During the past 20 years I have been living in Swieqi. Perfectly nice, and even beautiful, two-storey houses have been torn down – and are still being demolished with an increasing tempo – to be replaced by high blocks of crowded apartments.
If this sort of so-called ‘development’ goes on, Swieqi will soon turn into something resembling a shanty town. Tower cranes, trucks and vans block our streets and create obstacles to traffic, without control. Streets and pavements remain bad and even dangerous.
This is also happening in Birkirkara Road, St Julian’s. And practically all over ourislands. Nowhere is being spared, not Sliema, not even Valletta.
Our skylines are being altered for the worse almost everywhere, with little careful planning. Where is our seemingly defunct Aesthetics Board to control our planning authorities?
No amount of flyovers, tunnels, new roads or expensive underground car parks will solve our driving and parking problems. We simply have too many vehicles clogging our roads.
We have become too rich materially for our own good. And too poor spiritually, psychologically and environmentally. Our present administration’s policies are mistaken and short-sighted. If we are to avoid the present gridlock and endless traffic jams we cannot have more than 200,000 vehicles on our roads.
Animals have disappeared from our village and town environments due to so-called ‘progress’, which, environmentally speaking, is really ‘regress’.
We were richer psychologically when we were materially poorer (except for dire poverty and heavy emigration).
Except for pockets of poverty, our islands are rather wealthy and our people are materially well off but spiritually poor. Our good old values have withered away, to be replaced by short-term gain and long-term loss.
Environmentally, we are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Car dealers, developers and the construction industry can look for profitable work elsewhere for our Malta is at its breaking point.
Maybe we can emulate the example of Germany and France, where they have a healthier environmental balance between vehiclesand countryside.