Georgetown has reached its limits

Apr 26, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana, I have concluded after extensive observation (and several near-death experiences attempting to cross Regent Street), has not merely reached its tipping point. It has tipped, landed awkwardly, and is now apologizing to itself while asking for a parking spot.

There was a time when Georgetown possessed a kind of chaotic charm. A donkey cart here, a bicycle there, a steady but not interminable stream of cars, most of whom had seen better days.

Now, however, the city resembles a convention of vehicles that were all told there would be free refreshments if they showed up early. They did. All of them.

The mystery, if one insists on calling it that, is not why Georgetown has traffic, but why anyone is surprised. The equation is simple. Vendors plus businesses equals vehicles. Vehicles multiplied by customers equals gridlock. And gridlock divided by available parking equals existential despair. It is the kind of formula that would make a mathematician weep gently into a calculator.

Take vendors, for example. Once upon a time, a vendor was a person with a tray, perhaps a cart, and an admirable ability to shout persuasively. Today, the modern vendor arrives in a vehicle. Not just any vehicle, often something sizable enough to transport a small orchestra. And why not? If one is selling plantains, one must do so with logistical sophistication. The result is that every vendor is now both a merchant and a motorist, contributing not only to commerce but also to congestion, which is the city’s fastest-growing industry.

Then there are the businesses. Georgetown has embraced entrepreneurship with such enthusiasm that one suspects buildings are now being constructed solely to become other businesses later. Every residential lot is now being gobbled up by businesses. The transformation is swift, relentless, and apparently irreversible.

But businesses, as it turns out, do not exist in isolation. They come with employees—many of whom drive too especially those in the services sector where the pay tends to be better. They come with customers most of whom also drive. They come with suppliers, delivery vehicles, and the occasional person who is simply lost but contributing nonetheless. Each business is like a small gravitational field, pulling in cars and other vehicles until the surrounding streets are overwhelmed – long lines or snarled traffic and no parking whatsoever. Even the teachers now are taking up all the parking within and outside of their schools.

Finding a parking spot in Georgetown now requires not just luck, but a belief in miracles and possibly a letter of recommendation. Drivers circle endlessly, like vultures, contemplating where to park.

And yet, amidst this vehicular crescendo, another phenomenon quietly unfolds: residential rentals have become about as affordable as luxury apartments. Buildings that used to be reserved for housing are vanishing, becoming offices, shops, or something described vaguely as a “commercial space.” The result is that people who wish to live in Georgetown must now compete with people who wish to sell things in Georgetown, and commerce, being louder and more persistent, tends to win.

One might reasonably ask: how did this happen? Who, if anyone, was in charge while the city transformed into a case study in spatial overachievement?

Here we arrive, somewhat reluctantly, at the institutions entrusted with oversight. The Central Housing and Planning Authority, which sounds reassuringly authoritative, appears to have embraced a philosophy of boundless optimism. If someone wished to establish a business, why not approve it? After all, what could possibly go wrong in a finite city with infinite ambition?

Similarly, the City Council, which might have intervened at some point to say, “Perhaps this is enough,” seems to have adopted a more observational role. One imagines them watching the proceedings unfold, occasionally taking notes, possibly on how many more businesses can fit into a single block before physics intervenes.

The most baffling aspect, however, is financial. With this explosion of businesses, each presumably contributing to the tax base, one would expect City Hall to be flourishing. Not extravagantly, perhaps, but comfortably. Yet the city finds itself grappling with deficits, which suggests either a profound accounting mystery or the possibility that revenue, like parking, is simply difficult to locate.

All of this unfolds against a backdrop of a relationship between City Hall and the central government that can best be described as strained. Cooperation appears to occur in theory, much like efficient traffic flow, but rarely in practice.

Which brings us, inevitably, to the question of what is to be done. It may be time, radical though it sounds, to consider a moratorium on new businesses within Georgetown. Not as a punishment, but as a moment of reflection. A pause. A collective acknowledgment that the city, admirable as its energy may be, is not infinitely elastic.

Georgetown is small. It is congested. It is, in many ways, overwhelmed by its own industriousness. To continue along this path is to invite further chaos, more traffic, higher rents.

In the meantime, I will continue my daily ritual of attempting to navigate the streets, armed with patience, skepticism, and a vague hope that somewhere, somehow, a parking spot exists. If not in reality, then at least in principle, which, in Georgetown, may be the closest one can reasonably expect.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• City Hall, Georgetown, Peeping Tom, vendors

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