What's my name?

You sit in your million dollar home and look down at Me.  I'm just as important as you - I belong to someone.  Children write on my post as they play school.  I protect my family from the elements.  Don't I have the same worth as you who was planned, built according to city regulations? Why then do you look at me with scorn and try to remove the "eyesore" that seems to be blocking your view.  I have a right to be here! I am not squatter, shanty or slum.  I am home!

The Case of Squatting
The squatting settlement in and around San Fernando plays an important role in the development and sustainment of the City.  It is the place of residences of the labour force who keep the city cogs working in varying directions.  It is here that innovative means are used to create economic opportunities for those who exist in and out of the squatting settlement - it is more than what is reported in the newspapers

Good Fences Make Good Neighbours or does it?

The Poem by Robert Frost, Mending Fences comes to mind as I survey the various types of fences seen in residential areas on the fringes of the urban centre of San Fernando.  Are our fences a result of our historical past - a need to define what is ours that was lacking during colonial time? Are the fences a cultural symbol transmitted during acculturation? or Has more modern activities necesitated the need of fences on the urban edge? Darlene-Dee Smith and Susan Hardwick in 1982 published a paper entitled " A Geographical Analysis of Residential Front Year Fences in the Sacrament Urban Region" 

Smith and Hardwick noted that fences had different meanings for different people but underlined the fact that these fences serve important social and psychological functions. 
* Are our fences a status symbol as wrought iron fences once was?
* Do our fences give a feeling of security and privacy to the small lot assigned to us by urban planners? or
* Do our fences just allow us to be good neighbours?