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Business Daily: Living on the Border

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Living on the Border

04/10/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Living on the Border

Joe Miller reports from the colonias - unregulated settlements - on the US-Mexico border.

Joe Miller reports from the colonias - unregulated settlements - on the US-Mexico border, where communities of mainly Mexican Americans live in poverty.

In the US there are communities living without access to proper sewerage systems, running water and electricity. They are in many ways modern day slums and they are called Colonias. Mainly clustered around the Texas-Mexico border, these communities of mainly second generation Mexican Americans have some of the worst poverty rates in the whole country. Many of them do not have bank accounts, and exploitation by payday lenders and property developers has led to colonia residents in inescapable debt cycles. 

Joe Miller meets those still living in these conditions today, and those who grew up in colonias and who are now shaping policy to eradicate them in the future. Joe asks why colonias still exist, and how financial education can play a better role and encourage entrepreneurship in this often forgotten part of the US.

(Photo: A colonia on the Texas-Mexico border)

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