My mother, Helen Lind, took these photos in the 1950s, probably around 1956.
Diamond Head appears in the background of both.
You can click on either photo to see a larger and more detailed version.
The top photo appears to be taken from Round Top Drive looking down over the University of Hawaii campus and beyond to Diamond Head.
For comparison purposes, click here for a more contemporary view from about the same vantage point.
The bottom photo looks back towards Diamond Head from the other direction. It’s taken from the slopes of Koko Head, looking back over what is now Hawaii Kai but then was scattered farms and homes. Note that it was also before homes were built up the mountains.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I prefer the under developed look for Oahu!
What is absent is the tremendous growth in jobs and people since the doldrum days after the Korean War.
As a malahini who did not get here until 1967, I was one of those who benefitted from the opportunities created by the development that has taken place since then.
Many transformations as Honolulu evolved from feeling like a small town to the much more complex island city of today.
Honolulu had to grow, but it didn’t need to become so ugly. The city’s misfortune was that its period of greatest development in the ’60s and ’70s came during a particularly mediocre period in the history of American architecture. One way to excite a group of self-satisfied people at a cocktail party is to pose the question: Who did more to damage Honolulu: architects as poor designers or lawyers as abettors of greed.
Agree with you Wailau that we could have done a much better job of preserving critical environmental, historical and cultural resources that would have enriched our City today.
The loss of the Haleiwa Theater in favor of a very pedestrian McDonalds still rankles.
But the glass is also half full. There were victories along the way. Efforts to build residential towers on the slopes of Diamond Head and hotels on Magic Island were defeated.
Environmental assessments were required and protections for natural, cultural, and historic resources were made a standard part of the conditions of development.
I think community activists and organizers also have to ask themselves why, despite the victories they won and the considerable momentum they had at key points since the 60s, they were unable to bring all the Honolulu communities together and establish the kind of grass roots political organization that took over governments and established progressive, environmentally friendly, and vibrant communities in Portland, Chattanooga, or Vancouver BC during the same period.
how come i always say “wow!” when you post something, Ian? Wow! Food for thought. I wish our politicians (public servants?) who make our laws would picture what our island will look like 50 years from now, 2062, under their economic development policies. Transit Oriented Development horrifies me. Increased density for 20 square miles along the rail track, from Ho’opili prime ag lands to Ala Moana SC. I don’t understand how Ho’opili is urban CORE, not suburban SPRAWL.
Without rail, Ho’opili probably would have been developed at densities less than 10 units per acre as is typical for much of the rest of Ewa and Central Oahu.
Because of rail, substantial portions of the project are planned to be developed at mid-rise densities higher than typical in suburban Ewa and Central Oahu. DR Horton apparently believes that developing in ways that take advantage of proximity to the rail system will give them a competitive advantage over the more standard suburban developer.
The City Council regularly looks at and votes to approve the likely development patterns 30 to 35 years in the future. Those patterns are shown in the eight development plan and sustainable communities plans for the entire island. You can find those on line at the Department of Planning and Permitting web site.
Since 2002, these plans have established an urban growth boundary for the entire island which provides protections to thousands of acres of significant agricultural lands. That probably shows what the island will look 50 years from now because there is more than sufficient development capacity, with use of the TOD lands, within the urban growth boundary for the forseeable future.
To date, no urban development has occurred on the lands outside the urban growth boundary because Council has to first approve amendment of the growth boundary. There are active proposals asking Council to make amendments of the boundary to include more land within the boundary.
However, the sole boundary amendments approved by Council to date were to move Lihilani lands on the North Shore outside the boundary.
Ho’opili is not urban core; it is part of two urban fringe areas which, along with a new second city at the City of Kapolei, were designated in the late 70s as the place where most urban growth should go so that the Country (Waimanalo, Kahaluu, Waiahole-Wiakane, the Windward coast on up to the North Shore and Waianae) could stay country.
Since the 1970s, most growth (75%) has gone to the Urban Core (Kahala to Pearl City), Ewa and Central Oahu.
