Quintas de Pontezuela (Santiago)

[NALs]

The top of the several top neighborhoods in Santiago is very hard to access due to being a private gated community and very stringent security. However, this Peruvian guy met a Dominican with access to this place. As is the case with most gated communities in Santiago (actually in the DR), most owners are Dominicans. The video was uploaded on November 9, 2022. A small tour starts at 15:15. They also give a shorter tour of La Catalina, another gated community in Santiago.

It's in Spanish, but CC in English can be activated.

 

[bachata]

I will be okay in my apartamento en La Villa Olímpica, not need all that luxury.

JJ

 

[bachata]

The video don't show how bad the traffic is in Santiago.
Took me half hour to drive two miles last time I was there.

JJ

 

[NALs]

Traffic is bad everywhere in the DR. lol

Even Punta Cana now see traffic jams. That's what happens when the people without vision take control, though in Punta Cana is more of a lack of planning. In Santiago, Santo Domingo, and many other areas is more of inadequate planning than a total lack as what happen in Punta Cana (outside private developments).

Case in point, when Joaquín Balaguer built Churchill Ave in Santo Domingo in the 1970's, it was greatly criticized because how it look then was a major avenue built in the middle of nowhere. For many years you could lay down and sleep on the road with no risk of being runover by anyone. It was mostly empty fields with grass and trees on both sides. Traffic lights were lacking too mostly because they weren't needed. One of the names given by the critics was "the sumptous avenue" since it look like a complete waste of money. Balaguer was crazy, didn't know what he was doing, a fool. Today, no one thinks that about Churchill Ave, instead every avenue in SD should had been as wide as Churchill Ave including avenues that are avenues in nsme only like Defillo Ave. Turns out Balaguer was able to imagine what the future will be and if it wasn't for people who lacked vision, he would had achieved much more on this front. He is also the reason why SD has large parks like Mirador Sur, Norte, Este; a botanical garden, a zoo, an acquarium, etc. Then highly criticised by those without vision, today highly greatful they were created.

After spending much time researching the case of Churchill Ave, I'm convinced the intense criticism the building of this avenue greatly reduced the building of other wide avenues in SD. Imagine how much worst traffic would had been in SD if the few wide avenues that exist would had never been built!

Now you have to buy or expropiate many properties, destroy many buildings, etc if you want to expand an avenue into an actual wide avenue. In many cases this is impossible. Back then much of the current Santo Domingo (and every city, town, and village in the DR) was a clean slate ready for good planning from the start.

Look at Cabarete. That's basically a one road village! Do I need to say more?

 

[bachata]

Traffic is bad everywhere in the DR. lol

Even Punta Cana now see traffic jams. That's what happens when the people without vision take control, though in Punta Cana is more of a lack of planning. In Santiago, Santo Domingo, and many other areas us more of inadequate planning that a total lack as what happen in Punta Cana (outside private developments).

Case in point, when Joaquín Balaguer built Churchill Ave in Santo Domingo in the 1970's, it was greatly criticized because how it look then was a major avenue built in the middle of nowhere. For many years you could laydown and sleep on the road with no risk of being run over by anyone. It was mostly empty fields with grass and trees on both sides. Traffic lights were lacking too mostly because thry weren't needed. One of the names given by the critics was "the sumptous avenue" since it look like a complete waste of money. Today no one thinks that about Churchill Ave, instead every avenue in SD should had been as wide as Churchill Ave including avenues that are avenues in nsme only like Defillo Ave. After spending much time researching the case of Churchill Ave, I'm convinced the intense criticism the building of this avenue greatly reduced the building of other wide avenues in SD. Imagine how much worst traffic would had been in SD if the few wide avenues that exist would had never been built!

Now you have to buy or expropiate many properties, destroy many buildings, etc if you want to expand an avenue into an actual wide avenue. In many cases this is impossible. Back then much of the current Santo Domingo (and every city, town, and village in the DR) was a clean slate ready for good planning from the start.

Look at Cabarete. That's basically a one road village! Do I need to say more?

Cabarete and Sosua, both cities have been abandoned by the government talking about infrastructure and vial.
Just think about, only one main road cut through both cities.
This is ridicule!
At least in both cities traffic calm down after rush hours not same in Santiago and r SD.

