How modern is Santo Domingo and DR in general?

Postachild

New member
May 30, 2010
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Hi All,

I last went to DR over 10 years ago and basically sticked to Punta Cana and Higuey.

How modern are cities such as Santo Domingo and Santiago in comparison to Panama City, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, etc...? I mean in terms of streets, malls, condos, nightlife, hospitals, etc...

I really love Miami's vibe and by looking at pics on the internet, I kind of get the impression that there are some similarities. Am I right?

Panama City was great too, but it seemed so tiny when driving around. How big is Santo Domingo?

I do speak some spanish, but is english widespread in the capital?

Thanks
 

pyratt

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Jan 14, 2007
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Santo Domingo is to Miami as Panama City is to Miami...they ain't Miami...unless you're measuring tall buildings, traffic, city lifestyle, noise, cars and lots of people....

Miami has 24/7 electricity & water, dependable law enforcement and infrastructure...and is more of a bi-lingual city....all that said, it's the cultural flair of the other places that's alluring
 

Expat13

Silver
Jun 7, 2008
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I wouldnt go as far as expecting Panama in Santo Domingo either. Panama has much more of a gringo english speaking presence, and less of the insanity that exists here. Obviously expect SD to be twice as expensive as Panama as well.
This said, the Capital does have an abundance of restaurants and bar/night scene that will keep you busy, but dont expect alot of English speakers or Gringos.That is more up North.
 

Postachild

New member
May 30, 2010
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Thanks for your replies.

Is SD bigger than Panama City though?

Do people working at senior positions in larger companies generally speak english as well, or is it very rare?

Thanks
 

Ezequiel

Bronze
Jun 4, 2008
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Thanks for your replies.

Is SD bigger than Panama City though?

Do people working at senior positions in larger companies generally speak english as well, or is it very rare?

Thanks

Santo Domingo is twice as bigger than Panama City with a population of almost 3 million people and the metropolitan area around 4 million.

Panama city has a population of 813,097, with a total metro population of 1,206,792.
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
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Santo Domingo is twice as bigger than Panama City with a population of almost 3 million people and the metropolitan area around 4 million.

Panama city has a population of 813,097, with a total metro population of 1,206,792.
Got a little happy with numbers there, eh?

Santo Domingo doesn't have 3 million people, that's the population of the Metro area (including the DN); the city proper is closer to 1 million.
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
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Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros
Miami has 24/7 electricity & water, dependable law enforcement and infrastructure...and is more of a bi-lingual city....all that said, it's the cultural flair of the other places that's alluring

SD lacks 24/7 electricity & water or dependable law enforcement, but all other points are pretty much covered like infrastructure and all...

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Add 24/7 electricity & water, plus dependable law enforcement and you have pretty much Miami 10 times better...
 

Postachild

New member
May 30, 2010
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Yes thanks for the pics and for your replies!

So is the electricity & water problem that bad?

Problems can happen at any time, or are there specific times during the day when you know shouldn't even bother trying turning your TV on?

Do most people use generators then?
 

captcrunch

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Apr 18, 2010
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SD lacks 24/7 electricity & water or dependable law enforcement, but all other points are pretty much covered like infrastructure and all...

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Add 24/7 electricity & water, plus dependable law enforcement and you have pretty much Miami 10 times better...

You have to be kidding me. SD is nothing like Miami. Having lived in both cities for sometime I can tell you Miami dosen't have the high crime rate, people hanging out on the streets doing nothing, smog from 2 cycle motorcycles, nightclubs without soap or tissue in restrooms, on and on. I do have a wonderful time in SD but not because of it's oppulance.
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
13,280
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You have to be kidding me. SD is nothing like Miami. Having lived in both cities for sometime I can tell you Miami dosen't have the high crime rate, people hanging out on the streets doing nothing, smog from 2 cycle motorcycles, nightclubs without soap or tissue in restrooms, on and on. I do have a wonderful time in SD but not because of it's oppulance.

Having been home in BOTH places I can tell you that Miami is just as common in criminal activity as SD 100%!

Been to clubs that lacked a door on the toilet stall, let alone the paper to wipe the bundy with! That's in Miami!~

Harleys with two welded pipes for mufflers are a dime a dozen cruising the Miami streets, with mopeds flying in and out of traffic at South Beach like if they were made of non-crushable materials! In SD they have Honda cubs/50s/70s/etc... In Miami they go with Indians, Harleys and choppers!

Go to downtown Miami and see people hanging out, let alone in most lower class "hoods" around the city. A few steps off from Brickell would suffice to find some action there! The same for SD...

Like I said, give SD electrical 24/7, water and proper sewage and it can beat Miami with one hand tied behind the back for comforts...

I can get around SD 100% on public transportation, try that in Miami and not have to leave a week's pay to the taxi cab driver, just for the fun of it!

As for depilated, ugh! looking places? SD has it all, but so too does Miami! Ever went to visit the marielito's Hialeah??? They have a bet with Cuba to see who can last longer without a hand of paint or some upgrades...

There's not a day that a boat mishap doesn't take place around Miami's marinas or waters, try that in SD? Your odds of getting run over by a drunken driver in the streets of SD, only pale to the odds of getting a "happy" boater/jet ski running you over twice in Miami. Heck! Even in the streets one must keep the eyes wide open, for the ones out of the water...

Crime in SD seems more of a problem, only because even Police are behind some of it (if not a good chunk of the overall crime waves). That's why I included a good Police and the jump of SD over Miami as a whole...
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
13,280
893
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Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros
I hate how everywhere you go in SD, there seems to be a stereo blasting from a sidewalk placed speaker!!


