Wendel Abel
LAST WEEKEND I had a visitor whom I was taking around the city. I was shocked and appalled at the level of deterioration in our city. Jamaica is certainly a beautiful country, but if we do not intervene now, it will become a country of filth, falling fences and pothole-lined streets.
The Bellevue Hospital stood in a distressing condition with the fence falling down. Downtown Kingston was filthy and many street lamps were not working. The St. William Grant Park was like a dump reeking with the smell of urine.
Port Royal, that once graceful town, is sadly decaying. In many communities the streets are lined with potholes and the gullies of the city filled with garbage. Half-Way Tree is becoming a large street market. Red Hills Road is filthy and like a great dump. The Constant Spring and Papine markets were horrible and disgraceful to look at.
The city, stretching from Mountain View to Spanish Town Road, is made up of inner-city communities characterised by zinc fences, dilapidated buildings and unkempt roadways.
Many grand structures in the city are in need of repair and a coat of paint. The merchants downtown seem to have forgotten the value of a coat of paint as many buildings stand filthy and horrific. The National Heroes Park is a national disgrace and certainly does injustice to the statesmen whose bones have been interred within.
Squattters have taken over the many street corners with illegal vending and with their unsightly stalls made of scrap metals and board. The city is noisy and unplanned in many areas.
I usually do not reflect on things that are negative, but I am calling the attention of all of us to the decay and deterioration of our city. If we do not arrest this process now, the destruction and decay will continue in an insidious and malignant manner and destroy not only the physical infrastructure but our mental capacity to change.
SAVE KINGSTON
Downtown stands as a once great city that has lost her glory and pride. This is clearly due to years of neglect of the city by our city fathers, town planners, merchants and all of us living in our respective communities. Let us save Kingston and Jamaica from further decay and decline.
1. Let us return the city to its state of glory and pride.
2. I encourage the merchants to embark on a campaign to start repainting buildings.
3. Let us restore our green spaces such as the National Heroes Park and St. William Grant Park.
4. I challenge the city fathers and the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation to begin to clean up the city and to ensure that laws are observed and the city is regulated once again.
5. Jamaica seems to be slipping into a state of learned helplessness. Let us all awaken from this state of apathy and lack of concern and begin the process of re-gentrifying our communities.
Things will not change unless we change.
Dr. Wendel Abel is a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer, University of the West Indies; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.
