The reopening of the Maritime Avenue of Arrecife to traffic is a mistake but also a symbol. It opens for those who do not understand that the virtue of living in a small and flat city is being able to walk almost anywhere comfortably, enjoying the beautiful coastal landscape.
The Maritime Avenue should become a smoke-free boulevard with abundant trees that offers a pleasant walk, where children can play safely and adults can enjoy the bars and restaurants in the area with tranquility.
But this opening is just a symbol of the lack of vision of our rulers and how little they believe in the possibilities of the city.
Another disastrous example of what is currently happening would be the construction of the Garavilla Shopping Center, that endless and annoying work that covers Altavista, Valterra and the city center with dust. A large municipal park with trees, flowers and leisure and sports areas could be built there, like the García Sanabria Park in Santa Cruz. In this way, people would be placed at the center of the city's interest and not consumption and unbridled capitalism.
Taking into account the failure of the Rambla Medular Shopping Center and that there are already small and sufficient shopping centers on the island to cover the basic needs of inhabitants and tourists, it seems clear that a city as small as Arrecife should bet on an economic model where small businesses, local businesses, are protected and given prominence.
The Maritime Avenue is opened apparently to favor local commerce and restaurants in Arrecife, which will later be seriously and inevitably harmed by the opening of a large shopping center, in addition to what is already done with obsolete municipal ordinances.
I imagine a green city with a park instead of a shopping center, with a tree-lined boulevard instead of a road for cars on the seafront, I dream of a park on El Islote del Francés instead of a parking lot, garbage and ruined buildings, and I think that the recovery or reconversion of the Theme Park, the Canary Islands Park and the Ramírez Cerdá Park, mired in complete abandonment, would turn the center of Arrecife into a green city where we would all feel happier and more proud to live.
Fabio Carreiro Lago, writer