Land Rush

The several real estate offices in town indicate the pace of development here, with at least half a dozen scattered around the downtown area. All are American owned an operated. The project brochures are impressive and smiling salesmen repeatedly assured me that San Juan del Sur will be unrecognizable within five years, their enthusiastic tone implying this would be good thing. The unsettling aspect of these projects is their similarity. Poor, uneducated peasants are paid a pitifully small amount for their land on which houses and condos are then constructed for wealthy foreigners within walled compounds with their own stores, infrastructure and security forces. These self-contained developments are designed to ensure the inhabitants of minimal interaction or involvement with the surrounding community and will make a negligible contribution to the local economy. The developers will realize millions, Nicaraguans will only ever see the inside of these places as servants and San Juan del Sur will still be struggling for money to keep the town's utilities running.

Here is an alternative scenario. Imagine for a moment that a foreign government aid agency or NGO took an interest in this place and acted to see that the latent economic value being developed here actually benefited the local population. The budget necessary would be quite small as aid projects go. Groups of local land owners could be organized to form co-operative corporations that could then make deals with developers or create their own development companies. A loan guarantee from a foreign government, which involves no actual expense, could give the town the ability to raise money through a sale of bonds at the lowest possible interest rate, with the cash going to improve the local infrastructure. A condition of the loan guarantee would be independent oversight of all spending of the funds raised, eliminating any possibility of money going astray. Instead of gated compounds, new construction could be integrated into the existing community, creating more tax revenue, inviting retirees and owners of vacation properties to become a part of the local culture and giving them an interest in the town's future. The profits from sales of the homes eventually constructed would be shared by the original landowners, potentially vaulting thousands of people here into the middle class in a matter of a few years.

It is just an idea, but one I am going to investigate. A little research should provide me with the contact info for the Canadian International Development Agency and some faculties of international development studies at Canadian universities. Why not try?