"Innercity communities are likely to be the next . . . "

By Paul Andrew Bourne, MSc. (candidate); BSc. (Hons); Dip Edu.


Introduction

"Poor people have to meet the increasing price of foodstuffs whose extra cost does not necessarily mean an increase in nutritional value; indeed in many cases much of the food in advanced societies is losing its food value."
Andrew Webster, 1970, p.16


"Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the type of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are in effect, excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities."
Townsend 1979, p.31



According to Andrew Webster's sociological perspective as quoted above, the disadvantaged within our societies are continuously confronted with the situation of having to meet the rising cost of food with modest economic power. Webster's position, however, was written prior to the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that was recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1980s as the required pathway for Third World countries to which was wholesalely embarked on by the Jamaican government in the same period. After the first phase of the SAP in the 1980s, prices of food rose significantly to the point where the poor became poorer, widespread unemployment affect the economic base of many poor Jamaican families, and subjective poverty became a real phenomenon that occurred thereafter. In the same period, government was moving away from a welfare type state which was made for compounding the problems of many poor families.

Hence, the issue of the SAP affected mainly innercity people in Jamaica who were unable to structure their position as they are not owners of factors of production. The results were squalor, high unemployment, the erosion of values, and unabated murders that began to live among residents of communities.

The second view takes the researcher to Townsend's outlook, where prior to the SAP in the 1980s, when many people in Jamaica were below the poverty line, now (post 1980s), the situation has even worsen significantly to the position where countless number of people are not living ordinarily, and properly and may be termed as inadequate subsistence existence.

Few Jamaicans need any formal introduction on communities such as Southside, Downtown-Kingston, in regards to the sociological problems that those residents experience on an ongoing basis. The issue of periodic gun violence, social deprivation, economic deprivation, and psychological segregation, are just some of the dilemmas that we are aware to which the people of those areas continually face.

Because we (sociologists and economists, alike) are seeking to address the issue of modernity and development, this process cannot be attained without firstly, understanding the nature of innercity residents' traditions, values, norms, cultures and infrastructure before modernity and development are deemed possible. What is modernity, in our today's discussion, about? The answer should be concerned with social change and human progress.

Caring for Southside in Central Kingston has everything to do with the security of Jamaica. In that, those people who are mainly affected by insecurity are the poorest, innercity residents, in this case reside in close proximity to the harbour/ports and airport in Downtown, Kingston, which is the nation's hub of economic activities. As such, any civil uprising by those residents will affect the entire island of Jamaica. Meaning, helping the development of Southside strengthens the modernity/development of Jamaicans by extension. The development of all in Jamaica must be the concern of the state, the private sectors and the upper/middle class of this society.

Low education, social deprivation, lack of economic opportunities, low self-esteem, and a high teenage pregnancy, inadequacies of information, poor infrastructure and conflict mismanagement are just some of the issues that people of innercity communities in Jamaica, just like Southside, experience. Those situations need to be address with immediacy as any delay for the future may result in civil unrest similar to that of Haiti. Policy makers and decision-makers need to understand that those issues bar modernity and development and speak to social incivility of any modern nation. Undoubtedly, those issues bar the stride of any policy that is geared towards economic growth and-or development. As such, this research seeks to provide a guide as to a policy direction that may be used to address modernity/development of Southside, Central Kingston, Jamaica, as a model.



The arguments purported earlier are not exclusive to some communities particularly in Jamaica but this dilemma is now a typical innercity world phenomenon.

This new but old phenomenon is likely to be the world's next demon and not the "bin ladens" of this world.