Design School Professors Working in Virgin Islands

Several Harvard professors and graduates of the School of Design are helping the United States Virgin Islands Planning Board plan the development of the central portion of Saint Croix.

William W. Nash, professor of City Planning, and Francois C. Vigier, associate professor of City Planning and Urban Design, are consulting with the Planning Board through their firm, Nash-Vigier. The Planning Board, which is located in the Virgin Islands, is headed by a Harvard graduate and includes four other Harvard graduates and a number of Islanders educated at Harvard.

Vigier said that the Planning Board and Nash-Vigier hope to create a new urban area where the relatively poor could live without public housing. "But since everything is imported, the cost of construction is high and complicates the problem," he said.

Vigier and Reginald R. Issacs, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning, said there was a need to move quickly to control and guide the rapid development of the island.

Large industries there generate rapid economic development which results in new problems for the public sector, said Vigier. Large numbers of immigrant workers need housing, schools, hospitals and recreational facilities. Vigier said, "These problems are left for the Islanders."

Issacs, a consultant to the Planning Board, said that he wants to maintain the culture of the Virgin Islands against the rapid economic growth. "Unfortunately we're teaching the native population as many of our bad habits as we can," said Issacs. "When Cuba closed down, there was a redistribution of tourism which affected the Virgin Islands," he said, "but tourism is fickle and is not enough to establish a stable economy."

Isaacs said that he worked with the Planning Board with the aim of "training the people to help themselves." Vigier agreed that part of his concern as a consultant was to generate discussion of the development goals for the Virgin Islands amongst the Islanders themselves. He said, "They have to be heavily involved through their officials."