By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Maybe the cornfields whispered to Kevin Costner, "Build it and they will come," but here in Hawai'i, the canefields didn't say a word.

Perhaps if those fields of real estate dreams had spoken and set us right, we wouldn't be in the fix we're in.

Hawai'i has a bad habit of inviting folks to, "Come, come on, come on down!" and then "WHOA!" — getting stuck with the problem of where to put all the folks who accepted the invitation.

The situation at the Manoa campus of the University of Hawai'i is just the latest example. Enrollment is way up this year, thanks to successful recruiting efforts, but there's been no appreciable increase in the number of dorm rooms, so hundreds of college kids are wondering if they're going to be stuck in the Manoa rain when school starts.

It's a pattern that has been repeated so often in these islands. There are more people than houses. There are more cars than parking spaces. There are more commuters than roadways. There is more garbage than landfill space. There are so many tourists that we have to weed out and regulate by charging admission to places like Haleakala, Diamond Head and Hanauma Bay.

The American dream of expansion and manifest destiny is suited to the continent, not to a small group of islands. "Build it and they will come" works if there are cornfields and wide open spaces as far as the eye can see, but not if you can see from the mountains to the ocean without turning your head.

"Tell them to come, get them here and then we'll build something to catch up to the need" doesn't work either, obviously. That kind of mind-set has made Honolulu hopelessly cramped, Lihu'e helplessly gridlocked and Maui ridiculously unaffordable.

A surge in enrollment at UH? Great! That's not a bad thing. But where will they live? Hotel rooms are full because we told them to come, and they did. The housing rental market is slammed because we told people to come, and they did.

And then there are all the social and economic results of the stress of packing in more people than these islands can hold: traffic gridlock, the disappearance of affordable housing for families, an increase in crime leading to crowded prisons. Having too many college students to house is a good problem compared with having too many prisoners to keep, but it's all part of the same single-minded drive to get as much going on these little moku as possible.

Hopefully some of those smart UH Manoa students will focus their studies on urban planning.

If those canefields of 30 years ago had started talking, they might have said, "Hello! These are islands! You can build only so much before you run out of room for everybody!"

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com