By Rena Effendi 1/25/05
A EurasiaNet Photo Essay
SOURCE: EurasiaNet.org, February 24, 2005
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Since regaining its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan’s capital city, Baku, has experienced a sudden influx of investment, most of it connected with energy development projects. Not only has oil money helped widen the gap between rich and poor, it has caused a dramatic change in Baku’s physical appearance, with high-rise office and residential buildings springing up suddenly all over the city. The images in this photo essay strive to underscore that many of Baku’s development decisions are driven by greed instead of sound policy, resulting in a lack of urban planning.

Located in the center of Baku, Mahalla (Arabic for neighborhood community) is a historically poor neighborhood where people have lived their entire lives in small, flat roofed houses. Most neighborhood residents are engaged in petty trade and businesses run out of their homes. Mahalla is one of the oldest areas of the city with its own diverse and resistant culture, a bastion of poverty and tradition.

Life in Mahalla is lived on the street where the space itself, shared for decades, creates strong familial bonds. Marriage between neighbors is the norm. Together, Mahalla residents struggle daily with a myriad of problems – poverty, crime, the collapse of social infrastructure.

Already difficult socio-economic conditions are compounded these days by corruption and government neglect. In the past few years, a construction boom stemming from the country’s oil wealth has fueled demand for prime real estate in the center of the city. The temptation of quick profits has prompted local officials to make questionable social-policy decisions. They already have re-located a significant number of Mahalla residents, demolishing the old homes, and selling the land to construction companies. In the process, some officials have allegedly profited handsomely. Those old-timer residents who remain in Mahalla worry that they too will be forced from their homes, in order to make way for luxury high-rise apartment buildings.

The compensation given by city officials to relocating Mahalla residents stands at about $5,000 per family member. With Baku real estate prices skyrocketing, many Mahalla families are finding that they don’t have sufficient resources to locate new homes in the capital. As a result, families are being divided and many are having troubling dealing with the challenges of adjusting to unfamiliar places, finding new sources of income and integrating into strange communities.

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