In Europe you may visit one charming village that is famed for its local cheese and wool, and then travel through a lovely rural landscape to another village noted for a winery and ancient monastery. Europe seems so special and
In Europe you may visit one charming village that is famed for its local cheese and wool, and then travel through a lovely rural landscape to another village noted for a winery and ancient monastery. Europe seems so special and quaint to American visitors.
What is quaint? According to the dictionary, an adjective meaning: 1) having an old-fashioned attractiveness or charm; oddly picturesque. 2) strange, peculiar, or unusual in an interesting or pleasing way. 3) skillfully or cleverly made.
Western Europe is a densely populated part of the industrialized world. What is so clever about European village life that has allowed it to survive intact for a thousand years? It is so obvious, you can see it from the air, yet planners here have hardly put it to practice.
When flying over Ireland, Germany or Italy, you can see that each village is separated from the next by woodlands or farmland. Each town is a distinct community. Separated. Each has its own identity and history. This is not possible without a respect for the past and respect for the place. The Hawaiians had both — Americans have neither.
Sprawl, edge city, sprawl
Most Americans live in the middle of suburban sprawl. Such locations have no history or sense of place — other than what their developers named them, such as “Woodcrest,” “Buena Vista” or “Bali Hai.” Until recently those locales were prairie, desert or canefield, but now they are part of the dominant car culture, and operated with the assumption that Everywhere is Nowhere.
On the Mainland we see a new phenomena growing at the perimeter of the residential sprawl: They are called “edge cities.” People don’t live there. Edge cities are commercial-industrial developments out at the interstate intersections where people go to work and play. Edge cities are where the Progressive Insurance Regional Center shares an exit ramp with the Galleria Mall. Where the Manpower Office shares the parking lot with Thank God It’s Fridays. This relation of home, office and play is the old city-and-suburb model turned inside-out.
Here on Kaua‘i, in Kapa‘a-Wailua, Hanama‘ulu-Puhi, and Koloa-Po‘ipu, we are beginning to see this phenomenon. As our county government continues to promote development between our communities, that which makes our towns distinct and meaningful will disappear. What will also disappear is what makes Kaua‘i meaningful.
Townships in addition
to districts
In the last column, Jonathan Jay and I proposed establishing districts that would follow traditional Hawaiian ones, but be new political entities. In that plan seven districts would select representatives as County Council members. Our motivation was to establish a new island politics that would better represent the interest of the environment (aina) and the people (kama‘aina). We are continuing to refine this idea and hope to get this issue on the next election ballot. Contact us if you are interested in joining this effort, by e-mail at jonathan@dakauai.com.
I am pursuing another simultaneous effort to enhance an aina/kama‘aina powerbase. This would be establishing townships. In order to keep Kaua‘i “quaint,” we could limit development to within the boundaries of existing established communities, with each local planning its own internal growth, or lack thereof. A parallel objective would be to enhance the greenbelts of woods and agriculture that separate towns.
The Hawai‘i Constitution allows for self-organizing government below the county level. This would include incorporated townships. Incidentally, Connecticut, as a small state, decided to have no county governments at all. Just the state and the townships. Here government by island makes sense, but that could include townships too. As a preliminary example, I have made a list of 16 communities that might be considered potential townships. They include Kekaha, Waimea, Hanapepe, Kalaheo, Koloa, Po‘ipu, Puhi, Nawiliwili, Hanama‘ulu, Wailua Houselots, Wailua Homesteads, KawaiHau, Kapa‘a, Anahola, Kilauea and Hanalei. They had to be big enough and separate enough to qualify.
Make villages,
not suburbs
I recommend that each township have services for its residents that could be reached on foot or by bike. That would dramatically reduce the need to get into a car to get through the day. Each township would have its own mayor, town council, public works and planning office. Some services would be from federal, state or county agencies. All together they would include: post office; library; public school; state/county/town offices; recreational center; athletic fields, shopping district; and permanent open market grounds.
Many Kaua‘i towns have several, but not all of these features. That should be corrected, but the trend is going the wrong way. For example, the Lingle-supported Department of Education policy is to consolidate into fewer, bigger, more uniform schools. As a result, more kids, before high school, must be bused or driven out of their communities to be educated.
Here on Kaua‘i, grades below the sixth grade have been eliminated from Waimea Canyon Elementary to make it the regional middle school. This while Ele‘ele School no longer handles the sixth grade, in order for it to be a “standard” elementary. As a result, children in both communities must be bused to the other to complete school through the sixth grade. It’s kind of like a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
With township -based planning, each community would offer education through middle school. This would mean all kids, until they started high school, could bike to their school, the library, the neighborhood recreation center and give mom’s poor Caravan some well-earned down time.
• Juan Wilson is an architect/planner living in Hanapepe Valley. Visit www.Island Breath.org for more about this and related subjects.
