Cities, Vol. 22, No. 6, p.

446–454, 2005
Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.cities.2005.07.010 All rights reserved.
Printed in Great Britain
0264-2751/$ - see front matter
www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

City profile
Georgetown, Guyana
René Edwards, Suk Ching Wu and
Joseph Mensah *
School of Social Sciences, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional
Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada

Available online 26 October 2005

As the primate and capital city of Guyana, Georgetown has multiple functions: it is not only the seat
of government, but also the hub of industry, commerce, and international trade. We take an in-depth
look at the history of this metropolis to gain some understanding of its present city structure, econ-
omy, and urban development concerns. Like many cities of the developing world, Georgetown faces
several socio-economic problems, including widespread poverty, biting unemployment, poor infra-
structure, and a host of environmental predicaments relating to sanitation, garbage disposal, and
flooding, with this last being far more threatening, as a result of the cityÕs physical environmental
attributes—notably, its proximity to the Demerara River and the ocean, coupled with its below-
sea-level elevation.
Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Georgetown is a city that defies easy
description and analysis. Located on
the northeastern Atlantic coast of
South America, it is the capital of,
and the largest city in, Guyana, the
only Anglophone nation on the con-
tinent. Notwithstanding its location
in South America, Georgetown has
more in common with Caribbean cit-
ies, such as Port of Spain and
Kingston, in terms of history and
socio-economic makeup, than with
its South American counterparts
such as Caracas and Bogotá.1The
present morphology of Georgetown
bears discernible imprints of its colo-
nial past, exemplified by the
dominant architecture and infrastruc-
ture, including the popular sea wall
(Figure 1) and the tree-lined canals,
built by the Dutch to protect the city
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 416 736
2100; fax: 1 416 650 3876; e-mail: Joseph.
Mensah@mail.atkinson.yorku.ca.
1
The importance of Georgetown in the
Caribbean is exemplified by it being chosen
as the headquarters of the Caribbean Com-
munity and Common Market (CARICOM).
from the encroaching Atlantic
Ocean. These imposing structures
and other Victorian buildings in the
city center, such as the Law Courts,
Parliament Building, Stabroek Mar-
ket, and City Hall (Figure 2), con-
trast sharply with the many
dilapidated buildings and low-quality
infrastructure found in other parts
of the city (Figure 3). Once referred
to as the ÔGarden CityÕ of the Carib-
bean, Georgetown now has very
minimal urban greenery. The con-
gested city center and the frantic
vehicular and pedestrian traffic
across the city conjure an atmo-
sphere of dysfunction. Also, lying be-
low sea level, Georgetown relies on
its sea wall and drainage systems to
protect it from the constant threat
of flooding, which peaks in the
May–June and November–December
rainy seasons.2
With the Atlantic Ocean pounding
at its front door and piles of garbage
littering the vicinity of the sea wall,
2
See Rodway (1988).
the residents have chosen to use the
latter for recreational activities, such
as jogging, walking, biking, or simply
relaxing. This juxtaposition of recrea-
tional utility and environmental threat
is just one example of the ingenuity
with which the residents of George-
town perceive, and ultimately deal
with, the dialectical tensions between
the built and natural environments.
Beneath the harsh realities of run-
down housing, poor infrastructure,
and traffic jams is an underlying,
albeit guarded, optimism that with
vision and improved city governance,
Georgetown could rank among the
most livable cities in the region. The
resourcefulness of Georgetown resi-
dents is reflected in, among other
things, the entrepreneurial spirit of
mini-bus operators who provide vital
public transportation; market vendors
who battle the elements to sell their
goods; and the business owners who
not only deal with the usual fluctua-
tions of the market, but also with the
ever-present threat of looting, espe-
cially in times of political upheaval
(Dodd and Parrie, 1976). Ultimately,

446

Figure 1 The sea wall.
Figure 2 Georgetown city hall.
to understand Georgetown, one has to
be aware of the socio-economic and
political ambiguities implicated in its
cultural and natural landscapes.
City profile: R Edwards et al.
History
Present-day Guyana was the fabled El
Dorado, the mythical land between the
Amazon and the Orinoco Rivers that
drew explorers such as Walter Raleigh
to look for riches that were no where
to be found (De Barros, 2002). The
447

