The recently released UN-HABITAT publication – Enhancing Urban Safety and Security: Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 – should remind governments around the world of some inconvenient truths which they already know but would like to ignore. The report confirms that the world’s poor are the worst affected by urban crime and violence, insecurity of tenure and forced eviction, and natural and human-made disasters.
The report asserts that threats to the safety and security of cities and towns have been manifested in the form of poverty and inequality, rapid and chaotic urbanization and catastrophic events such as floods. Over the past five years, 60 per cent of all urban residents in developing countries have been victims of crime. The vast majority of murders in Jamaica, for example, occur in Kingston, the capital.
Georgetown, this country’s only city, and its five towns – Anna Regina, Corriverton, Linden, New Amsterdam and Rose Hall – might be proportionately similar but specific statistics are not available. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that the poor bear the burden of crime, violence, natural and human-made disasters here as well. Among the poorest of Georgetown’s poor, women, children, the elderly and the disabled are most vulnerable to natural and human-made hazards.
Georgetown is not only the seat of government but also the centre of commerce, main maritime port, police and military headquarters and the hub of road transport to the East Bank, East Coast, West Bank and West Coast Demerara and beyond. During the 2002-2003 East Coast crime wave, for example, although there was a conspicuous and continuous pattern of violence in rural areas, Georgetown suffered the most monstrous multiple murders. The shock attack on Nathoo’s bar; the Lamaha Gardens killings; the Diwali massacre in Light street – the most egregious examples of criminal violence – all occurred in the city.
In recent years, also New Amsterdam’s Angoy’s Avenue, Linden’s Wismar ward and Georgetown’s Sophia, Agricola and Eccles conurbations have become notorious sites for homicides. Although there has been occasional rural unrest in places such as Albion and Tain on the Corentyne, Georgetown has historically attracted a disproportionate share of social and political protest.
With the onset of global warming, flooding has become the world’s most frequent and costly natural disaster type. As in many parts of the developing world, the poorest residents of Georgetown live in the most hazardous areas of the city and suffer more casualties and economic damage than wealthier households. There is no need to look further than the recent ‘flash flood’ in August when several sections of the city were inundated after only a few hours rainfall. Add to this, the uncounted losses of the 2005 ‘great flood,’ it is clear that destructive and repetitive floods have taken a severe toll on citizens’ livelihood.
The vulnerability of wooden buildings in Georgetown and New Amsterdam to catastrophic fires is a grim urban legend. Fires have devastated huge sections of the central business district such as Pitt Street New Amsterdam and Hadfield Street, Georgetown, both in 2003. Scores of poor workers were left jobless. Domestic fires, however, have been much more frequent and costly. Again, poor families are least likely to relocate to safer areas or able to rebuild their houses after disasters.
The main message of Enhancing Urban Safety and Security: Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 is that the urban poor are more exposed to risky events than the rich, not least because they are often located in sites that are prone to crime and catastrophe. Furthermore, they have limited access to assets to avert risk or respond to damage. And, as evidence has shown, they are also politically powerless so they often do not receive relief from the state in the same measure that victims of crimes such as riverain piracy or disasters such as rural flooding, do.
Achieving a safer and more secure urban environment cannot occur by accident. There needs to be multi-sectoral planning by Georgetown’s municipal administration – the Mayor and City Council. But the Council’s characteristically ineffectual efforts need to be supported by the central government, commercial community, civil society and the police and defence forces.
Episodic eye-catching campaigns to beautify the city when international visitors are expected are not enough. There must be long-term urban policy-making, planning and governance if this country’s sole city is ever to be safe and secure.
