Panama locals fight to stay:

Lat/Am

Esther Marina Sanchez has watched her neighborhood — the heart of Panama City — transformed by its designation as a UNESCO world heritage site. Tourists and well-heeled Panamanians now stroll the paving-stone streets among gaudy hotels, fancy restaurants and trendy discos that have popped up in once-dilapidated colonial-era buildings.

Gone are the gangs, the decay and abandoned structures — as well as Sanchez’s home, and those of most of her neighbors.

Sanchez recalled how her landowner offered the family money 2-1/2 years ago, but said they didn’t really have a choice: “Take it or leave it, but you’re leaving.”

A fast-moving real estate boom spurred by the 1997 declaration of the Casco Antiguo district as a world heritage site has irrevocably altered the character of the neighborhood.

Locals initially welcomed the designation, hoping to reap the benefits of the revitalization that would come. But it ended up pricing them out, as long-absent landowners suddenly saw money to be made by converting properties to hotels or night spots or renting them to wellheeled tenants.

“Instead of being a benefit, it has brought us pain, powerlessness. It has diminished us as a family,” said Sanchez, the 59-year-old leader of a residents’ association. “The social fabric that was declared here has been torn apart.”

According to census figures, the population of the Casco and neighboring San Felipe districts has dropped from about 16,000 in the early 1990s to a little over 2,000 today.

Ariana Lyma Young, director of the governmental Historic Heritage agency that approves restoration projects in the Casco, acknowledged that the boom has affected