Figure 3 Rundown ÔSnacketteÕ with a corporate logo, in a low income neighborhood.
physical and cultural environment of
Guyana, in general—and of George-
town, in particular—reflects its
encounter with colonization: first by
the Dutch, from 1580 to 1782, and
again from 1784 to 1803; momentarily
by the French (1782–84); and, finally,
by the British, from 1803 until 1966,
when Guyana gained its indepen-
dence. The Dutch founded George-
town in 1745/46 at the western bank
of the Demerara River (Figure 4), fol-
lowing years of plantation agriculture
on its floodplains. Because George-
town lies some 3.5 m below sea level,
the Dutch settlers had to rely on their
celebrated maritime engineering skills
not only to reclaim ocean lands, but
also to protect existing coastal lands
from flooding. Rodney (1981) writes
that the settlers of Guyana gave to
the world the concept of a polder,
which refers to a piece of usable land
created by draining a severely water-
logged area. The early cityscape of
Georgetown was formed from the coa-
lescence of several such polders and
plantation lands, including the Vlissen-
gen, La Bourgade, Werk-En-Rust, Le
Repentir and Eve Leary.
As the capital of colonial Guyana,
Georgetown became the hub of the
colonial administration, financial,
insurance, and trade infrastructure,
including in the British period the
offices of Colonial Bank, the British
448
City profile: R Edwards et al.
Guyana Bank, the Hand-in-Hand
Company, and the B.G. Mutual Com-
pany (De Barros, 2002). Like many
capital cities in the developing world,
Georgetown continues to maintain its
primate city status: it is still home to
nearly all major national and interna-
tional economic, socio-cultural and
political institutions, such as the na-
tional parliament, high court, govern-
ment ministries, intergovernmental
agencies, and embassies and consulates;
the city has far overshadowed other cit-
ies, such as New Amsterdam and Lin-
den, in the nationÕs urban hierarchy.
The Georgetown area had few
indigenous Amerindians and the city
was initially populated by African
slaves who worked on the plantations
and their European masters. After
slavery was abolished in 1838, East
Indians and, to a lesser extent, Portu-
guese and Chinese were brought in
as indentured laborers, adding to the
ethno-racial mix of the city (Hintzen,
1989; Trotz and Peake, 2000, 2001).
GeorgetownÕs population grew shar-
ply in the years following abolition,
as former slaves and soon, many
indentured laborers left the surround-
ing estates and villages for the city
(De Barros, 2002). Available census
records indicate that the cityÕs popula-
tion grew from 29,174 in 1861 to
69,663 by 1931; the most recent fig-
ures, from the 2002 national census,
indicate that the population of
Georgetown-proper (i.e., the inner
core) has actually declined from
48,842 in 1991 to 34,179 in 2002, while
those of the suburbs have increased
by 314 to reach 103,151 in the same
period.3 Unlike the situation in many
Latin American and Caribbean cities,
available census figures would
suggest that the flow of rural migrants
into Georgetown has been on the
decline in recent years.4 While the
dominant ethnic group in Georgetown
continues to be Afro-Guyanese,
other groups—most notably, Indo-
Guyanese and Mixed Races5—are
becoming well represented. The
Amerindian indigenous population in
Georgetown, however, remains small,
as the majority continues to live in
the hinterland, where they have been
since long before the arrival of Euro-
peans and other ethno-racial groups.
3
Stabroek News <http://www.stabroek-
news.com/index.pl/article?id=7998475>.
Accessed on 06/29/2004.
4
As to whether the nationÕs census cap-
tures the true picture of rural–urban
migration is debatable, given what
appears to be a never-ending stream of
Afro-Guyanese, in particular, from rural
areas into Georgetown.
5
While the term ‘‘Mixed Races’’ is used in
the census, it is not commonly used in
every day life. For the most part it refers to
people of Afro-Indo mix, or what many in
Guyana call ‘‘doughla’’.

