Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 30, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
The creation of two thousand additional house lots aback of Providence in a soon-to-be established housing scheme, signals the beginning of the end for Georgetown. There is no way, given the concentration of residents on the East Bank of Demerara, that Georgetown will survive as the capital of Guyana.
The city cannot blame anyone but itself for the state it finds itself in today. The excuses will ring hollow because that is all that we have had over the years, excuses and more excuses while disorder took its toll on the city.
While the Garden City is taking on the appearance of a Garbage City, there is infighting at City Hall over a foreign trip undertaken by officials of the city. Instead of debating this trip, more attention should have been paid to the state of the city.
If after all the failures of the municipality over the years, after the terrible state that has befallen the city, a no-confidence motion can be defeated, then it not only means that the continuing decline of Georgetown will persist, but that this area will eventually become secondary to a much more populated stretch from Eccles to Diamond on the East Bank of Demerara.
It is only a matter of time before the Diamond-Grove area becomes the new capital of Guyana. Within the next few years the population of this stretch of the East Bank will outnumber that of the city and with more and more businesses and banks moving to that area, Georgetown will become like any other small town.
While there continues to be massive investment within the city, the movement of persons to other housing areas and the accompaniment of businesses to these areas can only mean that the commercial and financial attractiveness of the city is going to diminish. This will have implications for real estate prices as already we are seeing persons selling off to either migrate or to move to other areas.
One of the major bugbears remains zoning. Just yesterday, a resident of Queenstown wrote a letter complaining about the proliferation of businesses that have sprung up in that area. What the writer wrote about Queenstown can be said of many other wards in the city and this is one of the reasons why Georgetown will eventually become depopulated.
Not even local government elections are likely to save Georgetown. If those elections were held tomorrow, the new council would find it extremely difficult to undo the damage that has been inflicted on the city over the past thirty years. The decline of Georgetown and its decay is irreversible.
It makes no sense, even with revised rates and taxes, to try to restore the capital. Georgetown was always a haphazardly laid out city. This had to do with its early development. And now with zoning problems all over the city, with the jamming of its narrow streets with untold number of vehicles, with stagnant drains and swarms of mosquitoes, and now with problems with the collection of garbage and the imminent relocation of a dump site outside of the city, the problems will mount up since citizens will have problems in disposing of their non-degradable garbage. These will, as is always so evident at Christmas time, be simply left on the sides of the roadways.
Who wants to take on the responsibility of righting a city that has gone so wrong over the years? It would be much easier and far cheaper to simply recreate a new capital outside of Georgetown and provide incentives for businesses to relocate to this new area.
The Diamond Housing Scheme is a massive scheme. Next to it is another big scheme. There are also private housing developments all along the East Bank of Demerara. The government has now announced plans to develop an additional 2000 house lots in Providence. When all of this is complete, there is likely to be more than eight thousand persons living between Eccles and Diamond, some say more. This can only mean one thing: the reduced significance of Georgetown. The writing is therefore on the wall of the city. The fate of Georgetown is sealed. It is a dying town.
Listen to the man that is throwing Guyanese bright future away
Mar 19, 2024
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