UN Says Colombia Leads Urban Inequality In The Region

[Judi Lynn]

UN Says Colombia Leads Urban Inequality In The Region

BOGOTA, Oct 16 (BERNAMA-NNN-Prensa Latina) -- Colombia tops the urban inequality rates in Latin America with four cities included on the list - Medellin, Cali, Monteria and Bogota, according to a study by the U.N. Agency for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat) released here.

In the past 20 years, the problem with urban inequality increased in these cities, where the gap between rich and poor has doubled and income inequality increased by 15 percent, according to the report.

In an interview with the newspaper El Espectador, the director of the UN-Habitat Research and Capacity Building Branch, Eduardo Lopez, said that the economic growth in the country over the past two decades did not favor the poor.

Lopez said that though Colombia has implemented effective policies to combat poverty and it was thought that inequality would be reduced, at this time they must recognize that different policies are being implemented on the poorest levels.

More:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=985825

[Peace Patriot]

1. And guess who's tops on EQUALITY? Venezuela!

That's why Venezuela gets such bad press from the Associated Pukes, et al. Our Corporate Rulers hate equality!

[Judi Lynn]

2. You've got it! And Colombia couldn't be more precious,

due to its historic servility to U.S. interests, as it serves the U.S. as its "forward operating location," its "lily pad" (according to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) from which the US can command access to all of the Americas south, and Central America, as well.

The poor of Colombia can go pound sand, as we've seen happening for ages, while multinational corporations help themselves to the chronically poor cheap labor pool, and all Colombia's natural resources, and profitable agricultural products while maintaining the world's highest number of homeless, internally dispossessed human beings in the world, which has been designated the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Poverty in Colombia

Poverty in Colombia

From Wikipedia:

Poverty in Colombia refers to the serious problem of misdistribution of income, characterized by some of the worst poverty statistics in Latin America.

Social Strata in Colombia[edit]

Colombia has one of the strictest stratified social systems in the world.

Colombia's social strata has been divided as follows and has been extensively used by the government as a reference to develop social welfare programs, statistical information and to some degree for the assignment of lands.

• Stratum 1 : Lowest income.
  
• Stratum 2 : Low-Middle class.
  
• Stratum 3 : Middle class.
  
• Stratum 4 : Upper middle class.
  
• Stratum 5 : Upper class.
  
• Stratum 6 : Wealthy. Only the 5% of Colombians fit this category.

The system classifies areas on a scale from 1 to 6 with 1 as the lowest income area and 6 as the highest. In 1994, this stratification policy was made into law in order to grant subsidies to the poorest residents. The system is organized so that the people living in upper layers (strata 5 and 6) pay more for services like electricity, water and sewage than the groups in the lower strata.[1] Critics of the system say that impedes social mobility through stigmatization, while its proponents argue that it allows the poor to locate to areas where they will be able to access subsidized services.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Colombia