city that lived behind barred windows and I was intrigued about a culture that seemed more secure about their personal physical safety than about that of their homes and businesses.
This in turn leads me back to my original thoughts on what two main things have shaped the city and its people: politics and soccer. I found myself inspired to analyze the frequency in which these two things have caused uprisings and riots in the streets of Buenos Aires through out history. Suddenly the bars on the windows are not necessarily signs of a modern day Gotham city. Rather they seem to be an appropriate response by a city that knows their history of protest and uprising in the name of their people and passions.

Addendum:
Nearly a month after writing this blog I was back in Buenos Aires after two weeks in Rio de Janeiro. I was walking down the street, alone in a city where a barely speak the language and I see one of the metal garage type doors being opened and I can almost see into some ones home. My first thought is that it is nearly 6pm, why are they opening their homes to light now? And the answer was obvious, because they had not been at home until now. This is not a city where everyone is locked inside away from each other. But they are in the streets or the parks and the stores. The buildings look dead because the city is alive.

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Photos

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First view from the highway on the way into the city

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As a side note: the "art work" on the buildings occasionally contributed to my doubts about the city.