These days, for most people, Falmouth is either an inconvenient traffic bottleneck along the northcoast corridor between Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, or a place to make a quick buck at the weekly “ben’ down” market, an enduring weekly event on the scenic north coast.

Still, Falmouth, the Trelawny capital, is poised to make a rebound to prosperity within the next two years, with new tourism developments and major infrastructure projects.

But even as the investors come rolling in, ordinary people seem to be concerned only with their immediate reality – not the glossy promises they hear from government officials.

Overwhelmingly, crime, the people say, is the biggest problem with Falmouth, although the lack of jobs and the crumbling infrastructure rank high too.

“One time Falmouth never stay so. No sah. But of late is just gun thing, young boys supposed to be in school or get a work, but they on street corner and just a lay lay. The guns is a problem yes, and the gang war they having too,” a man who gave his name only as Green told the Sunday Observer.

One woman in the nearby Race Course housing scheme said although she was born and raised in Falmouth, she has never seen it this bad.

“I born here, but since 2000 I’ve lived away, and now I’ve come back because my daughter is going to have a baby. But I’m not even thinking about staying. You never hear of these things here before, but of late, they have things like drive-by shootings and gun war, and it scares me. Decent people not supposed to live in fear like this,” she said.

Crime in Falmouth is worrying. Last year, according to the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), there were 16 murders in the entire parish of Trelawny, but since January of this year, at least seven people have been killed violently, about half of those in the parish capital. And March isn’t even done yet.

Falmouth residents worry that the crime is being fed by a root cause – unemployment. And their member of parliament, Patrick Harris (North Trelawny) strongly agrees. He believes that it is the lack of legitimate job opportunities that turn people to crime, and is infectiously excited at the thought of the promised developments.

Harris, who operates his medical practice on Duke Street in Falmouth, believes that all Falmouth’s major problems – unemployment, crime, and crumbling infrastructure – will be solved once the development begins, as the magnitude of the economic benefit will transform the historic town into the prosperous, bustling town it was at the turn of the Nineteenth century.

“Mostly, the problem that we have in this area is unemployment. Falmouth is a dormitory town, and it has one of the highest migration rates as well. When the young people go away to school, they usually do not come back because the job opportunities are limited now, and those that do come back only live here, but work in places like Montego Bay or Ocho Rios,” explains Harris.

The town’s economic development, prior to the new massive projects announced by the Government, was stunted, he says, by a problem that has troubled Falmouth since the seventeenth century – the problem of absentee land ownership.

Passing through, one can tell that there once was beauty and splendour there – even though the once-elegant now crumbling Georgian structures dotting the town between modern concrete buildings are the only physical reminder of the prosperity that built the town originally.

In the days when sugar was ‘King’, Falmouth, created by wealthy planters and merchants, was one of the most sophisticated and cosmopolitan towns in the Western Hemisphere. Elaborate townhouses sprung up along its well-planned streets, the town had a piped water supply years before major cities such as New York, and Falmouth was home to five newspapers, a bustling port and numerous extravagant balls and parties.

More than two centuries later, the ‘uglification’ of Falmouth is in an advanced state of affairs, with zinc fences replacing hedges and boxy concrete buildings edging out wooden fretwork and brick and mortar walled-structures. As the old buildings fall apart from neglect, a few are restored, mainly through the hard work of the Falmouth Georgian Society, but although the community tries to ignore their town’s demise, the shells of old abandoned buildings are hard to pass by without noticing.

“It’s an old town – a lot of the buildings you see in Falmouth are owned by very old families, prominent families. Many of these families have migrated, and left their not-so-well-off cousins to occupy them. That in itself breeds problems, because those not-so-well-off cousins do not have the wherewithal or the initiative to fix, to repair, to maintain or to do what is necessary,” said Harris.

Part of the problem, he explained, was that although the taxes were being paid regularly on these abandoned or derelict buildings, they were not being maintained, keeping overall property values low and therefore stalling the growth of the local economy.

Now, with the Government announcing investments that will total many billions of dollars, Patrick Harris is confident that only better days will come.

“The problems are there, but my head space now is looking at the solutions. We have the highway going through, and we have water – a six million-gallon project – and the construction on that is going to start anytime now. What we are also going to have is an expansion of the tourism product that is unprecedented.

