pollachi now you might be wondering why
TEDx asked an American guy to come down
here to Curacao to tell all of you about
Curacao and if you’re wondering that
it’s a good question so let me tell you
a little bit about Mike yourself story
um I first heard of carousel when I was
about eight years old and I made a new
friend guy named Alaric who moved to my
hometown in New York and Alaric his
family were from this island that I was
pretty sure was called carousel um you
know like like a carousel and it would
be it would be a couple years before I
figured out that the place that I always
saw on maps down by Venezuela that i
thought was called Curacao was actually
the same island um so so anyway you know
Alaric Alaric moved away we lost contact
and so about 20 years later we
reconnected on facebook and Alaric asked
for my help he was working on this
project a really big project this idea
was that apparently there’s a massive
refinery in the middle of the main
Harbor in Curacao this is me a couple
years ago when I didn’t know this stuff
and they had this crazy idea to turn it
into an e così and so we asked if I was
interested in helping and so by this
point I worked on president obama’s
campaign and spent quite a bit of time
organizing and i also i’m studying city
planning at MIT so it was right up my
alley I said yes and I came to the
island spent six
here in 2011 volunteering for greentown
curacao so the more time I spent on the
island my interest started to shift
beyond just Isla and Scott the hot and I
really you know I wanted to get to know
cure some more I wanted to see the
island as much as I could through the
eyes of locals so you know if other
tourists are getting steaks at bracha
put in my my um I was I was down at now
Keys uh getting getting getting the car
go with frankly the first time a little
too much of Madame Jeunet I wasn’t
wasn’t quite ready for it but um and so
anyway anyway you get the idea i I um
you know I wasn’t at reef for it instead
I was actually right here in murray
pompeu and i spent some time getting to
know the neighborhood and and you know
really wanting to get to know the
barrios of around curacao mesa kimi no
kata bata new course audible.com oboes
ma mama teen bozo isla Hopi douchey
semper than my corazon and one one more
thing one more thing I don’t like to
brag but um I make the best kushina in
the state of Connecticut so if if you
come visit you know there it is just
just let me know so okay that’s that’s
enough about me um when I first came to
Curacao it was about seven months after
ten ten ten so PI score so was was still
brand new and it was really curse I was
figuring out what being its own country
really meant now as a city planner I’m
trained in how to really look at cities
and metropolitan areas and think
critically about them ask questions and
greater willemstad really fascinated me
actually especially the 20th century
areas beyond the historic core the way
that the city developed first around the
refinery with you know barrio after
barrio right next to each other often
very disconnected and then the way it
sprawled way out into bond Arriba with
the suburbs swallowing up little
villages out there now up you know the
end result is that willemstad is now one
of the largest urban areas anywhere in
the Lesser Antilles has well over a
hundred thousand people and it’s
basically a very disjointed city that is
shaped kind of like a lopsided donut um
and so anyway anyway anyway speaking of
cities I have a question who in this
room has been to a city called Amsterdam
raise your hands okay this from what I
can see looks like quite quite a quite a
bit of the crowd now I went to Amsterdam
and when I went I noticed a lot
very charming old Dutch buildings I
noticed parks and bikes and trams and
you know a bunch of canals kind of
winding through it very nice and then
when I came to willemstad once again I
saw a bunch of very charming old Dutch
buildings and some lovely waterfront but
I didn’t see the parks or the bikes or
the trams I saw cars and cars and cars
and which brings me to my second
question for the audience getting to
scar low tonight how many people came in
a car let me ask how many people didn’t
come in a car oh we got a couple great
well my sense is if that if we were at
TEDx Amsterdam and even if it was a
really rainy cold nasty night the
difference would be very different in
the responses so my point in all of this
is that willemstad doesn’t really
function the way a 21st century should a
lot of the time and it’s not just about
transportation um you know right down
the street here in in scar low we have
the bibliothèque nationale and which is
a beautiful library but it’s also the
only public library building in the
entire country um and so this struck me
as odd I did a little bit of research
pick the Dutch city at random to see how
many libraries that had and so it turns
out the brita has nine public libraries
on one big library and eight branch
libraries and that’s just for Breda so
if you’re keeping track breathe on nine
willemstad one so the big reason I think
why willemstad underperforms as a city
and it has to do with a uniquely weak
system of government let’s face it you
look at the Staton here and there are 21
members plus Minister presidents so
that’s 22 elected officials in the
entire country and they’re not tied
any specific geography so you know in my
