Alejandro de Humboldt University Andrés Bello

Cultural training III

Section DCM0301CI

CHRONICLES OF CARACAS IN THE

20TH CENTURY

Caracas, November 2020

 ANALYSIS OF CHRONICLES OF CARACAS IN THE 20TH CENTURY

This extraordinary documentary shows the “physical expansion,

demographic growth and changes in the way of life of the city of Caracas
throughout the 20th century. “It is undoubtedly a contribution to rescuing the
memory of the capital of Venezuela.” It was possible to observe the change
that the Venezuelan capital has presented throughout all these years, both
geographically and demographically, as well as the sociological and cultural
changes of the people who lived and live in Caracas. In principle, the city of
Caracas was not as we see it today, there were no cars or large buildings and
neither did it have the inhabitants who currently reside in the capital. The
inhabitants of Caracas at the beginning of the 20th century worked in
agriculture, traveled by horse, had farms and lived off of them. The residents
held meetings in the squares, with cordiality, where they shared a pleasant
time with their friends and loved ones, they also socialized talking outside
their houses, sitting in chairs, on the corners, watching the people who
passed by pass by. .

Over time cars appeared, only a few people owned them. With the
arrival of Oil and its exploitation in our country, the country's income
increased and in Caracas numerous architectural works began to be carried
out, and due to the increase in the acquisition of automobiles, the government
in power saw the need to create more highways and alternate roads, since
the traffic due to the number of cars was excessive, since the streets were
not designed for so many vehicles.

People from the interior of the country began to move to the capital,
since in Caracas there were more job opportunities, which is why the
population increased considerably.
 You can compare how the inhabitants of Caracas have changed their
culture over the years and globalization. Now the places of socialization have
changed for shopping centers, nightclubs, etc. That tradition of sitting outside
the houses has been lost not only in the Capital but in the majority of the
national territory, not only because of ideology but because there is currently
great insecurity.

Caracas began as a colonial grid, then one-story Paris, later a large

urban laboratory, a vision of a modernity project, and today it is a large city for
some and narrow for others, with its great problems of insecurity and
vehicular traffic, but it continues to be the center of the country's major
political, economic, social and cultural events, in which there is still much to
do.