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OOPS! My bad again! I wrongly placed pictures from MIAMI again...
 

pyratt

Bronze
Jan 14, 2007
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Having been home in BOTH places I can tell you that Miami is just as common in criminal activity as SD 100%!

Been to clubs that lacked a door on the toilet stall, let alone the paper to wipe the bundy with! That's in Miami!~

Harleys with two welded pipes for mufflers are a dime a dozen cruising the Miami streets, with mopeds flying in and out of traffic at South Beach like if they were made of non-crushable materials! In SD they have Honda cubs/50s/70s/etc... In Miami they go with Indians, Harleys and choppers!

Go to downtown Miami and see people hanging out, let alone in most lower class "hoods" around the city. A few steps off from Brickell would suffice to find some action there! The same for SD...

Like I said, give SD electrical 24/7, water and proper sewage and it can beat Miami with one hand tied behind the back for comforts...

I can get around SD 100% on public transportation, try that in Miami and not have to leave a week's pay to the taxi cab driver, just for the fun of it!

As for depilated, ugh! looking places? SD has it all, but so too does Miami! Ever went to visit the marielito's Hialeah??? They have a bet with Cuba to see who can last longer without a hand of paint or some upgrades...

There's not a day that a boat mishap doesn't take place around Miami's marinas or waters, try that in SD? Your odds of getting run over by a drunken driver in the streets of SD, only pale to the odds of getting a "happy" boater/jet ski running you over twice in Miami. Heck! Even in the streets one must keep the eyes wide open, for the ones out of the water...

Crime in SD seems more of a problem, only because even Police are behind some of it (if not a good chunk of the overall crime waves). That's why I included a good Police and the jump of SD over Miami as a whole...
Yo P-man, I grew-up in Miami, lived in Miami and LEFT MIAMI.. South Beach is NOT representative of MIAMI and neither is downtown off Brickell....let's just base it on per capita income and housing values and leave it at that...PLUS 24/7 infrastructure. You apparently never visited Bay Harbor, Aventura, Golden Beach, Pinecrest etc....all MIAMI neighborhoods.

MIAMI'S "MALECON"...A-1-A looks nothing like the ghettos of the SD waterfront! The beaches are clean.....and the boating accidents~non-English speaking tourists on jet-skis bro~while they do occur, it's not like you have to wear protection to go swimming..and let's face it, more boats leave the docks and return safely everyday in MIAMI, than there are total boats tied to the docks in SD.

All that said, MIAMI'S a dump! A modern U.S. dump. As I said in a previous post, it's the allure of the other cities of the world that makes them desireable...the food, the culture, thie sights and sounds....but I always remember when I travel that the yolas, rafts and fence jumpers are always coming TO the the U.S.~not leaving~that's the indicator of comparison.

P.S.~Love the photos if the "Latin Community" of Miami....those parts of town were boarded up in the 60s-70s and revived by migrants to MIAMI...they've made those areas "something" out of nothing and created the cultural melting pot MIAMI is today....and they have electricity 24/7 to run those speakers too!
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
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Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros
Let's leave it at that! Been there, done that and not "downtown/south beach", but in the newest developments south of 8th st and towards the edge of the everglades, by the Eden lakes...

SD just like Miami, has its good parts and bad ones as well. Been plenty of times to Aventura and pretty much everywhere else in Miami. Great city to have fun, just like SD but in dollars... With 24/7 power, water, sewage and plenty of Police from like ten different sources to pick from.

The day SD gets those three, prices for RE there will make Miami look like a poor's man other single option, for a tropical retirement home...

Sadly, Miami concentrated all the major vertical development in the small downtown area, while the rest is as flat as a 10yo girl's chest with freckles all over... SD is growing correctly with maximum dispersion area, while going vertical.

Being the oldest city to develop in the last few years, we're bound to see better infrastructure in SD than other older developed cities around today.

That's what's taking place with the SD Metro for example, since all is new to it, having been built from scratch; the SD Metro is by far the most advanced city rail system in this hemisphere, save none! Even while Venezuela is building some other new lines, the system they opted for was not cutting edge like ours. Same goes for the other Metro lines in Canada and the US, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, etc...

A Metro like the one in SD, would cost billions per km constructed there!

Give SD ten more years of speedy development and things will look much different by them... Give people 24/7 power, water & sewage as well as good Police, and things will get very expensive soon after all over the city.
 

PICHARDO

One Dominican at a time, please!
May 15, 2003
13,280
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Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros
Generators are the norm.

As well as "Inversores" and "Cisternas" to complete the loop...

I'd never experienced being with no lights or water in my natural life in the DR... We always had both! Most people don't know this (understandably coming from 24/7 powered developed nations) but inverters have been around from a long time ago, what was not so easy to set up was the battery banks. My father always used his movie projector when the lights went out! He loved to have the backyard's wall serve as the screen (which he had us slave-sons, paint every 6 to 8 months) for the movies.

His idea was to keep us from staying inside the house wasting away the battery juice, while keeping us entertained. We got to see most movies that played in the theaters (some before their actual debut), because the distributor for the DR at the time was my uncle, so we got a copy to watch like clock work. The projector was huge and heavy like hell! (again we slave-sons had to do the lifting and all)...

I got to learn how to splice and bond film like a master, since there were plenty of copies that came from Puerto Rico with damages on them. There's a nifty trick to have the action follow the panels, so that it was hard to notice the splices and bonds. The biggest problem was the sound strips; they never could be done to go smooth with the fixes.

Some movies were two and three reels long!

I miss those days of fun! What we had then, our kids will never get to enjoy!
 

corsair74

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Jul 3, 2006
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Beautiful pics of SD PICHARDO. I never seem to remember to take enough pics when I'm in the Capital.