Common sense tells us that construction is a means to provide spaces where people live, work and do whatever else they do. It can happen, however, that it becomes an end in itself. In that case, people will do all it takes to sustain the pace of construction. Even as they do so, they become more and more dependent on it.
The technical term for this mechanism is ‘positive feedback’. In brief, it means that the outcome of a process feeds back into it to produce more of it: X produces Y which in turn produces more X. Very useful if X happens to be, say, a blood clotting chemical and Y an activated platelet. Platelets that are activated by clotting chemicals in turn stimulate the release of more clotting chemicals (and more and more platelets and stimulation). In this way, a small cut to the finger does not normally cause death by bleeding.
There is nothing positive about positive feedback, at least not in the way an optimist or success in an exam or a smiling teddy bear are positive. It simply means more of the same by virtue of that very same, whether or not that same is desirable or not. Clotting platelets are usually a good thing, but they can also kill you.
Whether the construction boom is a smiling teddy or a thrombosis is a matter of opinion. It’s certainly the former for developer tycoons who seem to have a finger in every concrete bucket and a boat in every harbour. The many people who find that their house can be turned into 10 flats and a fat bank account are equally likely to be pleased.
Thing is, no amount of money can offset the cost of the construction frenzy. Rich or poor, we all have to live with the constant noise, dust and shabbiness that the industry creates. We also have no choice but to put up with a shrinking countryside and a general deterioration of our built environment.
Take Mġarr, Manikata, and Mellieħa. Until recently, they were smallish clusters of village houses with flats and 1980s terraced houses at the edges. Not an ideal setup, perhaps, but one that retained intact village cores. Now, even those cores are being swept away. Mġarr and Manikata especially have lost all semblance of continuity. Żebbiegħ, on the outskirts of Mġarr, is an indescribably ugly mass of party walls and chaotic blocks. Just driving through it makes me retch.
Still, my point is not that the construction boom is bad. Rather, it is that the more it booms, the hungrier and more invigorated it will get. Positive feedback, in other words.
Take jobs. Recently the Malta Developers Association commissioned a private company to survey the field. It turns out that construction and its spin-offs account for 15 per cent of Malta’s Gross Value Added (GVA). In terms of employment, the sector provides 37,275 jobs – that’s over 21 per cent of all gainful employment in the country.
The reason why the MDA took the trouble is that the results tell us in no uncertain terms that our economy is heavily dependent on construction. Reading between the lines, the MDA is also telling us to encourage the sector to grow and grow, or else. On both counts, they’re right.
As the Planning Authority works overtime to keep construction booming, developers do the logical thing: they invest in people and machinery. The more they do so, the more the statistics turn in their favour and the more dependent on construction the economy becomes. No wonder Sandro Chetcuti is Malta’s Cheshire cat.
My point is not that the construction boom is bad. Rather, it is that the more it booms, the hungrier and more invigorated it will get
Partly the problem is that there is nothing intrinsically bad about the numbers. Construction provides work for very many honest people. I personally know builders, electricians and tile-layers who work round the clock and conscientiously.
And yet, it is precisely these people who make the economy of dependency so painful. The MDA would say that it would be terrible for the thousands of construction workers to experience a lull, and once again the MDA would be right. The more we accept the model of dependency, the deeper we sink into it and the higher the environmental costs of construction get.
There’s more. All the investment in infrastructure and machinery means that a whole tissue of credit exists that is dependent on construction. I reckon there must be several hundred tower cranes in service, and I don’t suppose many of them were bought in cash.
This, therefore, is what I mean by a positive feedback of dependency. Every new job, every new crane and cement mixer, makes us more dependent on the sector. In terms of environmental costs, the Planning Authority is busy digging our collective grave.
Which brings me to politics. Here, too, there is positive feedback. As the construction statistics pile up, two things will happen. First, the larger number of people involved in the sector will (understandably) mean more pressure on politicians to let things be. Second, the developers’ lobby will get more and more powerful.
We may already have reached the point of no return. As things stand, I doubt a party is electable unless it has the financial backing of the big developers. Election campaigns are no longer a matter of a couple of loudspeakers on a truck; nor can parties depend on the kind of volunteers that built the Freedom Press 50 years ago.
The telethon circuses in which the two big parties raise a few hundred thousand euros each are of ritual, rather than financial, importance. The real money comes from the few who have millions to spare and many millions more to lose if things go the wrong way. When people complain that Adrian Delia is Joseph Muscat in disguise, and that as Prime Minister he would give us more of the same, it’s because he doesn’t really have much choice.
As I write, the Planning Authority has yet again ignored the Environment and Resources Authority and approved yet another petrol station on Outside Development Zone land. Someone, somewhere, has just placed an order on new pumps and an advert for people to run them. That’s a few inches deeper into dependency territory for us.
mafalzon@hotmail.com