SOCIAL GROUP, 23rd of April 2011

Visit to San Cristobal de La Laguna and Anaga Natural Park.

For that two places, the most important for us part took place in La Laguna. First we were sightseeing along the old town, former upper town, which was the rich part of the city and currently World Heritage declared by UNESCO. On the other hand, we were taken to visit the lesser town, a place where poor people settled. The urban development of these neighbourhood was concretely during the 60s and 70s, when many migrants came back to La Laguna moved by the new economic situation, the same one that had made them to move to south America (especially Venezuela and Cuba) twenty years before, due to Franco’s autarchy. So, this place became the main area where immigrants settled.

Since that we have seen today the migration issue and due to we had already discussed about it yesterday, we have been now thinking through how to deal with this topic. Then, we realized is going to be hard to study. Once we reckon immigration is not releasable due to the difficulty to get data and carry out a proper field work in just three days, we decided not to study it itself. Discussing other ideas, we talked about social structure and differences and connections of old towns in midlands and new urban coastal areas within a municipality. Concretely, we have agreed that it is interesting the differences between these towns, not only in economics terms, but in social aspects. In order to develop that field work, we have seen that the municipality of Mogán in south Gran Canaria might be a good example for making that comparison. We will see it live in the upcoming days.