USHUAIA, Argentina —Foreign tourists venture
off luxury cruise ships to pick at the succulent flesh of king
crabs. Nearby, ragtag children watch from squatters’ camps.
Drawn to the blue-ice glaciers and penguins
of the Antarctic and a cheaper peso since Argentina devalued its
currency in 2002, visitors come in droves to Ushuaia, billed as
the world’s southernmost city.
But the tourism and construction boom has led
to a chaotic surge of migrant workers, swelling its population
by 30 percent in six years to nearly 60,000.
Limited space, government red tape and poor
planning have forced some newcomers to occupy state lands,
shivering their way through a bitter winter in makeshift huts.
Some enchroach on woodlands, raising environmental red flags.
"Tourism has created lots of jobs, but it has
also brought housing problems, a crisis for the town’s only
hospital, and education troubles. These are all problems related
to progress," said Ruben Dominguez, 38, a migrant from central
Argentina.
Ushuaia (pronounced oosh-WHY-ah) is squeezed
between a pristine bay and the snow-capped Andes mountains in
southern Patagonia, some 1,850 miles (3,000 km) south of Buenos
Aires.
It overlooks the Beagle Channel, made famous
by Charles Darwin’s South American explorations.
The city’s growth is limited by geography.
Lenga trees act as a climate buffer at the mountains’ base and
peat bogs surround the city. The government is slow to grant
land titles, so rambling neighborhoods develop without official
planning.
The area was first settled by Anglican
missionaries in the 19th century, and an Argentine prison
dominated Ushuaia in the early 1900s. A new wave of migrants
arrived in the 1980s after the penitentiary closed and when tax
breaks drew electronics and appliance factories to town.
Tourism is the new magnet.
Both the Sheraton and Hilton chains are
planning hotels, a shopping center and sports complex are in the
works, and houses are being built to shelter some 3,500 families
on a government waiting list.
About 350 cruise ships a year sail to the
Antarctic from Ushuaia, up from 15 vessels ten years ago. And
tourism accounts for a quarter of the city’s gross earnings,
according to the Ushuaia Chamber of Tourism.
Salaries are relatively high, and many
residents have talked friends and family members from their
hometowns in to joining them in what has been called Argentina’s
"city at the end of the world."
"When people return from vacation, we have a big influx of
new residents in the province who we have to tend to. This is
very hard work and it has not stabilized," said Hugo Coccaro,
governor of Tierra del Fuego, the province of which Ushuaia is
the capital.
