{"id":283509,"date":"2022-04-12T06:00:20","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T10:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=283509"},"modified":"2022-04-11T22:05:32","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T02:05:32","slug":"commentary-roseau-a-radical-rethink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentary-roseau-a-radical-rethink\/","title":{"rendered":"COMMENTARY: Roseau &#8211; A Radical Rethink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-283510\" src=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Roseau-Screenshot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"553\" height=\"435\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Noisy, dirty, smelly, sweltering, congested, nowhere to safely walk and nowhere to park.<\/p>\n<p>These are the impressions that the City of Roseau imparts in the minds of most residents and visitors. To begin with, the grandiose title of city &#8211; which under British rule may have been earned by virtue of its diocesan cathedral &#8211; is misleading. In reality, Roseau is a market town, the layout of which has not significantly changed since the 19<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0century. Its streets and narrow lanes were laid out for horse and handcarts, not motorcars. If fever had not ravaged Portsmouth in earlier times, Roseau would not have become the capital of Dominica. Valid reasons can now be made for the capital to revert back to Portsmouth, but until that day arrives it behooves us to radically rethink Roseau.<\/p>\n<p>The suggestion that I made in my previous commentary, for building the new library in the town center, was a bone of contention for many readers. However, I qualified my suggestion by stating that many areas\u00a0of Roseau are in need of development and that we urgently need a comprehensive development plan. Such a plan would protect buildings of historical worth, encourage regeneration and guard against the piecemeal development that is presently blighting Roseau\u2019s townscape.<\/p>\n<p>Recently we have become adept at putting the right things in the wrong place: the sports stadium being one example and the Chinese Bridge another. Furthermore, we have become enamored with architecture that bears no relationship to our location. Vernacular architecture need not equate to being outmoded. What is right for Dubai isn\u2019t necessarily right for a small island in the Caribbean. Incidentally, the Carnegie Library building does not reflect British colonial architecture but rather the 18<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0century timber framed buildings of North America.<\/p>\n<p>Roseau has features which, if imaginatively developed, would make other cities envious. It has sea and river frontage together with a dramatic mountainous backdrop. The town center is compact and given shade, can be easily traversed on foot. On the other hand, Roseau\u2019s open street drains have no place in this day and age and pavements should not serve as ad hoc carparks. Traffic congestion can be significantly reduced by re-routing through traffic, but not along the Bay Front or through the Botanic Gardens. There is an alternative route staring us in the face. Large cities overcome their parking problems by \u201cpark and ride\u201d initiatives, whereas our small scale offers the better alternative of \u201cpark and walk\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>My DNO commentary titled <a href=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentary-the-art-of-environment\/\"><em><i>The Art of Environment <\/i><\/em><\/a>explains the importance of the townscape as opposed to individual components of the built environment. In that commentary &#8211; and others along similar lines &#8211; I stressed the need for formulating and implementing a Roseau Development Plan. In 2005 Baptiste &amp; Associates Ltd., a local company located right here in Dominica, produced <a href=\"https:\/\/physicalplanning.gov.dm\/images\/ROSRoseau%20Development%20Plan.pdf\">a 383-page development plan<\/a>. But being locally conceived, as against originating in Barbados or Dubai, it has been largely ignored.<\/p>\n<p>Unless an up-to-date development plan is formulated and implemented, Roseau will sink further into urban decay. The identity of places reflects the identity of ourselves, and I doubt that Dominicans want the opening sentence of this commentary to apply to their homeland. Surely the task is to create a town center that is worthy of an exemplary modern library. In the meantime, a restored Carnegie library building &#8211; and the grounds within which it stands \u2013 could serve as a fitting venue for a host of cultural programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Noisy, dirty, smelly, sweltering, congested, nowhere to safely walk and nowhere to park. These are the impressions that the City of Roseau imparts in the minds of most residents and visitors. To begin with, the grandiose title of city &#8211;&#8230;","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":283510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,235,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-homepage-carousel","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>COMMENTARY: Roseau - A Radical Rethink - Dominica News Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentary-roseau-a-radical-rethink\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COMMENTARY: Roseau - A Radical Rethink - Dominica News Online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Noisy, dirty, smelly, sweltering, congested, nowhere to safely walk and nowhere to park. 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