No, Malta is not more beautiful than it was 20 years ago, as the president of the Malta Development Association would like us to believe.
Interviewed a few days ago, Michael Stivala said that nearly all localities in Malta are more beautiful than they were two or three decades ago. Overall, the country looks better than it did at the turn of the century, he said.
He believes that the negative sentiment against the construction industry stems from the media which portrays it in a negative light. He thinks there is a movement against the building industry, with some media specifically choosing photos of ugly buildings even when the story is positive (his words).
Stivala has his reasons for saying this. He may also really believe it that Malta looks better than it was 20 years ago. It seems that he prefers looking at piles of stone rather than the sea, a spread of countryside or simply open space.
But he should know that he is in the minority in this regard.
If he is only referring to aesthetics, one may discuss whether buildings are architecturally acceptable or obscene (and unfortunately we have had too many examples of the latter). But the subject of whether Malta is more beautiful or not goes far beyond this.
Aerial shots that have been taken in the past years, when compared to others taken some years ago, show that the sprawl of buildings is getting wider and higher, taking up more space on land and in the air, and furthering the thought that we are living in a concrete jungle. Add to this the stretching of the road network and one has the perfect concoction of what a beautiful place should not be.
Areas that were occupied by quaint little houses, maybe two or three storeys high, are now made up of blocks of flats which have gone up much higher, and which have changed the landscape for the worse, not for the better. Looking at certain localities abroad, there are beautiful areas with four or five storey buildings which respect the character of the town they are in, and are pleasant to look at, but sadly this is not how Malta has been developed.
Open spaces, such as public gardens, in the heart of localities have disappeared, so much so that we are now planning to try to reverse the trend. An example of this is what is being devised for San Gwann.
The general feeling is one of suffocation, especially when towering buildings are built on narrow streets. Maybe Stivala did not read about the fact that for 21 per cent of the Maltese, it takes over 30 minutes for them to reach the nearest green space, compared to 3% of Europeans.
He may have also missed the part that while 50% of Europeans live within a five-minute distance to the nearest green space, only 22% of Maltese do so.
Maybe Stivala is unaware of the term “uglification” that was coined some years back. At the time this new word was first used in Malta, the situation was less tragic than it is today. In the last decade, with Malta building its economic growth on population increase, we have seen this uglification go from bad to worse.
No, Malta is not more beautiful than it was 20 years ago.