JAMAICA | Michael Witter Points to Signs of the Uglification of St. Ann

KINGSTON,  Jamaica July 17, 2023 -Today I counted more than 250 billboards and advertising signs on the North Coast Highway between the roundabout at the start of the North-South Highway in Mammee Bay and the Richmond Community, about 11 kilometers.

Some of them are announcing events long past; some touting businesses are almost totally faded; some are broken remnants from a car crash or a vandal; some are on permanent block and steel frames; others are on two skinny wooden legs and leaning with the wind. 

They range from gigantic billboards visible from more than a kilometer to multiple copies of small wooden signs stuck on light posts and trees offering to buy houses for cash. 

I excluded the valid road signs from my count, one of which is now just a twisted wreck of metal lying in the bush, and another concrete one which has been smashed into small pieces. 

The proliferation of these commercial signs reflect the chaotic development of this stretch of the highway that is marginalizing St. Ann’s Bay, the parish capital, even further. 

A few years ago, giant trees surrounded by a thick forest of plants lined the highway.  The walls of green were decorated by the colourful flowers in bloom. 

Very quickly, many have been ripped out and replaced by businesses that are highly import dependent: fast food establishments, restaurants, several used car lots, a bus service, competing suppliers of eyeglasses, a giant facility selling giant construction equipment, gas stations with grocery stores, and so on. 

The greenery that took many years to grow – some trees took more than a hundred years– is being replaced with businesses that increase the demand for imports, and hence US dollars, without earning any US dollars from exports.  On top of that, their signs and billboards block the view of the vegetation that is still standing.

The strip between Mammee Bay and Priory is now a nationally known for its traffic gridlocks and the reckless driving on the soft shoulders that are extending through the day as the morning and evening rush hours meet. 

So, there is now a bright idea to widen the highway, which should have bypassed the coastal towns in its original design but was narrowed to pass through the towns to serve short term political interests.

The new plan is to mow down more trees and demolish the roadside housing and buildings that have stood for decades to facilitate more lanes for more cars.  Where the endless lines of cars passing through this corridor are coming from and going to is a mystery. 

Note that each car that passes is blowing foreign exchange for fuel out its exhaust and moving closer to needing more imported parts with every kilometer.

Years ago, Richmond-Llandovery and Drax Hall produced agricultural goods for export and some of the output was processed by local manufacturing for domestic consumption. 

Today these lands are being converted rapidly to housing, largely for non-St. Ann citizens – I confess to being one - , as well as huge hotels.  Tourism is the new driver of the economy – everybody knows that, or at least everybody has heard the constant public declarations about the virtues of tourism. 

Actually, there are two main virtues that are touted – employment and foreign exchange earnings.  Tourism establishments offer low wage employment with insecure tenure, no pension, and hardly any benefits befitting the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda that the government has pledged to uphold in international fora.  

And governments brag about the gross earnings that are estimated from tourist expenditure but never speak about the cost of imported goods and services to support the hotels and the attractions, the many environmental costs to the coastal zone, and the negative social effects on rural and semi-urban communities.  Depending on what is included in the costs to the country, the net earnings from tourism could be negative.

The chaos and the environmental costs from anarchic development are so evident on this short corridor of the North Coast Highway.  They portend similar chaos elsewhere on the North Coast. 

Indeed, this may be a symptom of anarchic development at the national level which expresses itself as huge high-rise buildings with expensive apartments springing up all over Kingston and St. Andrew.

Out of concern at the uglification of St. Ann, I have written several times to the Mayor of St. Ann’s Bay who leads the Municipal (Parish) Council suggesting that the Council institutes guidelines for signs and fees for their placement. 

This is standard practice all over the world.  Only the last email was acknowledged by his secretary.  Parenthetically, important people in Jamaica do not read their own email or respond even when it is read to them. 

Maybe that is not the explanation for the lack of response to my communication.  I am hoping that concerned citizens, especially in St. Ann who have more influence with His Worship – something about that title always seems disrespectful and inappropriate – to urge him and the Council to at least try to manage this chaos. 

After all, they still try to keep the verges and roundabouts neat and clean – why is the roundabout by the North-South highway neglected? –, which must reflect a tradition of high value for beautification.

In the long run, of course, Nature will reclaim all that has been grabbed by short term interests, and it will exact a price.  It may be that climate change is Nature’s way of responding to the abuse. 

Instead of trying to manage the impact, and to come to some understanding with Nature, this anarchic development is aggravating the already bad situation.

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