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Must-do projects for our 50th Anniversary
Thursday, June 09, 2011
JAMAICA'S economic activity is geographically concentrated partly by nature and partly by human action, or more accurately, lack of conscious action.
Economic activity has traditionally been geographically located and distributed across the island by nature acting through the market and private initiative. For example, bauxite mining occurs where there are deposits of bauxite and hotels have been built near to the best beaches. Similarly, sugar cane and bananas have been grown on the land best suited for their production.
This geographically dispersed pattern of economic activity has also been influenced by man-made decisions. Policy decisions on the location of roads, water mains, schools, infrastructure and electricity, for example, have influenced where jobs are generated and that in turn reflected where people decided to settle.
In our view, we lack transformative leadership and we have not devoted sufficient attention to the issue of the economic and human geography in the implementation of economic policy. The most graphic evidence is the over-urbanisation of Jamaica as reflected in the urban ghettoes of Kingston, Spanish Town and Montego Bay.
It is also abundantly clear in the misuse of land which has resulted from the absence of physical planning. The majority of small farmers are tilling land which is only marginally suitable for crop production; residential areas have consumed some of the most fertile farmland; uncontrolled human settlement has denuded the watershed and some hotels appear to have been built far too close to shoreline.
Even at this late stage, the Government of Jamaica needs to formulate or dust off and commence the implementation of a policy of economic development in which economic geography is a central tenet. One of the most important planks is economic decentralisation; based on locating and generating employment where people are already settled so that the drift of rural unemployed into urban areas is reduced and in some instances reversed. This should start with the economic relocation of state-run offices.
We suggest that government begins by moving the Ministry of Agriculture to May Pen, the Ministry of Tourism to Montego Bay and the Ministry of Mining and the Jamaica Bauxite Institute to Mandeville. The ministers only need to be in Kingston on Mondays for Cabinet and other special meetings and the rest of the time use the telephone and email.
The headquarters of the Jamaica Constabulary Force must immediately be moved to Kingston and off the most expensive residential real estate in St Andrew. Up Park Camp and Newcastle Training College should remain where they are. The new cruise shipping pier should be constructed in Port Royal and an airport at Vernamfield, Clarendon would revitalise the economically depressed satellite communities.
The Bellevue Asylum must be moved, freeing up land which in any other country would be the most expensive and prized residential and recreational land on one of the most beautiful harbours in the world. The development of this real estate would transform that part of Kingston.
The economic development strategy of Jamaica must take into account the geographic dispersal of economic activity. The physical distribution of economic development should not be left entirely to the market.
There must be planning to avoid uneven geographic development.
Much of this is not new.
Let's adopt them as projects for our 50th anniversary
of Independence.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...#ixzz1OnIhaTtT
Thursday, June 09, 2011
JAMAICA'S economic activity is geographically concentrated partly by nature and partly by human action, or more accurately, lack of conscious action.
Economic activity has traditionally been geographically located and distributed across the island by nature acting through the market and private initiative. For example, bauxite mining occurs where there are deposits of bauxite and hotels have been built near to the best beaches. Similarly, sugar cane and bananas have been grown on the land best suited for their production.
This geographically dispersed pattern of economic activity has also been influenced by man-made decisions. Policy decisions on the location of roads, water mains, schools, infrastructure and electricity, for example, have influenced where jobs are generated and that in turn reflected where people decided to settle.
In our view, we lack transformative leadership and we have not devoted sufficient attention to the issue of the economic and human geography in the implementation of economic policy. The most graphic evidence is the over-urbanisation of Jamaica as reflected in the urban ghettoes of Kingston, Spanish Town and Montego Bay.
It is also abundantly clear in the misuse of land which has resulted from the absence of physical planning. The majority of small farmers are tilling land which is only marginally suitable for crop production; residential areas have consumed some of the most fertile farmland; uncontrolled human settlement has denuded the watershed and some hotels appear to have been built far too close to shoreline.
Even at this late stage, the Government of Jamaica needs to formulate or dust off and commence the implementation of a policy of economic development in which economic geography is a central tenet. One of the most important planks is economic decentralisation; based on locating and generating employment where people are already settled so that the drift of rural unemployed into urban areas is reduced and in some instances reversed. This should start with the economic relocation of state-run offices.
We suggest that government begins by moving the Ministry of Agriculture to May Pen, the Ministry of Tourism to Montego Bay and the Ministry of Mining and the Jamaica Bauxite Institute to Mandeville. The ministers only need to be in Kingston on Mondays for Cabinet and other special meetings and the rest of the time use the telephone and email.
The headquarters of the Jamaica Constabulary Force must immediately be moved to Kingston and off the most expensive residential real estate in St Andrew. Up Park Camp and Newcastle Training College should remain where they are. The new cruise shipping pier should be constructed in Port Royal and an airport at Vernamfield, Clarendon would revitalise the economically depressed satellite communities.
The Bellevue Asylum must be moved, freeing up land which in any other country would be the most expensive and prized residential and recreational land on one of the most beautiful harbours in the world. The development of this real estate would transform that part of Kingston.
The economic development strategy of Jamaica must take into account the geographic dispersal of economic activity. The physical distribution of economic development should not be left entirely to the market.
There must be planning to avoid uneven geographic development.
Much of this is not new.
Let's adopt them as projects for our 50th anniversary
of Independence.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...#ixzz1OnIhaTtT
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