CITY DEVELOPMENT progresses in cycles. Pre-World War II Kingston barely extended beyond Cross Roads to the north and was characterised by mixed-use neighbourhoods, incorporating a variety of land uses whether residential, commercial, recreation or services all in walking distance.
Nineteen forties neighbourhoods such as Rollington Town, Rae Town, Bournemouth Gardens, Kencot, Jones Town, Whitfield Town and Greenwich Town were the equivalent of contemporary Mona, Hope Pastures, Havendale and Portmore.
They accommodated growth and primarily the middle class through Government policy and the social production of space.
A new cycle of urban development began to emerge in the late 1950s, with the rigid separation of land uses, influenced by the 1957 Town and Country Planning Act. City planners now refer to this form as conventional suburban development (CSD), or urban sprawl.
In Jamaica, CSD is still very popular but extremely costly. This was recognised in the 1970s and addressed in the 1978 National Physical Plan by the suggestion of an imaginary urban fringe and a settlement strategy, but not acted upon.
CSDs usually lack a town centre, are not designed for pedestrian scale and are spread out to consume large tracks of land even when national population growth is declining.
In the Kingston Metropolitan Region, for example, automobile use per capita has soared over the last two decades because a motor vehicle is required for nearly all human transportation.
Emerging out of this excess, in an age of sustainable development, is a reaction to sprawl, dubbed the new urbanism. It is based on the belief and practice that a return to traditional neighbourhood planning is essential to restoring functional, sustainable communities with the local population as a driving force.
In fact, this 'new urbanism' is not so new. Forty years ago, Jane Jacobs espoused its principles in advocating how decayed urban neighbourhoods could be revitalised. Its recent impact, however, has been more on how and where metropolitan regions choose to grow and develop. In many cases the growth has been inward, stressing conservation, rather than outward, pandering to environmental disaster.
Linking transportation policies and using the neighbourhood as the fundamental building block of a region is key.
In Jamaica, we currently have at least two opportunities to utilise new urbanism principles in urban development. The first is the revitalisation of Rae Town as an inner city pilot and the other is the Clarendon New Town development.
Patrick Anderson is an urban and regional planning consultant.
E-mail: pka@cwjamaica.com.
