THE EDITOR, Sir:THIS LETTER is aimed at trying to give the Jamaican Government valuable reasons on why they should be building more skyscrapers and high-rise office buildings and apartments in Kingston and Montego Bay.
For any city to be successful and attract investment and more residents, space is always at the forefront of the debate.
With the downtown redevelopment programme aimed at reducing overcrowding and Third World squatter settlements, this should be the perfect location for the building of new high-rise apartments and office towers.
If downtown is to ever reclaim itself from the mess that it is today, it will need to be able to attract prospective investors from settling in New Kingston (the little piece of Manhattan in the Caribbean).
New Kingston would not be the business headquarters of Jamaica (and the English-speaking Caribbean) if it were not for her glistening high-rise towers and apartments. It does not take a genius to figure out that with these office giants within any city, this will attract overseas investors.
Kingston, especially downtown, needs to embrace the 21st century. The Government can easily buy out these areas and redevelop them on a massive scale. New high-rise office towers and apartments need to be built to represent the new redeveloped downtown area. If downtown is to compete with New Kingston, she will also need to embrace the skies and build upwards, as most other successful cities have.
Take a look at Port of Spain, Trinidad. Yes it is no competition for New Kingston, but they are looking to the sky and now they are a candidate city for the headquarters of the FTAA.
Kingston is one of the very few English-speaking Caribbean cities with existing high-rises, let us continue to set the trend for other Caribbean cities. In that process we will not only be aesthetically beautifying the city, but also attracting future and richer foreign investors and investments.
I am etc,
AUDLEE FUNG-CHI
globaldanish1900@aol.com
3051 Congress Drive, Miami, Florida
