Downtown Kingston again

Jamaica is again in a high state of political expectation, with a new prime minister, not yet 40, and with the disappointment expressed by many towards the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration under former Prime Minister Bruce Golding. Much is wanted from this JLP administration under Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

Jamaica, like America, has experienced much of its socio-economic adversities from the shrinking global interactions that impact economic and social issues not just in one country or region anymore, but the world, and much more quickly.

However, much of Jamaica's internal problems are caused by the action or inaction and ill-advised directions taken by the country's political and economic leadership. And for new leadership to declare that it will maintain 'continuity' of these actions is not encouraging to the people who have continued to experience lower standards of living, pervasive corruption and favouritism, increasing unemployment, high crime rates, even though the leadership announces a decrease in crime, and for too many, a feeling of hopelessness and a very bleak future.

It never ceases to amaze how the leadership addresses development in Jamaica. Recent reports in the Jamaican media speak to the oft-mentioned 'downtown Kingston redevelopment'. It is a subject dear to my heart, being a product of Fletcher's Land. As a child and teenager, I experienced downtown Kingston from many angles - market day on a Friday with my mother; buying records in music stores and sneaking into dance halls on a Saturday; church, and taking my father's dinner and breakfast to the ports of Kingston on a Sunday; and schooldays during the week.

Music was central to my experiences in downtown Kingston. My mother would later jibe me that my attachment to music started from I was in her womb and flexing to the music coming from the famed dance hall, Caterers, across Duke Street from where I was born. The first school I attended on weekends became the renowned Foresters Hall dance hall, and my exposure to music continued when I went to live in Jones Town, another music mecca of Kingston.

Numerous sound systems

Live music via small clubs was available on Orange Street, bottom, middle and top, and Victoria Pier on King Street. Juke boxes were the main purveyors of recorded music, in the bars, 'sport houses' where the latest R&B tunes were played courtesy of the 'shippies' who worked on the boats, farm workers returning from America, and sailors who brought them for their favourite proprietors like Fats Waller, and Mr Lazarus. And there were always the sound systems punching out all the desired local and foreign music that seemed never able to saté the appetite of the music-loving Kingstonians and those from rural Jamaica.

Later, as the main journalist at The Gleaner covering the music industry from 1967-1972, I was close to the competing producers marketing the latest releases from their music stores along Orange Street, King Street, Parade and the streets and lanes in downtown Kingston. It carried a vibe that I read about existing in New Orleans.

In 1998, the National Minority Business Council (NMBC), the New York-based business organisation of which I am a member, led a trade and investment mission to Kingston, and we welcomed the invitation from Francis Kennedy and Morin Seymour, leaders of the private-public-sector partnership, the Kingston Restoration Company (KRC), to participate in the government-sanctioned Kingston redevelopment programme they were spearheading.

Messrs Kennedy and Seymour felt that the NMBC, because of its contacts in the American private sector and government, could introduce some expertise to the project without them having to reinvent the wheel. And because I and NMBC co-founder, Fritz-Earl McLymont, are Jamaica-born with experience of doing business in both countries, we were confident we could make a significant contribution, insisting that the redevelopment must be industry-sector-driven, maintaining the characteristics of the area that had evolved over several decades. Markets and wholesales around West and Princess streets, music and entertainment around Orange and King streets, furniture and craft manufacturing around Luke Lane and Princess Street, and health care and supplies around the Kingston Public Hospital.

We then identified major players in the US government that we had connections to and believe would be supportive of such a geopolitically significant undertaking, namely Congressman Charles Rangel and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and former secretary of housing and urban development, the late Jack Kemp, who had championed the Economic Enterprise Zone concept for the redevelopment of economically deprived areas in America.

Tax-incentive programme

Our other focus was the tax-incentive programme which should be attractive enough for Jamaica to compete with similar initiatives in Panama, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. But as is customary in Jamaica, and to its detriment, bureaucratic malaise, egos, and government change delay, and in most cases, kill many developmental programmes. This results in similar proposals being announced with fanfare, but nothing constructive being accomplished.

