RECENTLY I heard a very effective speaker, a "doctor" to some 30 mainland cities and regions, say the key to community vitalization is everybody pulling together. Hawaii needs to focus
on common goalImmediately after World War II that was fairly easy in Hawaii. If you could get businessman Walter Dillingham to say yes, that pretty much meant the community would all pull that way, the leaders at least.
Big business was then so dominant and he sat on so many boards of directors that his yes could make things happen. A nod from him at his special table in the Pacific Club might be all you needed to get a project going.
Statehood was an exception. He opposed it, but we got it anyway after a hard fight.
After statehood things were less simple. But you still could be pretty sure of success if you got Gov. Jack Burns, Jack Hall of the ILWU and a couple of top business executives to say "let's all pull together on this one."
Now it's immensely harder. A culture of blame, the apathy of many absentee owners, the disproportionate power of single-interest activist groups, suspicion of profit, and a general diffusion of power make it tougher to "all pull together."
In particular, there are no single leaders with the stature and community reach of the old ones. That's democracy, but it makes for less unity when unity is what we need.
There's a lot of concern today that we are missing economic opportunities for our people because our development processes are so long and expensive, our government is so big and expensive, our public schools still deter some investors and living costs are so high.
Perhaps even more important, we don't have a widely accepted vision of our future that will cause us to want to pull together.
We had one when we were fighting for statehood. We had one when we were courting tourism to offset job losses from agricultural mechanization. We still have one in regard to the environment.
But in the economic area our priorities are less clear, our vision fuzzier.
I have joined a lot of people in saying we need to find a niche for ourselves in serving the rapid trend to globalism. But we have muffed opportunities for some of the reasons stated above.
Even tourism is sometimes treated by politicians as more of any enemy than ally. Yes, we are building a convention center but we aren't giving it all the transportation support it needs. We have let Waikiki go downhill over the past 20 years with stalls on development.
The unofficial Oahu Economic Development Board the "doctor" spoke to is on the verge of trying to identify improving Waikiki as our No. 1 economic priority - a good move, and in an area where there is hope.
The City Council's economic development chairman, Mufi Hannemann, says the Council may pass a new Waikiki Special Design District ordinance by year's end. It is aimed more at improving quality than density.
Quality upgrading to a warmer, more Hawaiian experience is what Waikiki very much needs to stay competitive.
THE "doctor" is Doug Henton, who watched synergy with Stanford spawn Silicon Valley. He now is working for wider San Francisco Bay area togetherness of purpose. It's not just money that's important, he stresses. To get everybody pulling together there has to be a vision of improved quality of life for everyone.
A beautified Waikiki could focus such a vision if it became a source of pride to visitors and local residents alike, and a magnet to stimulate tourism throughout the state. It already is our goose that lays the golden egg.
To make it better, we might even buy and dynamite a few ugly and intrusive buildings, as one planner has suggested. We might even restore a view of Diamond Head from more of Kalakaua Avenue. But that's long-term. Property consolidations that allow vertical density in exchange for attractive street-level open space are near term.
All pulling together to see Waikiki as our savior for the future could be a worthy goal.