LIFE...

Looking at the lifestyle of an urban dweller.

Driving through Lavantille and Beetham very quickly, I saw a familiar face; it was one of my schoolmate's sisters on her way home from work. I called her name and then came out the car to greet her, as I did this she proceeded to ask me what I was doing here. It was then I decided to interview her and ask her about the community she called home. Her raw emotions and frank answers truly made this unscripted interview worth-while, so much so that I decided to create a poem on the entire account with personal and academic reflections included.

This is more of a personal approach of what I have gathered from an interview of a Beetham woman on 10^th March 2013.

It is an atypical view point from a person actually living in a sprawl and it highlights antithetical concepts of sprawl between urban philosophers and residence.

 

The poem is segregated into five different aspects for easier interpretation of the main elements relating to sprawls and urban geography.

 

                                                   Buju Banton - Untold Stories 2009

 

 

HISTORICAL – “Disliked from the Beginning”
Sprawl: influencing this contemporary world in every aspect, indirectly or directly,

It affects our everyday life, where we live and how we commute daily.

Since the 19^th century it is fast engulfing many developed and selected developing countries,

And with so many literatures regarding sprawl, this phenomena is truly written in antiquity¹. 

 Some may run away from the urban to live in a more elite or a more rural society,

Depending on preferences and who that person might be.

But with countless expansions of urban spaces at  of the cities,

It is almost inevitable for encroachment² of the urban to not follow me

 Historically and more so in the environs of today,

The urban is seen as more superior than the rural in every way.

Like with most things, exploitation is inescapable when too much is occurring,
Sprawls, persisting in two forms; ‘around the rims of the CBD³’ and ‘within the suburban areas’ - it seems to be never ceasing.
The first characterised by informal patterns of land use, lacking proper infrastructure, public facilities and basic services⁴,
The other by residential zones for the upper income groups and high-valued commercial complexes⁴

 

SOCIO-ECONOMIC – “Money Does Matter”

Alluring for me, I live close to my work with easy access to transport into P.O.S or in ‘town'⁵,

To fulfil my dreams of economic advancement but I am constrained by my poor excuse of a financial income.

However, there are areas where the hierarchy of the elites rule structural zones of anti-anarchy,

But who would want to live in these monotonous modified prisons called ‘gated communities’?

They are just forms of fortress architecture, exacerbating feelings of fragmentation and exclusion⁶,

And boring defensive constructions made in response to deviant activities within the conurbation⁶.

 

Mostly heard of in books, but, does my financial status actually bond me legally to the place where I reside?

Do I feel a sense of place, like Doreen Massey (1994)⁷ explained, because I am just like my neighbour and her child?

Searching for better opportunities and a space to rest a weary head,

But unfortunately I had to witness my son and my neighbour’s husband shot dead.

Gang violence, guns and crimes - they are all over the country plaguing this ‘land of oil and music, this magnificent island’ we once loved,

Yet the media chooses to emphasise only on one ethnic race because the poor man is not considered to be a part of this island explained above.

 

 CULTURAL – “Misunderstood by Other Social Classes”

Excessive reviews from foreign and alien eyes looking in,

Confusion, misperception, perplexity, and uncertainty - of course you would not understand! Go write about the area where you live.

Then you compile what you think you know, into your texts about our community and all the affiliations of negativity,

For our children to use in school, I say, ‘Get rid of these negative connotations in the dustbins of history!’

Now it is my turn, to explain to the wider populace the area and the community in which we reside,

So that our cultures and attitudes are misunderstood and questioned no more and we can stop being victimised.

                                                Prophet Benjamin - Usual Suspect 2008

 

 

Foolish concepts enhance the masses to create hierarchical societal categories and promote social stratification,

I mean, our social classes are so segregated; it’s like the citizens of Norway⁸ and Zimbabwe⁹ inhabiting the same island.

‘Favelas worlds’ they call us, no remorse, and their words so sharp they cut like a knife, 

While we try to live harmoniously with synchronised footsteps that strut to the rhythmic beat of life.

Imagine being considered as negative externalities of improper structural and land-use decisions,

No more, I am fed up of these people looking down on our artistic environs.

 

 

POLITICAL – “Do governments care about the society or the dollar?”

United we control our street, our sidewalks and our cities.

So why should we be intimidated or pressured by the oppressor or these managerial bullies.

Our life does not march to the ticking clock of urban encroachment and possible gentrification,

‘Hell No!” I will stand and fight for my place, fight for my space like Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh in the Point Fortin Highway envision.

