the INCREMENTAL house

  Driving down US-19 from Bryson City to Cherokee, NC, there exists a campground that is unique even for Western North Carolina.  While it is not uncommon to see RV's with permanent roofs built over them, this particular campground in the small community of Ella was extraordinary because so many of the structures, as well as the community itself, had become permanent. Most campgrounds of this sort provide summer havens for people from the deep south.  In the summer, they can bring their homes up to the cooler mountains, and then in winter, they can take them back where it is warmer.  However, many people now live in this community permanently, as they have found a way to exand their living space while not having to pay the high costs of land and materials typicaly in many houses in Western North Carolina.

On my first day back, I went on some house visits with one of the nurses at the local health clinic, and spent the day looking at some rooms where I could stay for a month. Wandering around Senkata, it still feels like a ghost town. Is this what was recently considered the fastest growing city in Latin America ? Where is everyone? Knocking on doors, it became very clear that many people were away, working….somewhere. Probably in La Paz . Returning to La Paz from El Alto, we passed a massive line of people waiting for transportation back to El Alto. The people have to live so far away to make a living in the modern metropolis. It is a taxing journey packed into small vehicles, dodging traffic and everything else. Even though, people are hidden behind the walls of their homes. The nurse told me that people are afraid of thieves. I wonder what applications Jane Jacob’s ‘eyes on the street’ has here. If the public and private realms were more permeable and peo...