Re: Unhealthy living standards a worry 

I’ve been saying it for a while now but urbanisation is not a good thing for Samoa.

A much better development model is to have people stay in their villages (for the Upolu villagers) and commute to Apia for work and other purposes. Savaii villagers may not have a choice but to move to Apia though. 

The village has more lands; better air quality; less traffic pollution; and the strong authority of the village council to keep order with the youth. 

Villages have a greater sense of community and identity as well which cuts down crime and social problems compared to urban living where people don’t know who the next door neighbour is.

For this model to work properly though, we need better quality roads to every corner of Upolu to cut down the commute time to 40 minutes from Aleipata to Apia. An ideal situation would be to have a motorway to Mulifanua and a high quality inland highway connecting Apia-Vaitele to Siumu and Aleipata. A highway which goes straight as much as possible instead of bending around mountains and hills. I understand there are plans for the improvement of highways connecting Apia-Vaitele to Mulifanua and the cross-island road through Tiavi.

The water and power infrastructure to the villages needs to also be A+.

I also applaud the government’s policy of establishing high schools and increasing the number of primary schools in the rural areas to keep students closer to their parents.

PS Jeffrey