They are constantly opening Pandora’s Box to a society of more hatred and depression due to displacements,

But no, blame gentrification on us because of our culture, speech, outfits and hairstyles. We are the ‘usual suspects’ for most of the infringements.
                                                    http://www.writespirit.net/inspirational-talks/political/martin-luther-king-talks/

                                                                                       
                     
                                                                                        Clearing of land in Lavantille, P.O.S.  

Lawfully under the Ministry of Housing, the HDC¹⁰ wants to implement New Urbanism¹¹,

The capitalist also wants to relocate me so that he can build a new area of strictly commercialism¹²

So where do I go, where would I live, I cannot even fathom why the government would support this,
It is literally the forced displacement of their citizens to create this new time-space fabric^13.     

It seems like apparently urban sprawl involving the poor resembles pollution of the land,

But the reality is that it occurs because authorities pay little attention to our degraded services and ignores the poor man.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL – “How long can this lifestyle last?”

Logically thinking, pattern of such sprawls are identified by visual interpretation methods,

So can’t the relative authorities use their comparative knowledge to reduce the vast killing of my brothers?

Is negativity written in the character coding of this cities’ system?

Is pollution, crime and overexploitation made to flow in arteries and veins of this location?

Yes, typically developing countries are faced with unprecedented population growths that threaten vast natural resources.

But I believe with proper implementation of ‘bottom-up planning’¹⁴, it would definitely silence the negative voices.

                                                                                        Picture of a degraded house in Beetham

Youths growing up here every day, elders living here until placed in the cemetery,

With conditions so bad, imagine the scent of our community’s drains would definitely kill a mine canary.

So many persons searching for the same goal of financial success,

Causing overpopulation and causing the land on which we live to succumb to stress.
 

Yet I would not migrate nor be forced to move from where I live for another place in the world,

“I born and grow up here, I love my safety net of a community, who de hell them telling to go!”

 

"NAH LEAVING, IS HERE THEY CONCEIVE ME, IS HERE AH GO DEAD!!"

                                       Denise Plummer - Nah Leaving 2001

 

 Shamefully walking on 10^th Street, Beetham Gardens to my house every evening after work,

That’s what they may think, but my head is held high, my shoulders back, impressing the eyes that may often lurk.

But, where did the negative perceptions originate from in the first place, are we even considered superior to dirt?

Who is teaching our teachers, or leading or leaders to think we are of no self-worth?

Is this LIFE? Am I subjected to live in an area mocked by discrimination and always represented by an undesirable tone?

Call it what you what, this is my community, my society, this is my home…

  

Footnotes:

1 – Antiquity – older times, in the past

2 – Encroachment – is something that infringes and has the ability to influence whatever it encounters.

3 – CBD- Central Business District – Contains the major shops and offices; it is the centre for commerce and entertainment and the focus for transport route.

5 – Town – Also known as Port-of-Spain/ a Trinidadian jargon for the capital of the country.

8 – Norway – The most developed country in the world 2009 – till.

9 – Zimbabwe – One of the least developed countries in the world.

10 – HDC – The Trinidad and Tobago Housing Development Corporation (HDC) is an Agency of the Ministry of Housing, Land and Marine Affairs and was created by Act No. 24 of 2005.

11 – New Urbanism – New Urbanism also promotes a return to the traditional town planning and is a reaction to the sprawling of cities.

12 – Commercialism – the application of manufacturing and consumption towards personal usage and free enterprise geared toward generating profit.

14 – Bottom up planning – Planning down mostly by the persons of  a community rather than strictly governmental personel. 

 

References

Dear, Michael and Steven Flusty. 1998. “Postmodern Urbanism” Vol. 88, No. 1. USA & UK -  (13)

Johnson, Amanda. (Resident of Beetham Gardens, Beethams). 2013. Interviewed by author. March 10. Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Hall, T. and H. Barrett. 2012. Urban Geography. 4th ed. London/ New York: Routledge. - (6 & 14)

Massey, Doreen. 1994. Global sense of place: From Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (7)

"Ministry of Housing and The Environment." Ministry of Housing and The Environment. Accessed March 24, 2013.                       http://www.mphe.gov.tt/about-us-hdc.html. (10)

UN Habitat. 2010 "State of the World's Cities 2010/2011; Bridiging the Urban Divide." UN Habitat.Accessed March 14, 2013. www.unhabitat.org/documents/SOWC10/R4.pdf. (4)

Waugh, David. 1995. Geography: An Integrated Approach. 2nd ed. London:  Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. (3)