The Queen's Park Savannah
The Queen’s Park Savannah, the world’s largest traffic roundabout, was bought over from the Peschier family in 1817. Having been a former sugar land, the Savannah was also used as an airstrip and racing track before it became a park. This vast expanse of open space is the largest open space in Port of Spain (260 acres), and serves many uses.
On a regular basis, the Savannah is used by residents of Port of Spain for exercising and leisure purposes. In the image above, a group of men are engaging in a football ‘sweat’ down on the Western end of the Savannah. During Carnival time, a stage is built closer to the Southern end, where masqueraders pass through to be evaluated by judges (see images above). Other uses of the field include fireworks on Independence day; Panorama during Carnival season; cricket, football and rugby matches; throwing parties and parking for large events.
The Savannah plays an important role as a public urban space in Port of Spain. Urban open spaces provide citizens with recreational and aesthetic value. They offer a reprieve from the urban environment and can add ecological value, making citizens more aware of their natural surroundings and providing nature to promote biodiversity (Boundless Sociology 2015). A common theme in urban geography is the importance of public spaces in cities. Urban spaces allow for citizens to get out of their enclosed houses and socialize more: cities without much open spaces due to privatization can make city life dull and lonely. According to Jaffe and Aguiar (2012), segregation of spaces by setting up borders intensifies socio-spatial fragmentation. Conflict and feelings of insecurity within urban spaces increases, and this results in crime. Public spaces are therefore an important part of urban culture; they help remove these barriers between people, and help to breathe life into the city. This brings up ideas put forward by Lewis Mumford in 1938: the city should revolve around people, not money or power. City planners must take advantage of social functions and processes in rebuilding our cities, such as placing more emphasis on public areas such as open squares and parks.
How does the Savannah link to synecdoche? The contemporary city is a variegated and multiplex entity - a juxtaposition of contradictions and diversities, the theatre of life itself (Amin and Graham 1997). The Savannah, like the Emperor Valley Zoo and Botanical Gardens, helps to shift the paradigm of Port of Spain away from a commercial, automobile filled city. It helps to show that the capital has multiple functions and uses: yes, there is emphasis placed upon the political and financial aspects, but so is there on the people, as well as the environment. Open spaces themselves have multiple uses: they offer aesthetic value for citizens who enjoy nature, cultural value by providing space for concerts or art shows, and functional value (Boundless Sociology 2015). The Savannah is nothing short of this, as its aforementioned uses help to portray the various aspects of Trinbagonian culture.
References
Boundless Sociology. "The Structure of Cities." Boundless. July 21, 2015. Accessed February 24, 2016. https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/population-and-urbanization-17/urbanization-and-the-development-of-cities-123/the-structure-of-cities-694-10482/.
Amin, A., and Graham, S. "The Ordinary City." Trans Inst Br Geog Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22, no. 4 (1997): 411-29.