After an unforgettable vacation in New Orleans, I began drawing comparisons of Kingston's tourism potential with New Orleans, a city prized for its musical contribution to American culture but also plagued by crime and areas of deprivation. With a population of approximately 400,000, New Orleans, city/parish, has more than 10 million visitors annually, pumping US$5.5 billion into its economy, and employing more than 80,000, according to Bloomberg Business News.

Jamaica, specifically Kingston, has given the world reggae music, its precursors ska and rock steady, and its derivative dancehall. Except for the United States, no other country has had such a profound impact with its music on world culture. I began discussing my vision with close friends and confidants, the late Clement 'Sir Coxson' Dodd, Kingsley Goodison, and King Stitt.

This resulted in the forming, in 2006, of Sounds & Pressure Ltd (S&P), a non-profit company to promote cultural tourism in downtown Kingston, particularly along the Orange Street corridor, the cradle of the Jamaican music industry. I reached out to people of like mind with intimate knowledge of the music and downtown, and also sought the guidance of my earlier colleagues, Kennedy and Seymour, and formed an alliance with their two organisations, Kingston City Centre Improvement Company and KRC, that were at the forefront of the redevelopment drive.

They encouraged me to do a comprehensive strategic business plan, and the CHASE Fund provided US$360,000 for this. But try as I did, as chairman of Sounds & Pressure, to get an audience with the prime minister and minister of development, the minister of culture, and the tourism minister, to present the plan and discuss its implementation, it never happened.

When Wayne Chen, a colleague, became chairman of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), I renewed my efforts to get the approval of the UDC in order to seek international and local funding to implement the musical/cultural aspect of redeveloping downtown Kingston. The S& P business plans were submitted and received with much praise. Meetings were held with UDC's senior management, none attended by General Manager Joy Douglas.

Coming out of the meetings was that Sounds & Pressure would be among the 'stakeholders' to be consulted with, in presenting the final draft of the plan to redevelop the area. S&P was expected to have full responsibility for the specific area that would reflect a 'music village'. We were contacted by the UDC to be given an exclusive tour of the area that reflects our plans, and we requested that the area be desig-nated a 'special development zone', in order to have an orderly themed development geared to entertainment and cultural tourism, and with full participation of the inhabitants of the area. It is almost a year since our last contact with the UDC management, and not a word more.

Jamaica is caught in operating more out of opportunism, partisanship, and political expediency than on principle and objectivity. Despite their flaws, countries that we look to, Britain, America and Canada, try hard to act on principles. Transparency, and conflict of interest, real or apparent, mean very little in the Jamaican way of life. This is primarily linked to the legacy of colonialism where those with or close to the seat of power had very little respect for the masses below them. As long as it suits their interest and they can do it and get away with it, they so act.

Much ado

A few years ago, I wrote about the unprincipled act of having a private-sector company, Jamaica Broilers, offering prizes for good journalism and have it endorsed by the Press Association of Jamaica. I recalled being placed in a similar position around 1970 when Dynamic Sounds, a leader in the recording industry, awarded me a prize for best entertainment journalist, and I refused taking it. Not that I had anything against Dynamic Sounds' owners and managers, who were friends of mine; but it was unprincipled to accept a prize from a company that I reported on. Only one article appeared in response to my letter, from Spike, and he saw it as much ado about nothing.

As the demonstrators in the Occupy US cities and around the world are saying emphatically - and Jamaica should pay very close attention - it cannot be business as usual. The world now operates as a global economy, is increasing rapidly in population, and communicating at amazing speed. The treatment meted out to our parents and foreparents will not be tolerated by ensuing generations. For Jamaica to progress, neither Prime Minister Holness and the Jamaica Labour Party nor Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and the People's National Party can maintain the present course. Our children and grandchildren and, indeed, the world will not permit it.

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds is a writer, film-maker and entrepreneur operating in the US and Jamaica. He celebrates 45 years as a published writer. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and fiwipro@yahoo.com.