Relocating depressed areas

There are, of course, also economic reasons. These apartment complexes are in prime locations in the city — Independence Square, Duke Street, East Dry River, and George Street. Noel Garcia, managing director of the Housing Development Corporation, has revealed that these complexes, most of them 60 to 70 years old, are to be torn down to make way for new buildings. This is a key component of the plan to transform Port-of-Spain into a so-called First World city - a plan that has already met with several objections, amongst them the inarguable fact that locating all these new buildings in the capital city stymies decentralisation.

But all that is secondary. What is really occurring here is a social experiment. It is known that neighbourhoods create particular norms and values which, once established, are self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating. Mr Garcia has noted that surveys have revealed the targeted areas to have some of the highest crime rates in the country. Indeed, this is only the most obvious symptom of the first social experiment when these "schemes", as they came to be called, were built. The intention was to provide low-cost housing to persons who would not otherwise be able to find a place to live in the city. But most of the occupants of the apartments do not own them. As often happens, low-cost housing projects tend to benefit the better-off, who have equal access to the low acquisition costs. Thus, the poor stay without assets, which helps to keep them poor.

In such an environment, crime flourishes. Drug use, teenage pregnancy, single-parent homes become norms. The situation is exacerbated when professionals and other achievers move out of the neighbourhood, as usually happens when they become successful, because the only adult role models for young persons tend to be criminals and other reprobates. In such an environment, even the most conscientious parents can do little to protect their children from negative influences. This environment is what the relocation is supposed to destroy.

The 2000 or so occupants of these apartment complexes are to be moved to Chaguanas, Mount Hope, Champs Fleurs, Tunapuna, Oropune, Barataria, Morvant and Cocorite. But social psychology is far from being an exact science. Mr Garcia, seeking to allay fears that this relocation is some sort of voter-padding exercise, has said that the movement of these persons is mathematical and will result in the addition of approximately 230 persons to the constituencies. As Mr Garcia correctly pointed out, this number cannot affect the political status of a constituency.

However, that number is more than enough to affect the social patterns of a particular community. Indeed, research has shown that a unit of 150 persons is enough to create its own norms and ways of behaviour. And, as Mr Garcia has already admitted, the norms and behaviour of many of the persons being moved are not positive ones. The Government must therefore exercise care that, in taking this bold step, it is not exporting anti-social behaviour into areas of the country which are now relatively stable.

Avoiding that undesirable outcome will require more than a smooth transition from one area to the next. It will require the Government to ensure that nests of criminals aren’t moved into the same area and it will require checks to ensure that such persons are not beginning nefarious activities in their new homes. If such measures are not taken, this experiment could go horribly wrong.