Usage
The United States usage of the term barrio is also seen in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, where barrio is commonly given to slums in the outer rims of big cities such as Caracas and Santo Domingo, as well as lower to middle-class neighborhoods in other cities and towns.
Localities in the United States containing a sector called barrio include Manhattan, East Los Angeles, California; and Chicago, Illinois. Some of these are referred to as just "El Barrio" by the locals and nearby residents.
Urban barrios portrayed in national media and pop culture include Spanish Harlem, East Los Angeles, and Chicago, Illinois.
In Cuba, Puerto Rico and Spain, the term barrio is used officially to denote a subdivision of a municipio (or municipality); the barrios are further subdivided into sectors. Previously, in the Philippines, the term also referred to as rural village and now changed by law to barangay - the basic political unit of government.
In Argentina and Uruguay, a barrio is a traditional division of a municipality officially delineated by the local authority at a later time, and sometimes keeps a distinct character from others (as in the barrios of Buenos Aires though they have been superseded by larger administrative divisions). Here, the word does not have a special socioeconomic connotation, except that it is used in contrast to the centro (city center or downtown). The expression barrio cerrado (translated "closed neighborhood") is employed for small, upper-class, residential settlements, planned with an exclusive criterion and often literally enclosed in walls (a kind of gated community).
In the United States barrios can also refer to the geographical "turf" claimed by a Latino gang; this usage is generally limited to the Chicano gangs of California. The dramatization of gang life in music videos and movies has popularized this usage among the general population. In yet another colloquial usage of the term, ethnic "ghettos" and "-towns" are often referred to by Spanish speakers as barrios appended with the appropriate qualifying adjective. For example, Chinatowns are known as barrios chinos.
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