Let's Build Gonave, Haiti!

In many of the site's older blogs I talk about rail.  Most of the options are light rail vehicles.  The idea is to either connect the entire island by rail of some sort, and possibly start a leg connecting Anse-a-Galets to Pointe-a-Raquettes first.  Light rail is cheaper than heavy rail.  Think of the New York subway system as heavy rail.   Light rail is the type of rail that forms the backbone to Portland and Seattle's transit lines.  Then you have streetcars which are even lighter in weight than a light rail train.  These can look like San Francisco's iconic streetcar, or the modern streetcar that you see in Portland and Seattle. There is another option as well that is lighter than the streetcars and even cheaper.  A typical light rail vehicle can weigh 100,000 lbs, and cost as much as $6 million per vehicle.  A Utlra Light Rail Vehicle costs as much at $1 million or less, and weighs about 10,000 lbs.  Many tourist resorts and ...

This is your typical honey bee hive box which is made by a company in Oregon.  While these hive kits are about $150.00 US, these would be ideal for starting the honey farms on Gonave.  Hives generally create about about 100 or more lbs of honey per year.  Not only that, but you can do much more than produce honey, such as using the wax for soaps and lotions, amongst other things. The idea is to get about 4 hives started to see how well these boxes work on Gonave.  These hives boxes, could also be easily built on Gonave, and sold as part of a small industry. So for less than $600.00, 4 hives could be built on Gonave.  This would not take into consideration the costs of the bees, or transporting the hives and bees to Gonave. Not only could this be the start of an industry of honey, but also of light manufacturing of soap, lotion, and hive boxes. Go Gonave!

I was recently approached by a family friend who said that creating a pod district, similar to what Portland has, can be a tourist draw, but also serve the needs of local Gonavians. So I am putting together a plan to build a small pod district that could serve food and beverages.  I have written before that beer stalls would be important as they can serve beer that is brewed from Gonave.  I envision burger, beer, tea, coffee, sandwich, asian food, etc as stalls that could be developed in this pod district.  I will be looking at a few ways that this could be implemented along with plans that Hurko has announced.  This could be achieved by using 20 ft long shipping containers, which would be rented out to locals who have a sound business plan and financing.  I will speak more about this later as I gather more input and concrete plans. Go Gonave!

I mentioned in a few previous blogs about establishing rail as a main mode of travel around Gonave.  It will decrease the footprint and move people around Gonave very easily.  Transit stops can be new locations where develop starts, and can even spur vitalization in existing communities.  Having a modern infrastructure system that can not only move people and goods, will help to lure business development from foreign investors. Now many will say Gonave doesn't have good roads, housing, jobs, water, sewer service, so building a multimillion dollar rail system is far from everyone's mind.  Keep in mind that a timeline for something like this is many years down the road after some mild development has taken place on Gonave.  Also the system, if built, would be built in phases.  With the Hurko housing and office development, along with them wanting to build large Wind Turbines and a road connecting a village to the Focus City, planning ahead is a good idea. ...

As Gonave develops not only should education be a main focus, but I think smart city design is also very important. Cities that build fiber optic lines, develop mass transit systems, focus on high density housing, and development that focuses on green technology lead the world.  Example, look at Seattle versus Miami.  While some would think Miami would be what a city should be, with the large amounts of hotels, a new plan for a large convention center and hotel, the large amounts of tourists, and a massive international airport, that Miami is the epitome of what all large cities should be. Look at Seattle, not only is large retailer Nordstrom from Seattle, but so is Boeing, Microsoft, T-Mobile, and Amazon.com to name a few.  Seattle has some of the best educational systems in the country, a large world known university (University of Washington), a massive downtown, lots of high density residential,  many options for transit, and it is on the verge of being a Wo...