A Fight to Save One of Latin America's Oldest Neighborhoods
In a city better known for its canal, what started as a grassroots campaign against a new highway project has vaulted to the forefront of the national media. The debate is centered on a marine viaduct less than two kilometers long called the Cinta Costera which, if completed, would envelop the city’s San Felipe neighborhood in six lanes of traffic.
The neighborhood in question is far from your run-of-the-mill barrio. Founded by the Spanish Crown in 1673, San Felipe – locally known as the Casco Antiguo (Old Quarter) – is a charming colonial-era UNESCO World Heritage site and the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas. The Casco’s cobblestone streets, Spanish colonial architecture and majestic plazas have garnered a considerable amount of international acclaim in the past 10 years, attracting ex-pats and tourists, as well as the Panamanian avant-garde to redevelop what has historically been the city’s political and cultural nucleus.