Posted on: Tuesday, April 2, 2002
EDITORIAL
Residential Waikiki needs spiffing up
If Hawai'i's No.1 tourist destination isn't a great place to live, then why should it be a great place to visit?
That question arises from urban Honolulu writer James Gonser's recent report on the neglect of residential Waikiki , and plans to improve the quality of life in the most densely populated area of the state.
Plans are under way to upgrade lighting, landscaping and sidewalks on Kuhio Avenue. That's a start. But it's going to take a grander vision to make Waikiki more livable.
Mayor Jeremy Harris has said the $50 million spent to improve the beach and business side of Waikiki benefits everyone in the area. But once you move mauka of Kuhio Avenue, things turn decidedly downmarket. In the Sixties, they called it "the Jungle, " a neighborhood of ramshackle homes and tropical greenery buzzing with surfers, artists, students, drug dealers, hippies and others who appreciated the bohemian atmosphere and cheap rent.
By the end of the decade, however, after a $100 million proposal to renovate The Jungle was scrapped, private developers swooped in and haphazardly replaced many homes with high-rises.
Today, residential Waikiki remains a jungle, but primarily a concrete one. Several spots are bordering on seedy, with drug dealers and prostitutes.
That's quite a contrast to the swanky hotels, restaurants and boutiques that line beachfront Kalakaua Avenue. Indeed, the tourist and residential sections of Waikiki need to be more integrated, along the lines of, say, San Francisco's North Beach. There, homes, boutiques, restaurants, cafes, parks and tourist attractions blend together into a vibrant neighborhood that residents are proud to call home.
Residential Waikiki could bloom with the help of parks, sidewalk cafes, locally-owned boutiques, groceries and more pedestrian areas. But let's not gentrify to the point where longtime residents on modest incomes are forced to move out. The denizens of Waikiki are very much part of the big picture.
