[zelliot]

I had the opportunity to visit two months ago. Amazing place. The residents pay about $6 per month towards the community fund. Electricity is stolen. There is no fresh water. All water is walked up.

We got up to the 24 floor and watched them take up some lemonade for some workers pouring concrete.

[venomsnake]

Why is walked up? This seems like major inefficiency. It is very easy to create a system (the building has elevator shafts after all) with pulleys and winch-es that could pull up and down the load.

You could jury rig some 40 horse power combustion engine from the auto morgue (almost free) as a power plant and you need 2 platforms to counter balance each other. It will not be safe for humans but workable for heavy loads.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

In places like this at the edge of even the developing world, labor is effectively free, the materials you'd need for a block and tackle aren't.

[njharman]

"Almost" free is not free. Gas is not free. Otherwise unwanted human labor is free.

[zelliot]

Gas is basically free in Venezuela. To fill up a car with 50L/13 gals was 4 or 6 Bolivars, which is about 15-20 cents at the black market exchange rate.

We had a driver for one day and he had to fill up the car. I bought him a can of Coke which cost twice as much as the tank of gas.

[zelliot]

It was possible to pay a motorbike taxi driver to take you up to the top of the car park. That saves about 10 storeys of walking. We did not though as we found lots of interesting shops, factories and people in the first 10 storeys.

[X4]

Wow, do you have pictures or videos? how do you think, can WE improve their situation, politically, technically and technologically?

____________

Such sad irony, that a tower build for Banks, that theoretically exist to serve people, now actually and really serves people, directly. Sad, because those banks and the politicians running that government were the cause for their pain.

Unfortunately I hear about a lot of corruption and that it's normality in Brazil from a friend who moved from Norway to Brazil. And I with my idealogical green glasses would not live for long, if I were to protest against the Government for hot-pots like the Rainforest, according to him and other Brazillians.

[zelliot]

Yes, lots of photos and videos. We are working on a 15 min story for TV in Australia.

Talking with the Caracas locals (not living in the tower) it is seen as a bit of an embarrassment. The government there has no good solution for housing, so the people took it into their own hands.

Some of the apartments are amazing. $1 million+ views but without proper fitouts or running water.

[andrewcooke]

can you explain the context? my immediate reaction is that this sounds disturbingly like "poverty porn" for tourists (something i started thinking about while watching the original video).

[zelliot]

We were filming a story for TV in Australia. It really is an amazing place full of industry.