The ethno-racial diversity of
Georgetown sets it apart from the rest
of Guyana—a situation traceable to
the nationÕs colonial history. As De
Barros (2002) noted, the kind of
ethno-racial mixing permitted by the
daily exchanges in the urban life of
Georgetown stood in stark contrast
to the high level of segregation that
existed in British GuyanaÕs planta-
tions, where Indo- and Afro-Guya-
nese often lived in separate villages
and performed different activities on
the estates. Even today the rural pop-
ulation—although taken as a whole is
made up of a mix of Afro- and Indo-
Guyanese and Amerindian—is distrib-
uted in settlements which are, by and
large, unmixed. This has been espe-
cially the case since the 1960s when a
series of race riots compelled many
to move away from mixed villages
into ones of their own ethno-racial
group (Trotz and Peake, 2001; Peake,
1997). The social diversity that
emerged in Guyana, following the
abolition of slavery, was couched in a
racially based economic stratification
system. Indeed, one still finds a class
pyramid in Georgetown, with mostly
Afro-Guyanese, Indo-Guyanese and
the small number of Amerindians in
the city at the very bottom and a small
number of Indo-Guyanese and other
elite families of various racial back-
grounds at the apex. We must stress
that, unlike cities such as Bridgetown
(Barbados), Georgetown does not
now have any discernable white elite
population.
The cosmopolitan and Creole-city
image of contemporary Georgetown
reflects the long-standing cultural
interpenetrations among the various
ethno-racial groups in the city. Like
many such cities around the world,
Georgetown has had its share of
ethno-racial strife over the years.
Tensions have long existed in particu-
lar between the Afro- and Indo-Guya-
nese, the latter group being one which
wields long-standing economic power
in virtually all aspects of the cityÕs
economy. The conflict can be traced
to the British era when the colonialists
undermined any potential for these
groups to unite with various acts of
race-based favoritism and divide-and-
rule tactics, not the least of which
had members of these groups perform
City profile: R Edwards et al.
different jobs and live in racially seg-
regated areas. This perennial tension
continues to undermine the social,
economic, and political stability of
the city, and occasionally, especially
in times of national elections, has
erupted into open confrontation.
City structure, planning, and
development
The spatial structure of Georgetown
exhibits a riverside dominance (Figure
4), with most of the warehouses, busi-
nesses, and industries located along
the banks of the Demerara River
(Strachan, 1989). While the basic loca-
tion of the central business district
(CBD) has not changed much over
the years, the fact that it has expanded
to the east of the Demerara River may
be discernable to even the most cur-
sory observer; thus, one finds various
government and private office build-
ings along the Demerara, especially
in and around Stabroek. Extending
from the Stabroek Market, there is
an almost continuous thoroughfare
called Brickdam up to the Ô1763 Mon-
umentÕ, built in 1976 to commemorate
the slave revolt, led by a slave called
Cuffy in 1763. North of the CBD,
along Main Street, are the State
House, government ministries, hotels,
offices, and several retail outlets, all
of which have extended the CBD far-
ther along the Demerara River and
the oceanfront.
Unsurprisingly in view of what has
already been said, and like many cities
in the Caribbean and Latin America,
Georgetown has a residential pattern
that segregates neighborhoods along
socio-economic and ethno-racial lines.
The northern districts of Cummings-
burg, Kingston, Alberttown, Subryan-
ville, Kitty, Newton, and parts of
Queenstown continue to be the upper-
and middle-income areas of the city.
However, with increasing urban
growth in recent decades, the housing
densities of these areas have gone up
significantly. The large garden plots
that were common in these wealthy
neighborhoods have all come under in-
tense pressure for housing develop-
ments (Strachan, 1989; Peake, 1997).
This trend has so undermined the so-
cio-economic standing of these high-
end districts that only a handful of them
(e.g., Bel Air Park, Prashad Nagar, and
Bel Air Gardens) still have sizeable sin-
gle detached dwellings with some gar-
den plots (Strachan, 1989).
The southern half of Georgetown
has always been home to lower in-
come people. Even here, the frail,
terraced properties and modest de-
tached houses that dominate the old
working-class neighborhoods, such as
Lacytown, Bourda, Werk-En-Rust,
Wortmanville, Charlestown, and
Albouystown, have undergone further
decline through subdivision and
multiple occupancy. Population and
economic pressures have extended
GeorgetownÕs housing development
southwards into the urban fringe, with
such neighborhoods as the Lodge
Housing Scheme, Tucville, La Peni-
tence, Ruimveldt Gardens, and South
Ruimveldt occupying the extreme
southern and southeastern peripheries
of the city. In addition to the common
practice of dividing houses into smal-
ler units for renting, many people
now use cheaper building materials
for housing, instead of the traditional
wood, thereby eroding the cityÕs rich
architectural heritage. The dearth of
institutional support for housing and
the inability of the Municipal Govern-
ment to enforce existing building by-
laws have seriously undermined the
cityÕs housing standards.
While the shortage of housing is far
more pervasive in Georgetown than
elsewhere in the country, it bears
acknowledging that the problem per-
sists in all of the nationÕs cities, if not
throughout the country (Peake, 1997,
1998; Strachan, 1989). It is estimated
that the nation needs a minimum of
5200 new housing units each year, for
at least the next ten years, with a third
of this required in Georgetown alone
(Government of Guyana, 2002). The
dominant role of the state in the hous-
ing market over the years has effec-
tively stifled the involvement of
private entrepreneurs in the industry.
Prior to the early 1990s, especially dur-
ing the rule of the PeopleÕs National
Congress (PNC)—the party which
has enjoyed the most support from
Afro-Guyanese over the years—the
distribution of government contract
housing projects was highly politi-
cal, with preference given to the
449
 City profile: R Edwards et al.

