Fix problems crippling Kingston’s growth
Published:Wednesday | October 24, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Kingston, since the birth of Jamaica's identity, has been a primate city. It is often a marker of Jamaica's development and a place where rural folk often seek economic advancement. Currently, it is estimated that Kingston host approximately 39 per cent of Jamaica's 2.9 million population. This means that over a million people live within the KMA area. There is always an exodus from rural Jamaica to Kingston, which certainly has resulted in traffic congestion, high rental cost and a long-standing crime problem that has intersectional roots in politics, corruption and poverty among other things.
These developmental challenges are crippling Kingston's potential as an urban oasis: we should not be pessimistic about the challenges as most cities faced these exact issues in their growth history. We must, however, rise to the challenge and create the right infrastructure and social policies that will see that Kingston blooms into its most beautiful potential. Kingston and St Andrew have been plagued by criminal activity which was the major challenge of times past. However, emerging developmental issues in traffic and housing have caused much discomfort and dismay to people living in the urban area.
It is estimated that people spend upwards to three hours in traffic for their commute to and from work. This cannot be productive for our economy and we must find creative ways other than building new roads to facilitate this urban change. We may employ flexi-hours or cut down the number of days we ask employees to come into the office. We must also consider longer business hours and modernising many of our services so they are done online. This may result in having less people in commute trying to access the same services during the same hours.
Our economy is growing and we have a bright future so we must put policies in place that will bolster our economic growth and, of course, create good social effects on our society.
Kimberly Roach
Future Developmental Specialist