country we have congressional districts
here in theory all 21 members of the
Staton could live on the same street and
young teal and there’s nothing to stop
that and and so you know basically what
that means is that they have no interest
in serving as a mayor and city council
for willemstad because it’s not all that
glamorous be responsible for fixing
potholes in wishing marchena when you
could be going on a trade mission to
brazil instead um that is except you
know if it’s a week before the election
at that suddenly they get very
interested in fixing potholes in which
team are China but otherwise so so being
being American being American I thought
I thought that maybe this was a Dutch
thing and so I started to investigate I
started to investigate local government
in the Netherlands and it turns out that
Dutch cities actually have plenty of
local government so you know they have
broke masters like our friendly mayor
here many cities are substance up
divided into scottsdale in or boroughs
like these in harlem and also they have
Samantha rotten or City Council’s like
this one in Amersfoort and I want to
point out that amersfoort is about the
same size as greater willem stop so why
am i showing you all these pictures from
Dutch city websites it’s to demonstrate
the simple fact that they exist
willemstad can’t have a city government
website because it doesn’t have a city
government and you know these Dutch
cities are actually cities hamein t’en
ciudad none with transparent and
accessible city governments so you know
I the question I’m asking that I want
you guys to go home asking is why does
amersfoort get to have a room full of
commands Arad status Laden and not
willemstad my sense here is that
willemstad really deserves
be the best city that it can be at a
national capital for curaçao in in
order to do that it needs to become a
real city so one last point before I
make my proposals and then close you
know the Dutch created these local
government systems to make the
Netherlands one of the nicest countries
in the world to live in and the simple
fact is that it was never a priority to
make Curacao a livable place for you
course I’ll that’s not what this place
was about historically for hundreds of
years curacao was about exploitation and
this is a simple fact so you know
exploitation of people exploitation of
land exploitation of resources and that
doesn’t go away overnight you can still
see this history of exploitation in
almost every facet of curaçao in life
it’s no accident that the three dutch
words that i know in poppy meant to our
sir madam and thank you so you know
basically it’s going to take a lot the
dutch did what they did here for better
and for worse now it’s curacao job as a
new country to chart a new course and
one of the things that that involves is
a new public administration so i have a
couple ideas i’m running low on time so
i’ll try to go through them quickly
first I feel that Curacao should be
divided into three comenten for the
island a City of Greater willemstad
going from suucks to santa rosa or
roughly and then two municipalities one
for bond arriba one for bond the bell on
both sides and that each of these would
have its own mayor to serve as an
executive for that part of jurors oh and
this is based on a former model from
Barbados so you see Curacao there
barbados had bridgetown and then a
northern and southern rural district I
have another bajan example which let’s
see here deals with how to do
local really local administration so in
Barbados they have constituency councils
now that they’ve set up 30 of them
across the islands and so this would be
equivalent to starts telling basically
and they have local councils I’m
proposing that curacao would have 35 of
these 21 in willemstad seven each in ba
reeba and bubble and then lastly in
terms of changing the government of
course we get to the big elephant in the
room the Staton so my thought a couple
things um is that you know right now the
Staton just has this one body I think it
should be two bodies it should be what
they call bicameral and so a house of
assembly would have representatives from
each of the thirty five boroughs and so
they would be locally accountable and
then a Senate on the other hand would
resemble the current stop so still be
elected party list at large and so that
that would still exist but it would be
in a much smaller form than it is now
and this is based by the way on the
Pacific island nation of Palau has a
system just like this and so you know in
closing I mean what so what does all of
this mean all these little ideas I put
up well to me it means that mrs. Martina
the next time she’s driving down said or
four thrown away and she hits the
monster pot hole for the fifteenth time
and she’s really she’s really just about
had it um that now she has a bunch of
people she can call right she has a
local assembly person she has a mayor
who’s in charge of the area and she has
uh am I missing um oh of course she has
she has her representative and stuff so
lastly I just want to say if we move on
that high score sow is a tiny country
it’s a beautiful country you need to
care for this land and govern this land
as best you can especially as best you
can yeah i know i’m late because i’m
finishing because there’s going to be a
new generation of muchin on coming and
they should also be able to have a
lovely ride on this douchey carousel [Applause]