The Other White House

The name "White Building" suggests something stable and pristine, and indeed it once was. But today it's a dilapidated and dangerous structure that houses more than 2,500 people in central Phnom Penh. The White Building was part of a grand plan to develop and modernize Phnom Penh after independence from France in the 1950s and 60s. Other structures in the works included a national theater, exhibition hall, and museums. The project was also Cambodia's first experiment in providing affordable housing to the working and middle classes, a great need as Phnom Penh's population swelled from 370,000 to a million during that era. In 1975, of course, those teeming masses were marched out of Phnom Penh by Pol Pot and the architectural plan was violently interrupted.

I can only imagine the trauma and desperation among the survivors when they returned to Phnom Penh in 1979. The new puppet government was too busy preparing to dominate and pillage, and didn't do much about basic needs like housing. So structures like the White Building - which had fallen into disrepair - were occupied by their former residents and others in need of shelter. The White Building grew as a community of artists, like a Williamsburg to the East (but maybe less hipster). It has become one of Phnom Penh's most vibrant communities, despite its problems with drugs, prostitution, crime, and decay (imagine children running through staircases with missing guardrails and makeshift add-ons about to collapse).

Today the community is the center of a huge controversy. The government would like to grab this prime real estate and hand it over to China or another partner for luxury development. They do it all the time, often displacing residents with little notice and scant or no compensation. But the White Building is too much a part of the city's history and identity to dismantle so easily. So talks have ensued and some reports indicate that the government will pay the residents $70K per unit to vacate - a hefty sum here. It will probably be far less. Many of the residents want to accept the payout, and who could blame them? Others don't want to leave what has become a creative and tight knit community. Given the venality of the current regime and its flagrant disregard for its citizens, I say take the money and run!

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