Puerto Rico is not a third world country

Author: The Gringo

15 Feb

I honestly don’t know what I was expecting when I first moved to Puerto Rico but it wasn’t this. I was expecting more of a third world country. Before I moved to Puerto Rico, I kept reading how the average income was somewhere around $18,000. I was expecting the country to look run down. You know how the movies make Mexico look. Maybe a little like an old western. Let me tell you I was wrong.

When you leave the San Juan airport the first thing you notice is life here is just like the USA. There are pretty much all of the fast food restaurants you have come to love. We have Wal-Mart, Sams, Costco, you name it. People even dress the same. As weird as this might sound, I was disappointed. I wanted to get away from the “American” way of life. I was hoping to leave the world of commercialism.

Filed under: Money

Tags: commercialism, income, San Juan, third world country

6 Responses for "Puerto Rico is not a third world country"

DarK SouL March 17th, 2008 at 11:48 pm 1
“I was hoping to leave the world of commercialism.”

OMG, you came to the wrong place!

I dont know where you are living but I am guessing its in the metro area, if you want a different lifestyle you should visit the center of the island and stay there a couple of days, “la ijla” as we call it, life there is VERY different and slow paced compared to what we have in San Juan.
Pamagester April 27th, 2008 at 8:31 pm 2
Well welcome to the tourist side of Puerto Rico. The pretty face, where the rich people that are mostly not puertorricans live. Just come live in the mountains, where the real puertorrican live. Go to one of the cities in the center, look for the “Plaza” and walk away from it, you will notice the rundown buildings. Or go to “La perla” in San Juan, yeah you will see a lot of poverty there. You might not get the hungry kid dieing in the middle of a dirt road, but you might start noticing why they call it a third world country.

And besides all countries have something beautiful to share, so don’t be surprised to find beauty and sometimes richness in unexpected places.
The Gringo April 29th, 2008 at 4:03 pm 3
While I can’t say I have really been to the center of the island, I can say that I have seen La Perla (not been in). I have to disagree though. Just because PR has their slums, hoods, ghettos, or whatever you want to call them… That makes it a third world country?

I am pretty sure every big city has this same problem…

I dunno, maybe I am looking at it wrong. I just alway thought of a third world country something like Haiti. Where everyone in the county is begging for food. If I were to read the classifieds in Haiti, I doubt I would see to many million dollar homes for sale…
DarK SouL April 29th, 2008 at 11:52 pm 4
@Pamagester
“Just come live in the mountains, where the real puertorrican live”

WTF?

So, I am not a real Puerto Rican because I live in Guaynabo? You need to get out more.

BTW, Puerto Rico is not a third world country, the only people here that starves to death are those who choose to.
Pamagester June 25th, 2008 at 2:19 am 5
Yeah I was just joking about the real puertorricans live in the mountains, but you need to look at the large amount of population that live in the mountains yes there are a lot of mansions in the mountains but I’m talking about those, probably around a million that live in wooden houses. And yes puerto rico is not the kind of country you find with people dieing in the streets of hunger, so its rather hard to picture it as a third world. Its mostly because of its slow development compared to the rest of the world in most part of the country, special not the “area metropolitana”, but besides that and compared to the third world country it just sounds wrong.
DarK SouL July 2nd, 2008 at 2:37 am 6
HAHAHAHA, development, lol, you should come to the USA and drive from Florida to Texas and THEN you will see how an undeveloped country REALLY looks like. Believe me when I say that Puerto Rico is pretty much over developed.