ABSTRACT
The primary aim of this chapter is to examine the proposal by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies, to redevelop one of the areas of the capital city, East Port of Spain. The chapter is severely limited in its scope since redevelopment of this city is still essentially a work in progress. As such, the chapter does not, or cannot, at this time, evaluate the outcome of the project. Rather, an attempt is made to provide explanations for the vast projections undertaken by the government. Two major theoretical frameworks are examined in order to arrive at an explanation, namely, the cultural approach (Smith 1984; Gottdiener and Feagin 1988), and the political economy approach (Clarke 2000; DiGaetano and Strom 2003). The chapter suggests that while the two approaches are relevant to the more developed countries, in a developing country such as Trinidad and Tobago the approach adopted is more eclectic-borrowing some dimensions from one or more models or approaches. The paper acknowledges, though, that in the case of the redevelopment of the East Port of Spain, the decision of the government has been infl uenced by a complex interplay of a number of factors including urban decline, the force of new ideology and economic as well as and political considerations. These infl uences have all converged to produce what has been translated into a comprehensive planning document ‘Vision 2020,’ which includes proposals for a major facelift of the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain.
