New beginnings naturally invite a comparison of our present life with the past, evaluation of our progress and planning for the future. The relationship between our quality of life and how we manage our tourism-based economy is a good point of comparison. It is an accurate indicator of how our community is doing in a larger sense, of our goals and where our priorities lie.
The present economic success of relatively few individuals in our community is at the cost of our long-term stability and sustainability. For many people who live here life is a week-to-week struggle for economic survival. For other people the question is how much of this place can be exploited and how quickly. In the middle is a balance.
The means of achieving this balance will only arise from a healthy public dialogue that can lead us to make conscious choices which reflect our community vision. As a group, we are now experiencing a lack of balance in part, because so many issues have not been faced. As a city we have too often acted by default, not as a result of planning based upon consensus. We have failed to assure that the development of a tourism-based economy would provide widespread community benefit to all the people who live here. Without this assurance, our sustainability as a community is jeopardized.
The way our island is being marketed, too much is never enough. Our quality of life is suffering. Evidence is the gridlock traffic; expensive, impossible, inadequate parking for cars, mopeds and bicycles; non-existent housing and inadequate infrastructure.
Perceived benefits of encouraging larger and larger numbers of tourists to visit here every year are questionable if one looks at the negative long-term effects upon the natural resources which are the basis of our economic life. Clean water, healthy reefs and wildlife are part of that resource, and the reason that many of us live here.
While some businesses require the sheer weight of numbers of visitors for their prosperity, the impact of those massive numbers of tourists is absorbed by local residents. Our benefits may not be proportionate to those impacts.
For example, take the Navy-owned Truman Annex property which is in the process of being conveyed to the city through the base reuse and closure process, BRAC. The people who live adjacent to what will be a park, commercial development site, cruise ship and possible ferry docking area, may have been part of that process. Even so, they are probably not able to imagine what 5,000 car trips and frequent sightseeing vehicles per day through small residential streets will mean to them.
This is how what starts out as an abstract quality of life issue becomes part of our daily routine and is one of the ways of defining neighborhood character.
In the advertising of our island it is sometimes difficult to reconcile the promise of beaches, laid-back local characters and pictures of Disneyworld-looking streets with the reality of our lives.
The difference between what one is able to earn even with two or three jobs, and the cost of living here doesn't leave most locals with much time to be colorful, laid back, or to sit around chatting with visitors.
A sense of history is hard to maintain if half the population in a city changes every three years. This is a major symptom of a community lacking in sustainability. That sense of true history is further damaged by the pseudo-history with which we are surrounded.
People who come to snorkel, dive and fish will probably be pleased with what they find here. But if anyone comes expecting miles of natural white sandy beaches, disappointment is certain. However, our coral beaches and their ecosystems are unique.
We need to share with our visitors the real things that make us love this place, that are different than anywhere else.
By improving our quality of life we are preserving our history, culture and environment. We are protecting the future of our island, and our own economic sustainability.