Earl Bailey | Kingston high rise and fall

There is a famous parable found in Matthew 9:14-17, where Jesus cautioned his disciples.

‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.’

The same parable can also be found in Mark 2:18-22 and Luke 5:33-39.

With the correct rezoning and building systems, the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA) is able to accommodate just over to six million more inhabitants. This must be done with consideration of the ecological dimensions presented by climate change and the time imperative of climate departure, and even a more serious consideration of the KMA’s vulnerability to multiple man-made hazards because of conflict between its location and current physical and social systems, reinforced by antiquated policies and legislation.

While the national average household size is 3.2 persons/household, that of the KMA is 0.28. If the household size of the KMA is to equal that of the national average, its population would be 6.3 million. This can easily be accommodated with transformation in land use and zoning practices. There needs to be a massive transformation in twinning land use with transportation planning and a sustainable and comprehensive land use and zoning plan for the KMA.

There is no denying that the physical infrastructure within the KMA is ageing and decrepit. These include those dedicated to provide services for water, electrification, storm water drainage, telecommunication and Internet, sanitation and sewer, commerce and retail, banking, public transportation and road, parking, open space, parks and recreation, street furniture and signage, waste management and postal system, inter alia. These antiquated physical support systems are expected to provide services to an evolving and modernising residential building sector and its inhabitants.

Juxtaposed to these physical and social infrastructures are matching antiquated land use and zoning legislations and policies that are increasingly being reminded of their irrelevance in a modernising and urbanising space. The Town and Country Planning Act of 1957 in no way appreciates the social and cultural dynamics of contemporary urbanisation forces, which breeds a predominantly metropolitan social product. The result of this combination creates contention and mountings conflicts between the users of the space and the space itself. As old social systems battle to maintain their comfort levels and habits in the KMA, they come up against innovations in building systems and design that are bringing their former slaves next door, looking down and over on them.

Obviously, we are at a tipping point in (re)defining the KMA’s socio-physical and spatial structure. The KMA now exists within an urbanising world. It is no longer a tucked-away resort area, where only the local wealthy elites use as their playground at the behest of the other classes. On one hand, there are social transformative forces reshaping the built environment form of the KMA and the entire country. On the other hand, there are social forces that continue to reinforce old and antiquated legislations and policies.

When Jamaica’s politics ends its dependency on the provision of basic social and physical infrastructural support from a particular segment of society, then will the country begin to see development gains. The glaring fact is that Jamaica’s social and physical service providers are not ready and able to break their dependence and association with dirty politics and corrupt government practices.

The concerns and perceived challenges surrounding the vertical growth of the KMA’s building stock only exist because of discrepancies with growth and the gaps in the provision of innovative sustainable social and physical infrastructure and services.

URBAN POPULATION

Close to 57 per cent of Jamaicans live in urban areas. The greatest concentration of urban population is between Clarendon Park to Yallahs, where between 1.4 to 1.8 million Jamaicans live. Given the current socio-spatial, economic and political trends, it is also estimated that by 2050, over 1.6 million Jamaicans will be living in informal settlements including squatter communities, ghettos and garrisons, slums, and inner-urban communities. This reality will be realised given the current land use and zoning coupled with governance and political inefficiencies. This large portion of the national population are already deprived of lifeline services.

The country’s political and government machinery is obviously not ready for managing and governing an urbanising Jamaica, until they themselves are able to politicise this phenomenon. There are three criteria to urbanisation:

1. A population concentration that is proportionally larger in density and size than the normal distribution of national population.

2. A physical and social infrastructural foundation that can support this large and dense population.

3. A particular set of social and cultural conditions and behaviour that are uniquely socialised to live in and on conditions of criteria 1 and 2.

These criteria are not possible to achieve within a liberal democratic free-market economy without innovative and bold governance, which must include a strong local government system.

This rise will fall if it is not supported by the reformation of service provisions, legislation and policies with a future projection and a consideration of important ecological elements. The result will be a worsening of slums and informality and a general fall in the rise!

Earl Bailey is senior lecturer and programme director, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Technology Jamaica, and and vice-president, Jamaica Institute of Planners and consultant development planner.