Panama City: A boomtown with growing pains - The canal expansion and an influx of firms are transforming the city, but its infrastructure is sorely inadequate.

The explosions that shatter the early morning quiet here are perfect metaphors for another kind of boom, the economic one transforming Panama’s capital.

The blasts a few miles north of the city are part of the first phase of the $5.25-billion Panama Canal expansion project. They are clearing a path for new locks that will modernize the historic waterway and, in 2014, enable bigger ships to traverse the isthmus.

This country’s economy grew 11% last year, in large part because of expectations of continued prosperity resulting from a bigger and busier canal. But there is more going on in Panama than just a massive public works project.”*

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