What do you understand from the term “nail house”?
I bet you love living in the place you call home, don’t you?
Surfing the web I have just stumbled upon this curious term and then, I started searching for more information on that. It came to be incredibly interesting due to the great pictures I saw and to the amazing stories I came to know.
People around the world seem to be very much connected to the place they live and so we call that place home, instead of house! A house is meant to be a construction. A home is built in tradition, stories, feelings and non-financial value. But there are circumstances in which the place you live was surely built in the wrong spot! At least it is what construction companies and governments sometimes think.
Nail houses are those constructions that their owners insisted on staying despite the threats and risks. They are the small constructions that seem to have been inserted in the heart of big constructions despite any fear, any thought of being different or weaker. They represent the victory of heart x money, values x finances and they have a heart full of stories and tradition.
As cities are growing bigger and bigger multiple shopping centers, hospitals, schools and highways have to be built to provide comfort and accessibility to citizens. As a result, governments and construction companies have to convince people they have to move out of their homes in order to allow the new building or construction to take that place.
What if people refuse and decide to stay claiming for their rights of staying? Well, it brings a lot of trouble to both sides and in the end the ones interested in constructions are not just dragging the people out of there kicking and screaming and knocking down those houses because sometimes they allow the inhabitants of those towns, villages and single houses to stay at the cost of becoming isolated, displaced and or in disadvantage for being different.
There are places where, apparently more respect for property rights is shown. Not rarely people bring those cases to court and it take ages to come to an end.
However, where the eminent domain abuse is rampant and human rights are not so much respected it is a different story! In some countries when it comes to eminent domain whole villages, towns and communities are destroyed at the will of the strong. Millions are forced off their land to make way for dams, shopping centers and the like. Cities grow fast while villages and old towns disappear in the name of development!
In the US the last major use of eminent domain project was the building of highways through downtown NYC. This is why vital infrastructure programs in the USA never get done or cost billions more. Just look at the bullet train in California.
Currently in Brazil, there is a huge number of people being taken out of their properties for the sake of two big sets of constructions driven by the government: the construction of a giant dam in Amazon, which is pulling indigenous people out of their land and the construction of highways, train stations and soccer stadiums for the next World Cup.
My thoughts stay deep inside the importance of the home not only as a place to be but also as a state of mind for the individual as the government or any other part can take it away from you at their will.