Which is
why you have clueless twits walking on a section of the Path that
further desecrated a sacred area — and cost a sickening $1.9
million for that quarter-mile segment alone — and though they
“love it,” they're still bitching.
“They
need a bike rental business right there at the end of the beach,”
said Canadian visitor Debbie Dykes, pointing to Wailua River.
“They
shouldn’t allow so many cars,” opined South African surfer Amy
Oakes, who plans to spend five months here with her boyfriend, taking
up space, using up resources and spending as little money as possible
before moving on.
The
Garden Isle is so beautiful, with so many mountains and beaches, but
the number of cars on the road ruin a little bit of the island’s
vibe, Oakes said.
Gee,
Amy, sorry if we're disturbing your idyllic vacation as we go about
our lives and jobs, our view of Wailua Beach now ruined by that stupid fake pohaku wall that borders the Path you're traipsing on.
I think
some of us might say the island's vibe has been ruined more than a
little bit by culturally insensitive development and the ever-increasing hordes of tourists, whose sunscreen
stink can now be smelled on even the most remote beaches and trails
as they seek always to find someplace new, different, “secret.” Only to discover many more just like them wherever they go.
Don't
get me wrong. I don't hate tourists, and I'm fully aware that they're
an “economic driver” of this island— just like the toxic seed companies, military base and ice dealers. (Btw, check out this Huffington Post article about Hawaii's dirty little GMO-pesticide secret, which gives Kauai a serious black eye.)
But I
wonder why Kauai and state "leaders" have this idea that more tourism is always better
— even though locally, we're told, the visitor count was way up last month, meaning more resource demands and impacts, but their
spending was way down. So how is that benefitting us again?
Meanwhile, Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. keeps building his outrageously expensive, disconnected, unplanned path to
nowhere — a perfect metaphor for his administration — even as the
new landfill, adolescent drug treatment center, park maintenance,
affordable housing, agricultural boosterism and zoning enforcement
languish.
Main
thing, the tourists are happy. Even if they're not.
Posts
21 comments:
I feel sad every time I drive by there.
North shore so crowded right now. It's horrible
The article just reeks of TGI kissing the county's ass again.
Nearly every day, TGI has an article related to "good" things the COK does on its front page.
I sometimes refer to TGI as "Kaua'i Pravda."
Who is this island for anyway? Tourists or the people who actually have to live here. ($1.9 for a tiny section of path is ridiculous too.) Everyone is raving about the bike path but I miss the isolated stretch of beach at Donkeys where you could go natural if you wanted to but now is a selling point for those multi million dollar lots that are empty & should have remained Ag. We should keep those rugged places; that's what makes it Kauai.
What about the Navy wanting to increase the exclusion zone on the westside?
Enough is enough!
Maybe not pathological but indeed lacking is the countys lack of control of lobbyists.
Maybe that's why we have these uncomfortable issues.
Civilbeat article.....
http://m.civilbeat.com/posts/2013/07/03/19447-hawaii-monitor-kauais-free-range-lobbyists/
Tell the whiners to stop having babies. How much space do you take up?
Here we go, it's the evil clueless twits that are responsible for all the shortcomings of the Garden Isle. Time to close the airport and turn off the lights, maybe they will forget about us. Everyone, and I mean everyone on this rock came from somewhere else at one time or other. I agree that it's crowded, but it's a small rock. Maybe ,{with luck} the evil clueless twits will get that this is a perfect utopian community and quit coming to visit. Then everyone will complain about how broke we are.
2:44...I had to grin at your post. Rather well said, actually. Mahalo.
I think there is a visitor tax or if there is not there could be. The proceeds could be used to mitigate traffic issues. Make it large enough and you could dampen tourist arrivals to only the more affluent.
"In the places where tourism became an important part of the local and regional economy, an evident pattern appeared and persisted. Generally, tourism served as a replacement economy; it was added on, sometimes with embarrassment, after the demise or decline of another economy, usually by someone from elsewhere who could redefine the place in national or at least in extralocal terms. Individuals and communities greatly underestimated its impact and transformative power. By the way it drew people to visit or live, it altered the meaning of local life, the very soul of the places it touched. Although appearing to be an unskilled profession, tourism in fact required specific traits that neonatives were far more likely to possess than were prior residents of transformed towns. Places evolved into caricatures of their original identities, passing from inarticulate reflection and affirmation of the unique heritage of the dominant culture to colorful backdrop for a script in which visitors tacitly understood themselves to be the principal characters, self-consciously moving among the sights and sounds, natural and cultural, around them."
- Hal Rothman, Devil's Bargains: Tourism and the American West
That about sums it up.
Have Lihue Airport charge a higher tax making Kauai more expensive than the other islands and most tourists (the cheap ones) will go to Oahu or the Big Island as a result. I do not have any problem with that.
So it seems that some just don't want tourism to be the driving force behind our economy and Ag is suspect now with all of the anti-GMO activity (what about sugar cane? it went out of business due to costs and use of pesticides to control the tropical pests from taking over) so what would be an acceptable way to keep the Garden Island economically alive?
You're not going to like the answer. It requires a more simpler more sustained lifestyle which most people who buy into the "American dream" will not forego. It requires giving up our consumer mentality and living closer to the land that some of us still attempt to do when we're not being denied ocean and mountain access. Which is why we need to support small farmers and not industrialized ag that degrade the soil, waterways and ocean. Instead of mass tourism that has been taking place since the advent of the jet plane, we need to instead promote small scale tourism with reduced impacts to infrastructure, resources and communities. The American capitalistic structure has proven ill-fated to most while favoring the elite.
In response to 10:13 that sounds great-but why in all of these years have the residents of Kauai never stepped up to make this happen even when the cane fields closed and people were offered the opportunity to take over the land and create small farms? Even now there are many opportunities to become self-sustaining but very few are interested-the plantation mentality is still in existence-let someone else do it-In other countries and even on the Mainland USA Ag and tourism co-exist-people flock to stay on farms and work the land-but oh no-no okay here?
Sounds like a win-win here too-
because people only want to sit around and bitch. that[s what keeps this blog going
Speaking for yourself?
"the plantation mentality is still in existence-let someone else do it"
Go fuck yourself, fucking condescending haole.
So, no Military, no airport, no Port Allen power plant, no Matson, no gasoline, no Haole tourists. How long till it all falls apart?
On a side note, the lack of jobs for young people cause them to obtain work off-island. The end result is that we have a growing elder population living alone and without family support. I am witnessing this as a caregiver. We definitely don't want to decrease what jobs we have.
Post a Comment