NewsWhore
01-24-2012, 03:50 PM
Vegetables on the ground amidst sewage and garbage are just one aspect of the chaos and lack of hygiene that can be observed at the Model Market on Santo Domingo's Duarte Avenue.
The lead story in El Caribe says that overpopulation of the market itself has caused it to overflow onto adjoining streets and all the way to the walkway and the Reyes Catolicos Bridge. The vendors, mostly Haitians, sell their wares without any sort of sanitary controls. Anyone walking down Los Martires Avenue, or Juan Erazo Street or 38 Street will find themselves in the midst of chaos and slums. Tricycles, small plantain trucks, motorcycles, horses and carts and hundreds of trucks laden with a huge variety of products fight their way through the mass of people trying to earn a living in the commercial area.
Inaugurated in 1973 to house 800 sellers, the main center for receiving farm products for the capital and for the eastern region hotels has far exceeded its design limits and 20,000 people now crowd into the area, according to a 2001 census.
Among the issues is the lack of hygiene due to poor garbage collection, since the city government has not been able to handle the flow of refuse from the market area, and the large numbers of poor people who see the market as a place in which to eke out a living.
Some of the informal sellers, like the well-known "Patron" have been at the market for over 50 years.
The solution set forth by the government, which allegedly paid US$69 million, is the creation of a wholesale market on kilometer 22 of the Duarte Highway and the conversion of the Model Market on Duarte Avenue into a completely retail establishment.
The Merca Santo Domingo is 95% finished but no inaugural date has been set.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#5)
The lead story in El Caribe says that overpopulation of the market itself has caused it to overflow onto adjoining streets and all the way to the walkway and the Reyes Catolicos Bridge. The vendors, mostly Haitians, sell their wares without any sort of sanitary controls. Anyone walking down Los Martires Avenue, or Juan Erazo Street or 38 Street will find themselves in the midst of chaos and slums. Tricycles, small plantain trucks, motorcycles, horses and carts and hundreds of trucks laden with a huge variety of products fight their way through the mass of people trying to earn a living in the commercial area.
Inaugurated in 1973 to house 800 sellers, the main center for receiving farm products for the capital and for the eastern region hotels has far exceeded its design limits and 20,000 people now crowd into the area, according to a 2001 census.
Among the issues is the lack of hygiene due to poor garbage collection, since the city government has not been able to handle the flow of refuse from the market area, and the large numbers of poor people who see the market as a place in which to eke out a living.
Some of the informal sellers, like the well-known "Patron" have been at the market for over 50 years.
The solution set forth by the government, which allegedly paid US$69 million, is the creation of a wholesale market on kilometer 22 of the Duarte Highway and the conversion of the Model Market on Duarte Avenue into a completely retail establishment.
The Merca Santo Domingo is 95% finished but no inaugural date has been set.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#5)