POPULATION OUTGROWING CITY

NATIONAL OP/ED

PORT Moresby has been growing at a furious pace. The growth rate is so fast that it has outstripped all physical planning for the city. Port Moresby, the boom town, is heading for congestion and overcrowding.

It is a public emergency that is staring at the government and city planners in the face daily. In another year, traffic congestion, which is heavy now, will be so thick it will take hours to get from one end of town to another. Having arrived, the problem of finding a parking space will be so great that people will double or triple-park in one space resulting in possible angry and violent scenes. Open public spaces, already shrunk to almost nil, will be non-existent. Parks and gardens will be rare. Sporting fields will be converted into buildings and in-door sports will become common. There will be no space for additional buildings, and restrictions on high-rise buildings will be lifted as builders struggle for height to add space.

Present limitations at 10-storeys have been busted by almost all the high-rise buildings in the city. Power outages will be regular as pressure is put on by more and more developments and a population explosion.

Cost of doing business will increase as generators become a priority item for every self-respecting business and even private homes. On the plus side, there will be a boom in generator and fuel sales. Water shortages and interruptions to supply will be regular. Both power and water rationing are definite possibilities.

Sewerage disposal problems will occur and Port Moresby will be a smelly boom town, posing tremendous health and hygiene risks.

Garbage disposal will become a problem so that the capital will also be a dirty boom town. There will be very little land for development that the price for all available land will be so high, driving up the price of doing business in the country. Doing business here is already considered among the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. Social problems such as crime will increase. Port Moresby, which is already crowded, will become even more crowded, putting pressure on all services as well as spaces in schools and hospital beds. This is reality staring at all of us in the face.

Unless both national and city planners are put on an emergency footing to address these challenges, the exponential growth of the city will lead, not to a quality life and social, environmental and economic well-being, but the opposite. Development, like everything else, must be sustainable to maintain a quality human urban lifestyle. Let it grow unplanned and the future will not bode well. The vision for Port Moresby to become a jewel in the Pacific, the garden city where its residents enjoy the best of a tropical lifestyle with buildings and development showcasing the magnificent hilly seaside setting, and promoting the image of a beautiful garden city with shade, colour and tropical lushness, might not be achieved if these issues are not addressed now.

City Hall desires to encourage building design that is “responsive to the environment, promoting tropical architecture which contributes to urban character, human comfort and energy efficiency” but, already, buildings are going every which way with no particular attention to these stated desires. The city wants to “support public participation in cultural programmes and practices, to encourage a wide base of community support”, but where is the public open spaces to do all this? The vision “to create a unique jewel of the western Pacific region, with a distinctive physical presence and character, and a standard of living to match” must be managed. It can never be achieved under the present unplanned and unmanaged circumstances.

The administration of NCDC is working under difficult conditions, where data bases of important information are lacking. 

Knowledge of the annual cost of a sustainable programme of maintenance is basic to many other decisions but such information, by the city management’s own admittance, is lacking.

Planning in the city must be considered an emergency issue.