DR. KATE BEEBE - CONTRIBUTED
THE USAID has been working with local officials in promoting Cricket World Cup 2007 as an opportunity for the Jamaica's long-term economic development.
For the past seven months the agency has sponsored a number of working sessions to explore how the country can benefit from being a host country for the competition. One of those sessions recently featured Dr. Kate Beebe who was instrumental in the urban revitalisation of the city of Detroit (in Michigan) as it prepared for the fortieth Super Bowl which was held in February this year. Dr. Beebe is the president of the Detroit Greater Downtown Partnership and the Detroit Super Bowl Host Committee. Recently the Financial Gleaner spoke with Dr. Beebe who has visited the country twice in the past two months.
FG: What is urban revitalisation and why is it important?
KB: Urban revitalisation is identifying ways and stakeholders who can participate in encouraging reinvestments in central cities. It is important for a couple of reasons.
One is that our central cities, historically, are where our communities were born so they are important points in the minds of the people and an important part of the whole structure of our society.
What's happened in a lot of cities is that they have lost some of the economic base over time and I think at this point in time we have to put special energy into reinvigorating the economic base so that they continue to be core parts of our community.
FG: What were the economic benefits of the revitalisation of Detroit?
KB: They calculated it at somewhere around US$350 million in direct economic benefits. We wanted ... our visitors to feel good about Detroit [and also] the national and international press to say Detroit is a city [that's] on its way up. It's a city worth taking a look at, it's a city that you should consider doing business for your convention and we achieved that.
But the biggest benefit I feel was that we were able to form this public/private partnership. That's a different way of doing business for us because in Detroit we have these turf issues, we have race issues.
FG: As Kingston prepares for Cricket World Cup, what are some of the challenges you have identified which now face the city?
KB: I saw a lot of similarities to Detroit as well as other cities that I have worked with. We did get a pretty good tour [going] to the craft market, downtown, up and down King Street, the park areas and so on.
There are a lot of opportunities here if you can get everyone under the same agenda and set priorities. There aren't enough resources - there isn't in Detroit and there isn't in Kingston -- but if you can get your mayor, the central government and the business leaders agreed about priorities and just start working at them.
Part of the challenge in Kingston is to get all those resources and ... really focus on that downtown core -- on the water front, along King Street and the park areas.
There is also the issue of turf and like most of our urban centres there is the challenge about the amount of poverty and how to get true economic development [by] doing things that are substantial.
I think that is all possible because of the infrastructure that's already here - the people, the historic centres. I think that a lot of Jamaicans both here and [abroad] care about Kingston and they see it as the emblem of Jamaica.
FG: Who do you think should lead the charge in urban revitalisation?
KB: It has to be a partnership. There has to be genuine leaders in the government. You have to have the central govt genuinely supporting the plan and putting the resources for it. You have to the mayor and his administration putting together the plan and the private sectors leaders.
They work as partners by working on something until they agree on it and if there are areas that they don't agree on then don't go with that. But there has to be a genuine partnership where they create a plan and then implement it.
FG:How do you convince the underprivileged who feel they may be displaced when there is urban revitalisation and what lessons can we learn form Detroit?
KB: It's important to engage people throughout the community by listening to their needs and then the leadership needs to say "do out plans address those needs?" People need to feel that hey have access to those process. Its harder when you have just ten months.
You have to move quickly and drop the politics as much as possible. You have to form partnerships to make a concrete agenda that everybody can look at and say 'here' what we agree on, what we are going to do and then delegate.