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Drawn by the Cartographic Office, York University

Figure 4 Georgetown.

Afro-Guyanese population. However, continues to force many of the cityÕs ment now allocates lots to settlers
since 1992 when the PeopleÕs Progres- poor and newcomers to ÔsquatÕ on and gives them one year to complete
sive Party (PPP) came to power, there government lands, creating numerous payment, after which they are awarded
has not been any public housing pro- legal and environmental problems title to the land. Notwithstanding the
gram in the country, and political vis-à-vis property rights, multiple- governmentÕs involvement, the provi-
interference in government housing occupancy, overcrowding and sanita- sion of infrastructure to Sophia and
projects has become a thing of the tion. Since 1992, however, large other such settlements has been excru-
past, by default. What remains though squatter settlements, such as Sophia ciatingly slow, with many residents
is the governmentÕs stranglehold on (in the eastern outskirts of the city), living without potable water and elec-
land ownership in Georgetown, which have been regularized. The govern- tricity (Peake, 1997).

450
 City profile: R Edwards et al.

Figure 5 A recent flooding event, Carmichael street, January 2005.

Nearly all residents of Georgetown
are regularly subjected to flooding,
albeit at a varying degree, as exempli-
fied by the major flood event in Janu-
ary 2005, which effectively paralyzed
the city, and, consequently, the entire
country (Figure 5). This flood, the ex-
tent of which is believed to have been
rivaled only once in the last century or
so, was caused by intense rainfall cou-
pled with the effects of the Ôusual sus-
pectsÕ, site factors such as: the cityÕs
coastal plain location and low eleva-
tion; its proximity to the Demerara
River; and the presence of underlying,
impervious clay soils. But additional
factors, this time, have been the in-
crease in built-up areas in recent years
(Pelling, 1997) and also GeorgetownÕs
growing drainage problems, com-
pounded by the lack of scheduled
maintenance to existing canals and
pumping stations which are vital to
the cityÕs defense against flooding. As
Pelling (1997) noted, the drainage
capacity of the city continues to be
curtailed by the common use of drains
for illicit garbage disposal. The fact
that even pumping stations are often
overtaken by the flooding, as shown
in Figure 6 which attests to the sever-
ity of this problem in Georgetown.
GeorgetownÕs flood-prone location
has resulted in a unique architecture,
which entails the building of houses
on stilts (Figure 7). This traditional
Guyanese building method elevates
the premises out of the way of flood-
waters, by raising the housing unit,
some three to four meters above
the ground, with the space below
being used for recreation, storage,
work area, or for small businesses.
Increasingly however, with the hous-
ing crunch, people are converting

Figure 6 Flooding at a pumping station, January 2005.