But even before that, construction on the (Greenfield) stadium is going to start, and that should be a serious catalyst for economic development,” says an optimistic Harris.

His optimism is not unfounded, because at the very least, the plans are impressive. First there are plans for the town itself. The old Hampden Wharf complex along the Falmouth coastline is slated to be restored as a major tourist centre, complete with a marina and a permanent musical revue in a 1,000 seat concert hall.

Then, there are the plans for areas outside the town but all within an eight-mile radius. In last year’s budget debates, Prime Minister PJ Patterson announced the development of Harmony Cove, a US$1.1-billion luxury resort comprising hotels, golf courses, a convention centre and its own private marina and airstrip.

In addition to Harmony Cove, there will be another major development at Oyster Bay, and another tourism development near Duncans. Then there is the Greenfield Stadium being built for the 2007 Cricket World Cup. Although under the terms of the loan from the Chinese government that facility will be built by Chinese engineers and workers, the spinoffs will begin even during construction.

Yet with all the grandiose plans, the ordinary people seem to be left out. A group of people sitting near the sea at the very Hampden Wharves were totally ignorant of the plans, and even scoffed at the prospects.

“Cho. How dem mus buil’ all dat an dem can’t fin money fi pay we? A street we sweep yuh know! A street we sweep an’ pay day gone three day now and dem don’t have no money fi pay we. Wha dem really can buil’ if dem caan pay we wi pittance?” asks one elderly man, triggering disgruntled agreement from his peers.

President of the Trelawny Chamber of Commerce, Dennis Seivwright, while not as giddily optimistic as the MP, is confident that the town will be restored to its erstwhile prosperity. Like Harris, he believes that the crime will abate once the developments begin, and that the problems of unemployment and aesthetics will naturally be taken care of too. His optimism, however, has not fogged the reality at hand, and Seivwright’s main concerns had to do with how best to get the local people involved.

“One of our big challenges is that we need to, in a very serious way, train our people in every aspect of the development process. What concerns me about all this development is how it will affect our local people – the people on the street. We need to find a way to get the message to them, and we cannot get the message to them by talking to them at a distance – we have to get close, to be intimate and to make them feel a part of the development process, like they have a stake in the development, or we’ll fail,” warns Seivwright.

Just recently, Seivwright, a businessman who owns and operates the Albert George Shopping Centre on Water Square in the town centre, spearheaded the launch of the Falmouth Handcart Association, a group of 10 handcart operators that currently functions as both a union and a voluntary citizens’ watch/civic pride group.

The Handcart Association, he points out, is just a start, and literally a drop in the bucket, as Falmouth easily has over 10,000 residents. But he’s convinced that if the Chamber can help to replicate the success with other groups of people, the town, the product and the people will all be better off.

“Everybody from the bottom to the top – from the vendor on the street, the handcart man, the lawyer, the bank manager, the teacher, the judge, the waitress, everybody will now have to be sensitised to the social change and economic inflow that is going to take place in order to handle it,” Seivwright preaches.

“You need people on the street to be educated enough at least to give directions, to be friendly, particular since Falmouth is a historic town with many heritage sights,” he adds, warning that “if the person on the street is not conscious of the benefit to them, they are going to feel invaded, they are going to feel opposed, and then you will see a rise in crime”.

The solutions to that challenge, the Chamber president suggests, lay firstly in a massive public education and training campaign, which in his view, should be government-initiated and supported, but locally-conducted.

“We know that there will be an influx of outsiders – and we welcome that because the cake is big enough for everybody to get a slice – but it would be nice to see our local people position themselves to take advantage in a positive way of these developments. We cannot stay in the media, in the papers, on the air or from Kingston to tell them, we have to physically eyeball them, face to face, and take them through the process.

“You don’t have to carry anyone into a closed room to tell them ‘behave yourself, white man coming, tourist coming’. What we have to do is teach them how to make money, how to benefit from the development and leave it there.

Once they are convinced that they are a part of the earnings and that they, their families and children are going to benefit, they will support and cooperate with any effort. So it’s not about more aggressive policing or more war-like defences, it’s more like an accommodating approach,” Seivwright adds.