JJ

 

[LindseyKaufman]

The houses are extremely large there and, yes, well built. But they are cold. Who wants to live in a large space of concrete and granite? Where is wood? Where are touches of warmth? Me? I would prefer a tiny wood house in the campo over these monstrosities. To me, they are an example of new money and no real taste.

 

[bob saunders]

The houses are extremely large there and, yes, well built. But they are cold. Who wants to live in a large space of concrete and granite? Where is wood? Where are touches of warmth? Me? I would prefer a tiny wood house in the campo over these monstrosities. To me, they are an example of new money and no real taste.

Different taste, not no real taste. I quite like the minimalist look in architecture but agree with you on the warmth of wood. I grew up in a lob house.

 

[reilleyp]

Different taste, not no real taste. I quite like the minimalist look in architecture but agree with you on the warmth of wood. I grew up in a lob house.

I assume you meant to write log house. If not, what is a lob house? I love wood and I have tons of wood in the US and that is my preference, but in the DR, I found it to be a constant battle of wood vs; termites, mold, warping, cracking, those small things that turn your wood into dust, etc etc. I am now transitioning to more ceramic, coralina, quartz, marble, and engineered wood. Yes it is a little more cold, but I balance it out with lots of plants, fruits, veggies and trees, in and outside of the house.

 

[LindseyKaufman]

I assume you meant to write log house. If not, what is a lob house? I love wood and I have tons of wood in the US and that is my preference, but in the DR, I found it to be a constant battle of wood vs; termites, mold, warping, cracking, those small things that turn your wood into dust, etc etc. I am now transitioning to more ceramic, coralina, quartz, marble, and engineered wood. Yes it is a little more cold, but I balance it out with lots of plants, fruits, veggies and trees, in and outside of the house.

I have treated pine cathedral ceilings and absolutely love them. They are a work of art!!!

 

[bachata]

People move from over there because they it over here but then everything from over there is better than it is over here and start to try to change it.
I live in a wooden/ bricks house in the US but I like the construction of Dominican concrete houses better, they are strong.

JJ

 

[NALs]

People move from over there because they it over here but then everything from over there is better than it is over here and start to try to change it.
I live in a wooden/ bricks house in the US but I like the construction of Dominican concrete houses better, they are strong.

JJ

Wood is better heat insulator and that is why wood is preferred for houses in the colder parts of the USA.

In Florida, where it doesn't get as cold as in much of the USA and when it does it lasts a short time, houses tend to have cinderblock outside walls. Cinderblock is easier to cool and remains cool longer than wood, hence cinderblock is preferred in hot places. There is a difference between the typical house in Florida and those in the DR and that is Florida homes have a wooden roof instead of a cement roof. This is done not just to lower construction costs, but heat tends to rise and a wooden roof adds a further impediment to heat escaping into the atmosphere. On those times when it does gets cold in Florida, heating homes would had required a stronger work from the ac/heating system if the roof was not made of wood.

 

[bachata]

Wood is better heat insulator and that is why wood is preferred for houses in the colder parts of the USA.

In Florida, where it doesn't get as cold as in much of the USA and when it does it lasts a short time, houses tend to have cinderblock outside walls. Cinderblock is easier to cool and remains cool longer than wood, hence cinderblock is preferred in hot places. There is a difference between the typical house in Florida and those in the DR and that is Florida homes have a wooden roof instead of a cement roof. This is done not just to lower construction costs, but heat tends to rise and a wooden roof adds a further impediment to heat escaping into the atmosphere. On those times when it does gets cold in Florida, heating homes would had required a stronger work from the ac/heating system if the roof was not made of wood.

Yes I've been in Florida many times. Houses and townhomes are weak too compared to DR.
They build a external cement blocks estructura with very little of rebars.

JJ

 

[NALs]

The rebars are reinforcement for earthquakes, something Florida doesn't have but the DR does. If a smsll earthquake hits anywhere in Florida it will be a major disaster, yet Santo Domingo is shaken very lightly several times a year and life goes as if nothing happened. lol

Some people are so accustomed to the small shocks, that they never feel them and others need to tell them the ground shook for them to know. A Floridian will feel them all. lol