451

Figure 7 House on stilts.
this flood-susceptible space into ren-
tal units, commonly referred to as
‘‘bottom houses’’. In addition to the
defensive sea wall and stilt architec-
ture, Georgetown has a number of
pump-assisted sluices (or kokers)
that are used to drain the city after
heavy rainfalls (Figure 8). In spite
of these safeguards, or perhaps be-
cause of the false hope of protection
accorded by them, the city still expe-
riences widespread flooding in the
rainy seasons. With the increasing
possibility of rising sea levels, as a
result of global warming, the city is
in for some serious flood-related
environmental problems in the fu-
ture, unless it upgrades its municipal
services in the areas of drainage and
garbage collection. Even though all
areas of the city are susceptible to
flooding and there are really no high
grounds to which one can escape, the
very poor are still the ones who are
affected the most by the flooding—
for one thing, only the poor end up
in the profusely littered, poorly
drained neighborhoods and the ‘‘bot-
tom houses’’, for reasons that are too
obvious to delay us here.
GeorgetownÕs predicaments are not
limited to flooding and related housing
and brown environmental problems.
The city dominates the transportation
network of Guyana, followed in dis-
tant second and third places, respec-
452
City profile: R Edwards et al.
tively, by New Amsterdam and
Linden. In fact, the volume of vehicu-
lar traffic using GeorgetownÕs road-
ways and port facilities dwarfs that of
the rest of the country. The current
road network in Georgetown has not
undergone any significant expansion
for decades, with the notable excep-
tion of the conversion of an old railway
track into a road that links the city with
villages on the east side of the Demer-
ara River. In fact, there are no motor-
ways in Georgetown (and Guyana in
general); one could argue, with no
apology, that Guyana is some decades
behind the rest of Anglo-Caribbean in
this particular respect. Georgetown
drivers—especially minibus drivers,
which now constitute the backbone of
the cityÕs transportation system—have
become highly adept in maneuvering
their way around the ubiquitous maze
of potholes that fill the cityÕs roadways.
In the absence of government-owned
buses (or a transit system), these mini-
buses have come to fill an important
void in urban transportation not only
in Georgetown, but around the entire
country. At the same time, they have
become notorious for accidents, con-
tributing to a large number of road
fatalities in the nation. According to
the nationÕs Health Minister Leslie
Ramsammy, ‘‘[w]ith an average of
165 deaths per year, GuyanaÕs road
fatality figure is ranked fifth among
countries in the Americas’’.6 With the
rise in the importation of recondi-
tioned vehicles from places such as Ja-
pan, one would expect even greater
volume of vehicles in the city, together
with all the traffic congestions, irregu-
larities, and accidents that such a sce-
nario may entail.
Constrained by inadequate finance
and the lack of qualified personnel, ur-
ban planning in Georgetown is now an
eclectic and ad hoc process, frag-
mented between many different urban
sectors. The cityÕs planning authorities
have been clearly overwhelmed by the
rapid expansion of the city eastwards
and southwards into Sophia and other
squatter settlements that have mush-
roomed at the penumbra of the city.
With no urban services from the vari-
ous levels of government, until quite
recently, as noted earlier on, the resi-
dents of Sophia and other squatter sites
have resorted to self-help initiatives to
construct buildings that reduce the
likelihood of flood waters entering liv-
ing spaces, and have organized regular
anti-litter and drain-digging and main-
tenance campaigns (Pelling, 1997).
The authorities of Georgetown hope
to garner the necessary financial and
technical support for the cityÕs develop-
6
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/
20040505/news/news5.html.

Figure 8 A Koker.
ment needs, with the recent launchings
of the Guyana Association of Munici-
palities and the Guyana Municipal
Governance and Management Pro-
gram (MGMP)—a joint program be-
tween the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities and six municipalities
of Guyana. Among other things, the
MGMP seeks to enhance public aware-
ness of, and advocacy for, its members;
promote safe solid waste management
and healthy environmental practices;
coordinate the now-disjointed devel-
opment programs pursued by various
international agencies; and generate
revenues through more effective tax
collection mechanisms (Guyana Asso-
ciation of Municipalities Work Plan,
2004–2005).
Economy and related problems
As a typical primate city, Georgetown
dominates the secondary and tertiary
sectors of the Guyanese economy, serv-
ing as the hub of leading business ser-
City profile: R Edwards et al.
vices, manufacturing, and distribution
firms in the country. The cityÕs economy
enjoyed a steady growth from about
mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, only to wit-
ness a drastic decline by the end of the
1980s, as a result of rampant corruption
and mismanagement under the Forbes
Burnham regime of ÔCooperative
SocialismÕ which culminated in a heavy
external debt burden and macroeco-
nomic instability. Mounting economic
problems across Guyana gave impetus
to local activists who had long called
for the dismantling of the nationÕs
brand of socialism, in favor of laissez-
faire economics. By 1989, the economic
situation had worsened to a point
where the government had virtually
no choice but to abandon its ideals for
a World Bank/IMF-sponsored Struc-
tural Adjustment package, locally
called Economic Recovery Program
(ERP).7 As with adjustment programs
7
Ilfill (2002).
elsewhere, GuyanaÕs entailed such con-
ditionalities as currency devaluation,
privatization, trade and financial
deregulation, civil service employment
retrenchment, and the removal of sub-
sidies on essential services such as
health and education.
No one knows for sure what the di-
rect impacts of the Structural Adjust-
ment Programs (SAPs) have been on
the nationÕs urban economy in gen-
eral, and on Georgetown in particular,
due to the dearth of research in this
area. Nonetheless, anecdotal evidence
suggests that Georgetown has lost
much of its power to attract people
from the countryside since the intro-
duction of the SAPs. It appears the
city has become the epitome of Guy-
anaÕs economic depression, with more
and more professionals and skilled
workers emigrating to other countries,
in recent years. Despite improvements
in some national macroeconomic indi-
cators, such as GDP per capita and the
rate of inflation, the 1996 Guyana
453

