Living The High Life

I do not mean to target the Minister of Tourism, who struck me as a perfectly decent fellow on the few occasions when we have met. However, he keeps launching into areas from which few men escape unscathed. His latest plunge is to suggest that 'urbanisation' and 'high-rise housing' are the way for Barbados to go. I think his rationale sits on the notion that the smallness of Barbados, with its 166 square miles (not yet expanded by offshore islands), does not give its population a lot of space on which to develop adequate housing. I personally do not believe this, but a major problem lies in the way that land use has been developed, and the thorny issue of whether some marginal agricultural land could be given over to housing.

The debate about the meaning of 'adequate' could be interesting, and it should go on. It is unfortunate that, given that obvious space limitation, one of the developments pushed as a product of the island to attract tourism and foreign investment was 'luxury' housing of the kind seen near the west coast. The mansions sit so awkwardly, cocking a snook at the ordinary Bajan housing.

A much harder debate will be about whether a country like Barbados can really adjust to having most of its population living in high-rise buildings. That is a far-off possibility, I think, but it may get a head of steam.

Now, for this country, I imagine and believe that high-rise housing will not be the type of towers one sees in Manhattan or London or Miami, where one may get vertigo just looking up at them. The indications are that two-to-four storey dwellings are envisaged, such as Country Park Towers, being developed by the National Housing Corporation. Yet, even that may be a challenge.

I hope that the Minister and the government of which he is a part study seriously the many examples of disastrous high-rise projects in developed countries, whether in the US, UK, France, etc. But also, where these have been tried in places like Brazil or Venezuela. Many studies have tried to discern why high-density housing complexes tend toward a new 'ghetto' and a breeding ground for crime. Part of the answer lies in how people are selected for such projects. Poor people cannot become rich just by changing their housing; their 'life chances' have to improve. That means schools, social amenities, leisure space, employment opportunities, etc. Where those remain bad, even with new and 'better' housing the cycle of poverty does not get broken.

Where well-educated people, with stable jobs, and higher incomes choose to live in high-rise developments, they often become models for high quality living: look at the areas around New York's Central Park.

But the poor in high-density housing can easily provide the 'playground' for the drug barons and the crime organizers, who profit from the poverty but also the facelessness, and warren-like nature of some projects.

I was shocked when I visited little Tortola (22 square miles, 24,000 people), just over a year ago, and was taken to a housing complex by a friend. Many foreigners live on the island for its better jobs. Many of them live in such developments. Many tell-tale signs of urban decay were there: abandoned cars and household appliances; boarded up apartments. It was like a mini-ghetto in the US. Scary. The only difference was that the housing sat in the shadow of the mountains, and there were palm-treed roads just five minutes away.

No one likes rotten housing. It is at the root of many social ills, though it can be as much cause as effect. The downward spiral associated with poor housing and poor educational attainment, poor health, high crime, etc. is well-known worldwide.

People who admire what Lee-Kwon Yew did for Singapore point out that housing shortages, and a dearth of land and natural resources could have crippled the island-city-state. But one of his major drives was a public housing programme, along with measures to tackle high unemployment. He also had two other pillars: good education and health provision. With housing, education, and health care assured, President Lee said to the population "Now work to make this country great" (to paraphrase).

Tourists are often content to live in high-rise hotels for a few days but quickly tire of the confinements that style of accommodation affords. They can usually get included or pay for whatever diversion is needed to make things seem better. The same is not true for people who have to live in high-rises all the time.

Will Barbados' proposed housing developments be part of an economic and social package that is geared to give people a better standard of living?

A house with a garden, even small and humble-looking, is a world apart from an apartment with a balcony. I hope people realise that and don't think that they are equal substitutes.

A funny thing happened on the way to the diving board.

We have been having unseasonably wet weather in Barbados for all of the month of January; it is supposed to be the dry season. So, as the month comes to its end we have another long night of heavy rain, which followed a day of intermittent rain, and was followed so far by more intermittent rain. I don't know why, but I do care if it represents something that many believe is man's handiwork coming to bear fruit.

I know the plants love the rain much of the time and I am not a farmer so it really does not bother me when it rains. But the rain seems to have had a very odd drying effect. No sooner had we had an incredible downpour than I went to look out to see if we had any flooding. No. All seemed to have been absorbed. Hold on a minute, I said to myself. Where is the water from the swimming pool?

We have had a spate of strange disappearances in the island, the most intriguing of which was the disappearance of some houses built by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC). I still have not heard how on a 166 square mile island you lose properties. This place has few forests and no jungle. When you come in by plane during the daytime you can see almost every property on the island. Now, maybe UDC's houses were in caves and therefore not visible to the naked eye. Anyway, they have now been found, but we were warned that they may disappear again. Wuhloss! But UDC did not build the swimming pool at the house where I live.

I called my landlord, and tried to explain what I was looking at, and I went into a small hysterical cackle because it was dawning on me what I was really seeing. A swimming pool hold a ton of water, or more precisely in our case 15,000 gallons. With no heat wave it was not evaporation. Also, this was not Jamaica where people steal all sorts of things, like large amounts of sand from the beach. We do have praedial larceny, but who would mistake my pool for a black belly sheep and run off with its contents?

We needed help, because even with the dry season 's heavy rains there was no way that they could refill the pool in a hurry. The man who had come to clean the pool in the morning, who was my prime suspect, could not be found. Suspicious enough, though I have to admit that I could not figure out where in his van he could carry all that water and why he would take it. If someone else wanted a pool filling, I guess that there is some black market for pool water. It beat me. But, we found his brother and he came to look at our drained over sized sink. All was simple enough. His brother had done a thorough cleaning, and had disconnected some pipes but forget to reconnect them when he turned the pump back on. So there went about 14,000 gallons of water. A bit of carelessness, eh.

Now, we have to fill it up again. Anyone want to grab some buckets? No, we had to turn on the hose and I must admit that I am shocked that it takes a whole day and more to put all that water back into a pool. It is now refilled, and I will keep a keen on our pool man's activities from now on. If his trousers seem very damp you can bet I will check his pockets to see if he is taking a few gallons off the property stealthily.