Crippling violence and dangerous streets in the Rose Town area of Kingston, Jamaica, have motivated Prince Charles to bring his Foundation for Architecture and Urbanism to the island ghetto to attempt a rebirth.
"Prince Charles will arrive in Rose Town on Wednesday to launch a plan to rebuild the area in what is his most ambitious regeneration initiative yet."
"It is an unlikely combination. The Prince's Foundation for Architecture and Urbanism which coordinates and raises funds for the £4m project is more used to designing new towns and villages such as Poundbury in the genteel surroundings of Dorset. Rose Town is part of the dangerous and impoverished west Kingston ghetto made famous by Bob Marley who lived in neighbouring Trench Town."
"But next week the partnership will start to bear fruit and Prince Charles will open a library, the first part of a plan to build hundreds of new homes and local facilities. For the residents it is their best hope of rebuilding a community that has been ravaged by three decades of political and gang violence."
"The aim is to follow the guiding spirit of the "model village" of Poundbury, an experimental community - praised by some and criticised by others - which started to take shape in 1993 on land on the outskirts of Dorchester owned by the Duchy of Cornwall."
"Prince Charles sees Poundbury, home to 5,000 people, as an antidote to the kind of "carbuncle" town planning he so famously dislikes. The Prince's Foundation's plan for Rose Town is to try to foster new values in a stronger community."
FULL STORY: Can a little slice of Poundbury bring peace to this Kingston ghetto? Charles thinks so
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