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VIDEO: Caracas’ Tower of David, the World's Tallest Slum

Categories: Latin America, Venezuela, Citizen Media, Development, Economics & Business, Governance

VocativVideo has produced a video [1] about Venezuela's ‘Tower of David’ [2], an unfinished 45-story building taken over by squatters in the 1990s:

The tower was originally intended to be a symbol of Caracas’ bright financial future, complete with a rooftop helipad, but construction stopped because of a banking crisis and the sudden death of the tower's namesake, David Brillembourg.

Today, as the government is grappling with a citywide housing shortage, the tower is a stark monument to what could have been in the country's crime-plagued capital. The tower is dogged by accusations of being a hotbed of crime, drugs and corruption. But to residents, many of whom have spent their entire lives there, it's just home.