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  • Title: Trinidad's mismatched expectations. Planning and development review.
    Author: Conway D.
    Journal: UFSI Rep; 1984 Nov; (26):1-12. PubMed ID: 12266931.
    Abstract:
    In 1974 petrodollars helped to boost living standards for many of the population of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Yet, a failure to address the consequences of uncontrolled urbanization, especially in and around the capital, Port of Spain, threatens to undermine further improvements in the quality of Trinidadian life. Trinidad's urbanization has been associated with upward social mobility and a burgeoning middle class, such that social aspirations and spatial mobility tend to coincide. Thus, internal migration has involved a heterogeneous mixture of classes with the common denominator being a desire to improve one's standard of living. For most this means residence in or proximity to Port of Spain, the country's commercial, administrative, and cultural hub. Migration into and within Port of Spain and northwest corridors of West and East St. George County has contributed to several tricky problems, overwhelming regional planning efforts, inflating the costs of houses and land, and accelerating social alienation among urban Trinidadians. Problems could have been eased if government planning had given adequate recognition to spatial variations in societal organization, regional economic structures, and resource distribution. Trinidad changed markedly in the years 1974-81. New wealth has brought its own problems and old problems have worsened for lack of attention. The idea of decentralized growth poles at Sangre Grande, Point Fortin, La Brea, and Guayaguayare-Galeota now seems impossible to realize. The Capital region has for 10 years been absorbing a larger share of the population, now roughly half the total. It generates virtually all the island's employment opportunities and attracts the lion's share of private sector investment. Overcrowding in residences, unsanitary drainage, shortages of potable water, traffic congestion, and air pollution all have reduced the quality of life compared to 10 years ago. From 1974 onward the issue of economic development no longer focused on whether or not local or foreign financial resources could be mobilizied, but rather how this huge financial surplus would be deployed to encourage a diversified and interdependent econmy with longterm sustainable capacities to absorb and provide for Trinidadian and Tobagonian workers and their dependents. The Prime Minister's model of state capitalism failed to generate sufficient output and economic vigor to enable Trinidad's economy to withstand the 1981-83 recession. The high level of government involvement in running the economy has not meant centralized regulation or even coordination of state enterprises. Final discussion turns to the internal migration and growth of the capital region, the preeminence of Port of Spain, land and housing problems, and the inflationary spiral in land and housing prices.
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