Developing Ewa by Gentry, Ocean Pointe, the Villages of Kapolei, Makakilo, DHHL East Kapolei, Ho’opili, and other suburban areas in Ewa and Central Oahu is the price paid for agreeing not to develop Waimanalo, Kahaluu, Waiahole-Waikane and other areas on the Windward side that were under severe development pressure in the late 60s and 70s.
The very first act passed in the legislature when Governor John Burns was elected, I believe, was a law to tax undeveloped land in Hawaii. Basically, major landholders did not want to give up their land and with it their source of disproportionate power. By taxing undeveloped land, major landowners were forced to sell vast tracts of land, which were broken up and sold to individual families. This is, I understand, a huge step forward for equality and democracy in any society, but also of general progress and development. In fact, I’ve heard it argued that all societies that have had general development have either had no established aristocracy (e.g., the United States), or else that traditional elite has been wiped out either by war (the World Wars in Europe and Japan, the Korean War in Korea, etc.), colonization or occupation (India under the British, or Japan under the US), or through violent revolution (China).
But Hawaii seems to be stuck in this mode of land development. One problem in Hawaii might be the lack of generational change. Peter Thiel has argued that the elite in the US are largely Baby Boomers who came of age in the 1960s and went to Harvard; they live, Thiel argues, in a fantasy world where everything just keeps getting better and better. Deindustrialization and the shrinking of the middle class are mere abstractions to them, and they were largely insulated from the financial collapse. This might describe some politicians in Hawaii, but the major players in politics like Hawaii’s Senators come from the earlier generation that the Boomers rebelled against.
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2012/07/30/16634-generation-dan/
Along these lines, any sort of divergent thinking from the status quo seems to get appropriated by the status quo. So the head of the Blue Planet Foundation once claimed that the only a high tech industry can save Hawaii from the self-destruction that further suburban development represents. But now we have status quo politicians arguing that the path to high tech and economic diversification is … further land development. This is an op-ed by the local politician Donovan Dela Cruz:
http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2012/08/07/16762-how-hawaii-can-reverse-the-brain-drain/
He argues that only rail can stop suburban sprawl. This argument, as far as I know, is only valid when applied to redeveloping already developed areas that immediately surround the Central Business District. In fact, rail seems to be an excuse on Oahu to build new suburbs on ag lands, like in Hoopili. But he promises even more:
This is sort of a grandiose version of the urban theory of Richard Florida, who wrote The Rise of the Creative Class. Basically, cities compete furiously for young creative talent, and they need to appeal by developing an artistically creative urban environment.
First, that’s not necessarily true. While there is a high tech sector in Austin, Texas, for example, mostly it’s a product of the defense industry and the presence of elite universities; a lot of that high tech sector is in Texas is comprised of middle-aged people in the suburbs.
Second, and related to this, even when it is true, in place like San Francisco, developing a diverse urban culture is necessary but insufficient. Education is crucial, and so is an urban population that reaches a certain critical mass. So while cities like Shanghai and Beijing may have the critical mass and high levels of educational attainment, they will never really have the creativity – based on freedom – that one finds in California or New York City; conversely, cities like Portland, Oregon might be cool and funky and tolerant, but they are simply small potatoes and will never attract the likes of the young Steve Jobs.
Here’s a random recent entry on Florida’s website that touches on this:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/08/when-it-comes-jobs-real-story-education-occupation-and-geography/2827/
Third, the central facet of having a genuinely urban environment is the diminution of commuting. Hipsters will live and work in the city. They get around on foot or by taxi. In contrast, according to Florida, the kind of people who commute to and from the suburbs, be they professional and workers, do not comprise the kind of ‘creative class’ that Florida lionizes. The rail system envisioned for Oahu is meant for commuting. In fact, even Transit Oriented Development is commuter-oriented, and hipsters won’t live there. They might live in Kakaako and get around on a bicycle. They probably won’t be living in an apartment in Waipahu next to a rail station.
Fourth, if this kind of ‘creative class’ does emerge in some modest form in someplace like Kakaako, they probably won’t be happy with the political status quo in Hawaii. They probably will be either leftists who would vote for Neil Abercrombie or libertarians who gravitate toward Sam Slom. The leftists might vote for Mazie Hirono, but a personal level they would be attracted to Ed Case’s independence. So Donavan Dela Cruz should be careful of what he asks for.