Waikiki ready for new ideas

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Oct 01, 2012

~~<p>Waikiki has to be one of the tourism industry's great success stories, in at least one sense. Consider: It was always famous as a surf spot for Hawaiian royalty but the larger district was once just marshy agricultural land. Over the past century, it evolved to become first a residential neighborhood, then an increasingly dense commercial zone that grew into a world-famous resort.</p>
<p>The stratospheric rise in the value of the land meant, however, that various comprehensive plans for Waikiki over the decades have been overlooked in favor of short-term development opportunities, leading to crowding. Maintenance and infrastructure hidden under the streets were given short shrift, as recent memories of the massive Ala Wai Canal sewage spill will attest.</p>
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Waikiki has to be one of the tourism industry's great success stories, in at least one sense. Consider: It was always famous as a surf spot for Hawaiian royalty but the larger district was once just marshy agricultural land. Over the past century, it evolved to become first a residential neighborhood, then an increasingly dense commercial zone that grew into a world-famous resort.

The stratospheric rise in the value of the land meant, however, that various comprehensive plans for Waikiki over the decades have been overlooked in favor of short-term development opportunities, leading to crowding. Maintenance and infrastructure hidden under the streets were given short shrift, as recent memories of the massive Ala Wai Canal sewage spill will attest. Login for more...