September is the peak of hurricane season and many resorts have closed, leaving the beaches of Grace Bay empty and the island quiet. Great for long beach walks alone and for reflection on all the new resorts being built and the crowds of beach lovers who will soon be back. The surge in construction, 17 major projects in the works, certainly reflects the continued appeal of Provo as a preferred destination and place for condo/villa investment.

As I noted in my article on the “Perils of Over-tourism,” however, the large number of projects comes at a heavy cost that undercuts the very specialness of limited high-end tourism that we have enjoyed for so long. Indeed, the risk of stagnation or evolving into just another ordinary mass vacation spot indistinguishable from others where development ran rampant. Those of us who live here, as well as those who visit often, can see upfront the increase in congestion on the roads and at the airport and wonder what will become of Provo. At least the beaches still offer some space to spread out. But that too may be threatened.

An even more daunting concern is the ever-growing disparity between massive wealth and extreme poverty. On this small island thousands of people live in crowded, substandard housing with little hope of improvement. Following Hurricane Irma in 2017, I and others went into the shantytowns to deliver food and water. At one house, we met with three adult women and two teenage girls who lived in a room with no running water, no toilet, and no electricity. They lit candles at night to provide some light. Of course, they could not cook, so they depended on more expensive prepared food at the supermarkets. The teens slept on a cot while the women showed me how they pulled down a plywood sheet as their bed and used crumpled clothes as bedding. And the teens still got up every morning to walk through mud to catch the bus to school. The scene and their story were heartbreaking.

Today, seven years later, the inequality problem has only grown with ever-more people, mostly undocumented but not exclusively, struggling without the most basic conveniences. Moreover, like the teens I met, many youngsters have no status usually due to parental circumstances. When they hit 18 and finish high school, they are not able to get a job and are subject to deportation back to a country they have never known. That and the appalling living conditions, of course, make them far more vulnerable to crime with little recourse. Tellingly, the impoverished live in the shadows, a mere stone’s throw from the high-end resorts where condo bookings go for thousands of dollars a night. (Villas go for much more.) The contrast could not be more stark and searing, and it cannot go on forever. Sensible solutions to follow.