Towards Real Urban Renewal

Like those other Bahamians and residents alike who consider themselves people who love this land, we are appalled at what seems to be the studied neglect of some of this nation’s heartland communities.

Whether reference is made to efforts made by either the Progressive Liberal Party or the Free National Movement, both stand accused of paying little more than lip-service to the needs of people who live in areas like Nassau Village, Grant’s Town, Bain Town, Englerston, Fox Hill, Kemp Road, its environs and other such communities.

In instance after unfortunate instance, this or that band of national leaders and constituency leaders would take an obligatory walkabout in a neighbourhood, presumably to get their own whiff and sight of just how bad things happen to be.

Thereafter, these same people make their equally obligatory report to media and then that’s that; they then move on to business that is supposedly more real for them.

Predictably, things go from bad to worse.

In instance after dreadful instance, lives of young and old are left blighted and bereft of hope.

Exacerbating the despair these places is the fact that some of these decaying communities continue to feed the dreams and ambitions of any number of slum-landlords.

Of note, too, is the fact that these communities are today home to what we would call some of this nation’s ‘newest Bahamians’. Here the reference is to that panoply of Jamaicans, Haitians and their hyphenated brew of Haitian- and Jamaican-Bahamians.

As we have come to learn, most of these people are happy enough to be alive and working in The Bahamas, thereby fulfilling the landlord’s dream of collecting money from properties that are in the throes of degradation, calamity and collapse.

This should not be allowed.

Like other Bahamians who know sense when they hear it, today we make reference to some truly good sense that recently came our way.

Here the reference is to some views we have recently heard expressed concerning some of the bickering and squabbling that broke out between partisans of the Progressive Liberal Party and their nemeses in the Free National Movement as regards that project that has come to be known as Urban Renewal.

We are getting the impression that each is convinced that the other is acting in bad faith.

This is –quite literally speaking- neither here nor there.

Had it been our decision to make, this matter concerning urban renewal would be placed outside the realm of partisan political bickering.

Indeed, we go further with the suggestion that the fuss today is not about urban renewal, but about the extent to which two rivals are prepared to go as they attempt to demonize each other.

In the meantime, the people’s business is being left unattended.

It is this aspect of the matter that today draws our ire.

Bahamians are notoriously conservative. They have a way of holding on to old ways of thinking and old ways of doing things.

The reason for this is simple enough. As the facts of social history would readily demonstrate, Bahamians have an extremely well developed sense of precedent and making haste slowly.

In the main, most Bahamians have benefited from this kind of outlook.

Trouble is that there are indicators galore to suggest that things are changing; that old ways of thinking, old ways of coping and old ways of doing things may have finally reached the point where they will be washed away.

In this regard, hundreds of otherwise clear-thinking Bahamians continue to turn a blind-eye to the plight that has landed thousands of their fellow-human beings to a miserable existence in some of this nation’s deteriorating heartland communities.

On occasion, those who say they see and care offer little more than placebos and palliatives. As a consequence, things have been allowed to go from bad to worse.

The time has come for real urban renewal.

Such an effort would involve not only government, but would also take into consideration the role that business can and should play in revitalizing community based enterprises.

Quite evidently, there are also subsidiary roles that can and should be played by churches and other civic organizations.

Little of any real value can ensue so long as the state authority leads the way in dereliction and delinquency of duty.

The Government must lead.

Where it leads, business and enterprise will follow.