Puerto Rican Development (home, incomes, quality of life)

[lentzr]

I recently went on a cruise in the Caribbean. One of the stops was San Juan, Puerto Rico. We were actually quite surprised how nice the areas were that we visited. The Old City was lovely and we enjoyed it very much. However, we were impressed by all of the 15-20 story buildings that were built in New San Juan (Condando and neighboring areas). In fact, some parts had many new high-rise buildings going up. Our tour guide admitted that before Operation Bootstrap, the economy in PR was terrible. However, by the 80's and 90's much was being developed in San Juan.
Anyway, I am now home and I picked up a PR History book at a Barnes and Noble store. It said that the period of economic growth was from the 1950's to the 1970's. The book, along with other sources said that the 1980's and 1990's were periods of economic difficulty in PR. However, wasn't that the time the San Juan skyline was going up? How has the economy really functioned since the 1970's and when was San Juan infrastructure built up?
Secondly, how developed is PR? I have traveled to Africa, Nicaragua and Mexico. PR seemed more developed than all of these places. I know that there are many slums in other parts of SJ and poverty is still a serious problem in many parts of the island. However, in very general terms where does PR rank? My gut instinct is that the quality of life in PR is comparable to middle-income nations like Argentina, South Africa, Russia or Costa Rica. Is this a correct assumption? I know that PR is "poor" by mainland standards, but isn't it the most developed in the Caribbean?
I saw too little of PR to come to any conclusions myself. However, what I did see was signs of progress for a "poor" island. Thank you for any clarifications that you may have.

[alexis91]

The skyline in San Juan has growing since 1955, but most of them between 1970-1990. Most of the infrastructure has been built since 1960, like highways, shopping centers, etc.. PR is more developed than most countries of Latin America, and the poverty is very low, but there is. Most of the families have incomes between $15,000 and $45,000, but there are large number of families that have larger incomes. Is likely US mainland, but with less incomes (salaries) on average...