Donald Reece | Jump-start revival of rural towns

In your Tuesday, April 10, 2018 edition of The Gleaner, the article 'Develop rural towns to address urban drift, McKenzie tells mayors' is potential good news for our country, if what is suggested is allowed to germinate and bear fruit.

I have often maintained that if we are to address the squatting and slum problems caused by lack of opportunity for many, we must think broadly and radically about decentralisation.

In a previous issue of your paper, Senator Don Wehby mentioned that there are two things that the average Jamaican needs: land and a good education for his/her children. I would add two other urgent needs: employment and health. These needs will never be met if we continue to develop urban centres alone.

It is understandable that our people from rural areas will always want to set their sights on cities where they believe that they can fulfil their basic needs. The saying, 'How you gonna keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paris?', is real.

Local Government and Community Development Minister Desmond McKenzie was 'spot on' when he "told the gathering of regional mayors in Kingston that while urban drift continues to be a challenge worth inspecting, it was now time that local governments in the region began to look at the development of semi-urban spaces to tackle the growing problem" of the migratory movement of people from rural areas to make a life for themselves.

I wonder if this will ever get off the pages of the newspaper and be seriously considered by our government officials. Why do I wonder? The required decentralisation that is called for in any effective local government might challenge the quest for central government power that can easily become intoxicating and myopic.

Development at semi-urban and rural areas, in my layman's understanding, must include the possibility of acquiring land (with title in hand) for productivity; opportunity of good learning centres (basic, primary, and high schools; skill training centres); employment opportunity (e.g., corporations given incentives to decentralise, wherever possible); upgrading of health centres; parks or gardens to beautify the environment; recreational and cultural centres; community centres where people might have town hall meetings to address local issues.

What comes to mind with this decentralisation are two models: Brasilia (capital of Brazil) and Belmopan (Belize), both of them being in deep-rural areas.

Decentralisation demands effective infrastructure that would ensure proper and lasting development. Can one imagine the Ministry of Agriculture, for instance, being relocated to a rural parish like St Elizabeth? Effective infrastructure would certainly follow!

One must keep on dreaming that one day the "common-sense light bulb" will somehow illuminate those sitting in Gordon House so that the country's resources will ultimately be enjoyed not by some but by all. Thus I pray!

- Archbishop Emeritus Donald J. Reece is acting pastor of St Richard's Catholic Church. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and don.j.reece@gmail.com.