In essence, the guidelines treat the recent disaster as an opportunity. Thousands of public buildings in Port-au-Prince were destroyed by the earthquake, including schools, hospitals and markets. Around 600,000 survivors have since fled the capital for cities like Cap Haitien, in the north, and Hinche, in the central plateau. The population of Gonaïves, a port city on the west coast roughly midway between the country’s two major fault lines, has swollen to 300,000 from 200,000 in less than three months.
By relocating many schools and hospitals to smaller cities, planners hope to create an economic incentive to keep people from returning to Port-au-Prince once reconstruction begins. The new buildings could be organized around public squares and parks to provide civic centers to communities sorely lacking in them. [emphasis added]As always, there is so much wrong with this "news article" it's almost impossible to find a place to begin the criticism, so I won't. For one thing, though, you have got to wonder just a little bit how a community that just got wiped out in an earthquake could be "sorely lacking" civic centers. Or do civic centers now provide shelter, food and clothing all on their own?
This article proves one thing, and one thing only-- for calculating socialists, central planning of economies and communities NEVER gets old. Never. It doesn't matter that it doesn't work, damnit, it provides "urban planners" with jobs!
*UPDATE*
A reader notes that the article "is not an example of BWF." Correct.
I should have been more clear in my post that I am coming at the BWF from a more abstract perspective, which is thus-- the article makes it clear that many "urban planners" are having wet-dreams over the idea of completely re-structuring Haiti's society and economy. Thanks to the earthquake, the country has been transformed into Sandbox Land in their minds, and it's playtime!
According to the article, these power fetishists view the destruction left by the earthquake as a sublime opportunity to reshape Haiti in a way that will lead to economic growth going forward. Finally, an opportunity to "break the cycle of poverty."
In the Parable of the Broken Window, a small boy breaks a window and everyone cheers because now the glazier will have the opportunity to "grow his economy" by repairing the window. Everyone misses that the boy's village is poorer for one window and no economic growth will occur at all.
Similarly, this article implies that the devastation wrought in Haiti by this natural disaster is, in fact, an opportunity to finally grow Haiti's economy by mixing things up. Everyone misses that the problem is not a perfect central/urban plan, but the massive, routine raping of that country by the domestic Haitian as well as international political classes, and that the country would've been much better off not having suffered an earthquake, with its shanties in tact and with some freedom to live and prosper otherwise going forward.
In this sense, I make the claim that the BWF is alive and well in Haiti. I am open to continued disputes of my use of the term.
