Well, I just learned a new word: NIMBY’S. I have found out over the years that I have missed out on a lot of things by living here in Cancun for so long. TV shows, vocabulary and word evolution and slang like this, some news, etc. But I am catching up slowly with the Simpsons and Law & Order and the rest will come.
The conversation started when someone mentioned a protest in front of the Cancun Palace hotel yesterday. The Director of Fonatur was going to be at the Cancun Palace and the protestors wanted to picket against changing the zoning to permit construction of high-rise condos on the Pok-ta-Pok golf course.
Some politically and economically wealthy people bought the golf course from the Kelly Group. Kelly sold it in an attempt to pay off what he owes and get out of the Chicago accommodations that he is in now. They bought it to build condos on. It is, from what I am told by people who know golf, that it is not a good golf course. I do know that it is a big money loser and is not able to compete with all of the other great new golfing options available in the area.
Someone said “I guess that there are NIMBY’s in Cancun too” and I had never heard the term so they had to explain it and although I was not familiar with the term, I am familiar with the type.
NIMBY’s have always been around I guess. From people who were not in favor of invaders moving into their territory to the tree-huggers, old house preservationists and spotted owl protectors who try to “protect”what doesn’t belong to them but belongs to someone or something else. OK, Ok, so owls, old houses and trees belong to all of us–yeh, right! Just try tearing down your neighbour’s old house and see where it gets you.
What some of them don’t consider is that, of course, “your back yard” ends WHERE YOUR BACK YARD ENDS. There is an old but very nice hotel on the Strip in Las Vegas called the Jockey Club–ONLY 11 stories high. A couple of years ago someone bought the empty lot next door but didn’t build. Then they bought most of their parking lot which is prime real estate. Now, approximately 10 feet from their property, there is a 50-story building! Right outside their back yard and there is nothing they can do about it.
Now let’s move on to Cancun and/or Mexico in general. There are still people who raise a stink every time someone wants to build a gas station close to their house. Of course they are afraid that someone will light a match and blow up the neighbourhood. When you have lived in a third-world society with lax safety standards all your life and with a government that is less than responsive unless you have money, you tend to mistrust everything and everyone especially if it is in your back yard. I have never seen them win that zoning battle–long term. (BTW, the gas station magnates are some of those who bought Po-Ta-Pok.)
A friend of mine, Tulio Arroyo, has been leading the fight to save the Ombligo Verde–”The Green Belly Button” (some things just don’t translate well!) across the street from his front yard. This is a big (previously) undeveloped green area that was used by bums, thieves and lovers looking for a quick frolic in the bushes. His first battle to save this wonderful natural resource was against the Catholic Church that wanted to build a Cathedral there. This would, of course, kill trees and create a situation where people would be parking in front of his house on a Sunday morning and so had to be fought to the end. There is currently a Cathedral there…along with the attendant street vendors, red rag parking assistants, loud singing on a Sunday morning and people parking on the street in front of his house. His current battle is against City Hall that wants to build the new City hall in the same area along with a park. I wonder who will win.
Then there is the famous case of the Barceó hotel chain that bought a piece of beachfront property by Chemuyil and wanted to build a huge hotel. Then the turtle-lovers came along and said they couldn’t because the turtles came there to lay eggs. Barceló said they would create a turtle reserve there and protect the little breeders if they could just build on the rest of the property. “No way! This whole property should be a research reserve to protect and study the turtles.” So Barceló, after years of negotiations and millions of dollars, picked up and moved to another property and built about 5,000 hotel room (so far) providing jobs to about 10,000 people (so far) and the original piece of property is abandoned and there is no research preserve because there is no money. Barceló has it and the turtle people don’t.
Fast forward as this is getting really long, now the people of Cozumel don’t want to let the federal government have some of “their” sand that is in the middle of the ocean to rebuild the beaches in Cozumel, Playa and Cancun. To try and wrap this up in 5,000 words or less, there must be a happy medium between the 2 extremes of “Not in My Back Yard” and “In your face.”
So where do I stand? On the side of Aristotle’s Golden Mean of course!! Right in the middle. HOWEVER, there can be no middle without the extremes. (And it is fun to be there on the extremes sometimes too!) Cancun has grown over the years, albeit chaotically, only BECAUSE people ( sometimes corrupt, sometimes unscrupulous and usually greedy) have forced that growth by building hotels, condos, marinas, homes and fortunes–trusting that the government would catch up with the growth by building streets, supplying drainage, lighting and other public services. They haven’t yet and they never will–not here and not anywhere. Government is not a forward-thinking entity. By nature it is self-serving, self-preserving and immobile if left to its own devices. There would never have been progress without people pushing the envelope and there would have been even more destruction had it not been for the tree-huggers trying to hold them back.
So while I sit here comfortably on my Golden Mean, I depend on you to keep up the fight–on both sides. And from time to time I may even join one–or both–of you “as we trudge the road of happy destiny!”