Human Development Report found
that poverty persists across the coun-
try, with incomes of 78% of the
national population below the abso-
lute poverty line, and those of some
35% below the critical poverty line.8
Also, a 1999 Household Income and
Expenditure Survey noted that in
addition to the 9.1% unemployment
rate in Georgetown, many are those
who would like to work but have
taken themselves out of the labor mar-
ket out of frustration and the loss of
hope in ever finding suitable employ-
ment. Many others (especially Afro-
Guyanese and women) who have
work find themselves in precarious,
dead-end job situations in which they
earn incomes/wages that effectively
condemn them to poverty.9 No won-
der social instability, unrest, violent
crime, and other illicit activities have
been an enduring part of life in
Georgetown (Strachan, 1989; Dodd
and Parrie, 1976).
In 2000, the government intro-
duced a comprehensive plan, the Na-
tional Development Strategy (NDS),
to help reduce unemployment, with
various incentives and programs for
economic growth. The NDS sought
to provide fiscal incentives to inves-
tors and entrepreneurs who create
jobs; to establish Export Processing
Zones to help absorb some of the
unemployed and underemployed peo-
ple; to improve and expand technical
and vocational training across the
nation; and to establish a comprehen-
sive labor market information system
to facilitate the recruitment and hir-
ing of people.10 With the criticism
that the NDS was far too broad and
lacked specifics regarding implemen-
tation, costing, and financing, and
therefore could not address the grow-
ing poverty in the nation, the govern-
ment, in 2001, came up with another
initiative, outlined in its Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP),
8
Socio-Economic Trends in Guyana and
the Priorities for Development Assistance.
<http:/www.sdnp/org.gy/undp-docs/odag/
I_socio_trends.html>. Accessed on 06/01/
2004.
9
King (2001).
10
King (2001, pp. 319–322).
454
City profile: R Edwards et al.
which does not only provide a strat-
egy for poverty reduction in the med-
ium term, but also sets priorities and
develops action plans for implemen-
tation and financing.11 The govern-
ment hopes to use this initiative to
garner the necessary internal and
external support for poverty allevia-
tion in the country.
Concluding remarks
Clearly, Georgetown exhibits the
attributes of a typical primate city: it
is not only the seat of government,
but also the hub of the nationÕs
industry and commerce, and serves
as the main nodal point of air, sea,
and land transportation in Guyana.
With declining national economy in
recent years, Georgetown is faced
with a host of problems relating to
unemployment and poverty, flooding
and sanitation, housing and squatter
settlement, urban transportation and
traffic congestion, inter alia. The task
of resolving these problems in the
midst of a rising national debt and a
steady emigration of professionals is
certainly a daunting one. It requires
a comprehensive and integrated ap-
proach which addresses these prob-
lems at their very core, using cost-
effective and sustainable planning
mechanisms. The need to improve
the financial, administrative, and tech-
nical capabilities of the cityÕs planning
department cannot be gainsaid, but, at
the end of the day, it is, perhaps, only
with an intensive public educational
campaign on the health hazards posed
by poor sanitation, and, consequently,
the need for a change in behavior
regarding urban waste, that George-
town can rid itself of these problems,
and of such an unflattering image as
Ôunhygienic capitalÕ—a characteriza-
tion of the city in a recent article in
the Stabroek News.12
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King (2001, pp. 7–12).
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