Magalong to address urban decay

After receiving a fresh mandate as the city’s Chief Executive, Mayor Benjamin Magalong said that preventing  ‘urban decay’ from taking root in the Summer Capital continues to be one of the challenges that will be addressed by his administration.     

In Wednesday’s media forum at City Hall, he said that based on a 2019 study of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), this problem could occur if the city government does not take steps in formulating viable solutions with the entire community’s support and cooperation.

Urban decay is a process in which a previously functioning city, or city area, falls into disrepair and disuse whose common indications are abandoned buildings and empty plots, high unemployment levels, high crime rates, and an urban landscape that is generally decrepit and desolate.

The Mayor assured that for the past two years and 10 months, the city government has been planning and coming up with well thought out and strategic solutions for problems like urban decay that include the implementation this year of 31 projects with almost a dozen he described as ‘catalytic’.

Magalong said these projects will have a significant impact on the environment and provide barangay officials and residents with whatever resources they need to plan out and create  ‘livable communities’.

This means that they will be given the task to plan out their roads, pathways, drainage and sanitation systems, open spaces for parks and recreational facilities, and more in their respective communities, he explained.

“Challenging but it is about time that we give this responsibility to them,” the Mayor said. – Gaby B. Keith