It doesn’t take long, as you look at Google Earth, to get an idea of how close the Bahamas have come, and will come, to utter ruin.
Empty promises peddled by developer after developer after developer from island to island are visible in empty plot after empty plot. All these roads to nowhere and empty lots represent a small fraction of the efforts to parcel up and sell of the Bahamas. Luckily, there aren’t enough buyers. At least for now.
I hope the next time someone comes to some little local government division there in the Bahamas and promises to make their little bit of paradise into the next South Beach, they look at this post and then go on to look at Google Earth and they decide not to sell.
Can you imagine if all those empty lots actually had houses on them? What if all those houses had people in them? What if all those people needed power and sewage and shopping? Can you imagine if all those broken promises were actually kept? It would utterly destroy the nature of the place, the ecology, the character, the beauty. I hope that it never, ever comes to pass.
(it would probably totally destroy the bonefishing too)
Here’s a glance at Grand Bahama…
GBI
Abaco…
Abaco
Exuma…
Exuma
Eleuthera…
Eleuthera
New Providence…
New Providence
Andros…
Andros
Thank god it is a lot harder to execute than it is to imagine.
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Tags: Bahamas, overdevelopment
I admit to chills, a “lump in my throat” just now, as I viewed your Google earth pictures of Abaco, somewhere in the Exuma’s, etc. Correct that only Bahamians can own property in the Bahamas? I recall most wretched poverty in places like Spanish Wells. How can you counter developer’s jobs and dollars? How sad. A plan?
100 years ago, I attended St. Andrews, in Nassau, and grew up in a home on Cable Beach……before there was a bridge to Paradise Island. I have not returned since those days although may attend a school Reunion this fall. Your photos make me uncertain if I want to return with my “tourist dollars” to the area or find a way to become involved long distance?
I think others can own land, but who exactly owns the deed to any plot of land is a tricky thing and often legally convoluted, from how I understand it.
I’m sure folks in Nassau are happy with many of the changes… it probably means some comforts that weren’t there before. Still… from a character or beauty perspective… it is probably a bit of a loss.