One of my final assignments for the semester, about Argentina's housing system, made me think more about Latin America than I have in several years. For my longest bout of procrastination I spent about 30 minutes staring at Google Maps and Earth images of Santiago, where I lived and studied for seven wonderful months in 2004, and reading Craigslist ads for apartments in Buenos Aires. Aside from the general lack of responsibility I had in Santiago and the breezy days that resulted, I think there's something enchanting about the Southern Cone, this removed corner of the world that's cosmopolitan and breathtaking.
As much as I want to go back today, I think I'd prefer to go to those two cities circa 1985. It would be authoritarian in one and inflationary in the other, but they were distinct in a way that probably no longer exists and can't be replicated. That adjective -- "distinct" -- is a strong pull in the early 21st century, when globalization creates generic spaces, experiences and conditions. Today, those few different places are in Africa and parts of the Middle East and South Asia, but they strike me as too chaotic and, in some places, violent, in a way that the Southern Cone wasn't back then. (If anything, the place in those regions I want to visit most is Dubai, to see hyper-generic, plastic capitalism at its most outrageous.) They don't hold the same allure, though I'm sure there are a few cities that are exceptions.
One of the things that bothers me about circa 2010 is how hard it is to find something different. Yes, I realize I'm opening myself to charges of slumming it and romanticizing hard times. I realize how nice we have it here.
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