AS THE Local Government election campaign heats up, the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Development Committee (KSAPDC) is holding a series of "visioning workshops" to canvass the views of citizens on what they want for Kingston and St Andrew.
More intensely than in the past, this Local Government poll is shaping up to be an alternative general election and a referendum on the Government in office. This centralisation of Local Government has been one of the major bugbears hindering the system from fulfilling its purpose.
A functional system of Local Government is a bastion of democracy allowing citizens to more directly influence and manage affairs at levels that affect them most. Many aspects of development can best proceed at the local level as local problems find solution through local political action.
What the Parish Councils and the KSAC need are greater autonomy and secure sources of revenue. The long drawn out process of Local Government reform was supposed to be moving in this direction. But even after a two-year delay the country goes to yet another Local Government poll without these necessary changes firmly in place.
Nonetheless, the attempt of the KSAPDC to "craft a vision for a brighter Kingston and St Andrew" through citizens' participation is a commendable step. The Kingston Metropolitan Region has all the advantages to be the jewel of the Caribbean. And the surrounding hills have potential to be an important part of the breadbasket of the city and cool suburbia.
The Corporate Area has the highest crime rates in the country and some of the highest rates in the world. The rich tourism potential of Port Royal-City-mountains is waiting to be tapped.
There are the problems of unplanned urban growth and poor management, with all the myriad spin-off difficulties which now bedevil the nation's capital. But the area is the cultural, social, educational and economic capital of the country and not just the political centre. The devastating decay of the parish of Kingston proper which constitutes City Centre and immediate surroundings and of Southern St. Andrew south of Cross Roads can and must be reversed. A functional KSAC should have a key role to play.
What has received much less attention, both in media coverage and in Government action, has been the decay of rural St Andrew. Except for those townships like Red Hills, Stony Hill and Gordon Town, which have been absorbed into the northern expansion of the city, there is precious little by way of any new development in the parish outside of the city. Rather there has been much decay; public transport being just one significant index of the decline.
A number of other parishes have previously launched their own development committees. We can only hope that after June 19, the newly elected councils, which will be thickly populated by bright young people, will work with these committees to turn visions into reality.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
