JAMAICA is in need of rigorous planning from Morant to Negril Point. The current development activities do not appear to be generated from an overall plan; hence there are large gaps in infrastructure and economic activity.

Most development today appears to be that of housing — a critical aspect of the social infrastructure, which has caused, and is causing, significant stresses among the population least able to handle those stresses. This population is predominantly of African descent and is currently the most affected, and have been excluded from participation in the development of this plan. They make up the most diverse group, having integrated the most with other races that landed on the island.

It would be easy to plan development for the entire community of Jamaicans if the circumstances that brought us and keep us here were all similar. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. This group of Jamaican’s has produced our most significant international achievements in sport and culture, and is facing the most challenges in housing, education, and viable economic opportunities. On top of this challenge have been the remnants of a concept left by the former colonists, who successfully made the argument that we are “out of many one people” — a motto which suggests that we were and still are in this culture and economy of Jamaicans as equals.

Our much-anticipated spatial plan, which seems to be somewhere among government committees of technocrats, politicians and connected individuals, is the best means of creating the framework in which our economy and social infrastructure can be developed. This requires a comprehensive look at all of Jamaica’s resources, physical and human. An overall starting point must be where our resources lie, and the locations of these resources is known, as evidenced by the economic activities attached to them. However, the extraction of these resources cannot be left up to commercial enterprises, which, if allowed, would excavate entire mountains of limestone or rivers of sand for their deposits to sell and leave a desolate moonscape in their wake all aimed at profit-making for them and the Government, and for the rest of us to live in.

A key aspect of spatial planning may have been the network of roads both constructed and planned. On the north coast, the new highway has moved the main road miles inland, leaving the beachfront property free for development by the highest bidder or connected person. This situation has resulted in a trip along these roadways being pleasant but disconnected from the beauty of Jamaica. Unless you are destined to one of these massive tourist resorts, your journey is surrounded by cattle grazing and sugar cane fields, or 10-foot high walls to keep in the tourist theme of the resorts, protected from an alienated local population.

Other aspects of the spatial plan, besides the roadway infrastructure, are our aspirations for education, to include history, academy, culture, and society. Choices should be based on being informed, and education provides information. Having planned and built the roadway network has resulted in a very uneven development situation in Jamaica, where the money has come into pockets of the economy, preventing the less capable from creating or taking full advantage of any economic benefit that is secondary to the primary development of the local human resources. This situation is unsustainable and needs to be addressed.

Jamaica needs a big picture spatial plan. It seems that the current thinking is for the spatial plan to be developed down to the selection of paving stones and their colours. This process will take years, if not decades. The spatial plan for the island must be an agreed overlay within which the details are prepared by those having most familiarity with their local details.

A conceptual and overall spatial plan will include the following categories:

* Roadways for circulation

* Population demographic for human resource base

* Resource industries for potential economic activity

* Geography to define the physical constraints and possibilities

Following the definition of all the above must be the people’s vision for Jamaica. Where is the articulation of that vision? I believe the people’s representatives should be the ones who collect the information from their constituents on this matter, where it can be debated in the parliament, so a policy can be formulated which everyone will support.

The vision is to come from the people, not brought to the people. Sixty-three individuals cannot know the needs of three million.

Any plans developed need to be based on the facts and will generate positive potential areas for development. The compilation of the information here is not hard; it just needs to have people working on it who know what they are looking at and what outcomes are required. I am almost certain that this information exists in some form and is available to whoever needs it to develop a spatial plan.

Finally, all plans are dynamic entities that are based on fixed circumstances at a given time. We also know that circumstance is subject to change at all times. This makes planning a thing for which time is of the essence. We cannot plan to build schools today using population statistics that are five years old; the children for whom we are building the schools will have passed the age group to use the facility which we plan on building. Planning requires that we project our future needs based on current information.

We must know that physical resources are finite, so we have to plan for the disposition of labour and geography before, not after the resources are exhausted. A lack of planning was evident in the sugar industry, which led the Government to sell its antiquated facilities to the Chinese for a song. The same can be said of bauxite. Why weren’t we the ones who foresaw the decline in the need for alumina, and not wait for some investor to tell us it was no longer profitable. Perhaps the mining of bauxite lands may not be the best and highest use of these lands at this time.

So spatial planning must project for future needs based on precedence and current situations, and time is of the essence. The longer it takes to develop the guidelines for the spatial plan the more likely it is that the current state of confusion in the Jamaican political economic environment will continue, hence the political intransigence due to not having viable resources with which to motivate the population, or work with to create the infrastructure that will move us forward.

We need to take the current spatial plan out of committee now. It has fallen flat and is likely to be irrelevant for the development of anything we all might want when it is made available to those who need it for development. If it is that everything I have said here is known by those who have the spatial plan, then it would help to make the current planning process available for viable and valid public input. If I knew what was being done, as a member of the public, and it made sense to me, and likely many other Jamaicans, the daily grind might become more tolerable.

In the case for money to do all we need to do, we must remember that ideas create value, and value attracts money; so we need to use our plans to develop our ideas, and then use the value this creates to earn the money to do any development we need. Money is useless if it does not have something which gives it value.

Hugh M Dunbar is registered with the Jamaica Institute of Architects.