colonia
n.— «The counties of South Texas are among the nation’s poorest, and their jumbled subdivisions, known as colonias, home to 400,000 Hispanic-Americans, can certainly look the part. Since the 1950s, developers have carved small lots from mesquite woodlands and floodplains, selling them to workers with the promises that utilities, sewers and paved roads would follow. They rarely did, and for decades the colonias were seen as hopeless slums.» —“Inside a Jumble of Poverty, Texans Build a Future” by Erik Eckholm in Rio Grande, Texas New York Times Aug. 27, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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