I was struck by a report in the Times of Malta last week that told of the miserable state of Mrieħel. Confusion, congestion, dust and a dead cat were among the things found by the journalists in a few minutes on site. Their video showed a dog’s breakfast of a place where pavements are non-existent, and where chunks of stone, rubble and all manner of rubbish keep pedestrians company.
And yet, Mrieħel is home to hundreds of businesses, many of which operate from well-appointed offices and showrooms. It is not known for its cheap real estate. It is also where the Quad Business Towers, which will cost the Tumas and Gasan groups scores of millions of euros to finish, are taking shape.
The Quad, which will rehearse the towers-around-a-central-piazza theme (yawns all round) was recently declared a Special Designated Area (SDA) by legal notice. In brief, SDAs are pockets of real estate where foreign buyers have the same acquisition rights as Maltese citizens. They are presumably built to higher standards than usual and with foreign investors very much in mind. Except, in this case, they had better be investors who prefer their neighbours to be dead cats.
Not much about the Mrieħel report was particularly surprising. My work includes a scholarly interest in real-estate development in Indian cities. A good chunk of that development is premised on the deep pockets of foreign buyers. In India, too, glitzy towers rise around landscaped ‘piazzas’, coffee franchises, and big talk of international standards and top-quality finish.
Except the only comfortable ways to actually get to them are by helicopter or car, the latter preferably air-conditioned and with tinted windows. For different reasons, neither was an option for me. Instead, I always chose to wade my way to El Dorado through miles of shanties, open gutters, dug-up streets and unspeakable shabbiness. In India, as in Mrieħel, the high-quality finish and the no finish at all live cheek by jowl.
There are three possible reasons why this is so. First, that the shambles exists, and always will, in spite of its opposite – a kind of innovative take on the poor will always be with you. Second, that it’s simply a case of two tempos, of surroundings that have some catching up to do. Third, that the dead cat is there precisely because of the towers. I shall argue that the third possibility, which is also the most troubling, is the case at Mrieħel.
But first, a detour to another planet. Last week I found myself talking to a civil servant on a bus in Bern. He told me that there were plans to replace the bus route with a tram line, provided voters supported the idea in a referendum that would be held soon. (He wasn’t pulling my leg – I’ve checked.)
By this model, public space becomes a no-man’s land inhabited only by thousands of complaining people and certain cats that are not in a position to respond
A new tram line would mean a fairly radical reshaping of the street, he explained, and it would also involve several trees that would have to be chopped down. It was only right that important decisions that concerned public space be based on well-informed political choices, he added. Amazed and envious, I nodded and swallowed hard.
There are at least two reasons why the dead cat is a direct result of the towers. The first is that, increasingly, our living spaces are being shaped by private interests. Place names offer a good clue. ‘Ħdejn it-torrijiet ta’ Gasan’ (‘Near the Gasan towers’), someone explained the other day when I asked for directions to a shop. Hardly a day passes that a new link is not made between some corner of Malta and the (household) name of some or other mega-developer.
Thing is, private interests tend to care about their private interests. Certainly they don’t care that their towers and piazzas end up surrounded by rubble and broken pavements. They will say otherwise, of course, but the evidence strongly suggests that we should be foolish to believe them. I would advise anyone who is not convinced to take a five-minute stroll from Xgħajra to Smart City. Sturdy boots are recommended for the first part of the journey.
Especially in places like Mrieħel, our living space is being shaped by the enclave model. By which I mean barnacled developments of high-rise and manicured lawns, and may the devil take the rest. By this model, public space becomes a no-man’s land inhabited only by thousands of complaining people and certain cats that are not in a position to respond.
There is a second, perhaps more context-specific, reason why development spawns its opposite. Malta will look fine when it’s finished, the old joke ran. That, and it looks anything but fine while unfinished, which is always and forever.
There can be, in truth, not much will and energy to sort out public spaces. That’s because, especially in places like Mrieħel but practically all over the country, the built environment is an unmerry-go-round of demolition and rebuilding. There really is no point in seeing to things like pavements if the chances are that they will be dug up or damaged by heavy machinery the minute they’re finished. Thus the argument that development (so to say) and disaster are two sides of the same coin.
I did not really swallow hard on that tram. Rather, I replied that I came from a place that had given up on its public spaces, and where a referendum about a tram line was unthinkable. As was a tram line at all, in fact. Where I came from, the trees would simply be bulldozed to let more cars get to the torrijiet ta’ Gasan. There, another traitor of Malta.
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