Page 21 - Housing & Poverty In Malta With A Focus On The Southern Harbour Region

be attracted by neighbourhoods that are conceivably populated by people of the social
class that one introspectively associates oneself with.

Economically, the Southern Harbour Region has been bearing testimony to declining work
forces in the dockyards and related industries. The economic attractiveness in terms of
close-proximity to work-centres has therefore been on the wane. The Southern Harbour
Region, notwithstanding the latter, is still in close proximity to the Bulebel and Rinella
industrial estates. This could very well explain part of the reason behind the social
depravity of the region being studied since the blue collar work force tends to earn low
wages relative to the white collar workforce. Higher-paying jobs, particularly those in the
services industry, have moved away from the Southern Harbour Region, though it may be
surmised that this could also be an important factor underpinning the growing share of
vacant housing, urban decay and destitution.

Map 2 in Appendix 4 gives an indication of the high population densities in the harbour
area. Despite the fact that the MEPA does not deal with the Southern Harbour Region as
a single unit, but identifies, rather, sub-units thereof, this map could still be important in
shedding light on the causes of the voluminous, and growing, vacant housing stock in the
relevant region. In the context of the ever-growing aspirations of the Maltese people,
population density and related factors, like, say, the noisy environments existing in high-
population-density areas and the relatively smaller sizes of the housing units might be
acting as push factors when it comes to internal migratory patterns. However, this is not
clear from anecdotal evidence as several individuals exhibit the opposite tendencies.
Withal, a significant chunk of the housing stock in the Southern Harbour Region consists
of old housing units, many of which have been rebuilt after World War 2. Such housing
units are not always ideal in meeting today’s housing needs and wants without substantial
investment, and that could further add to the impetus of the same push-factor. At this
stage, in the absence of a scientifically-designed interview-based study, all these
hypotheses remain conjectural in nature. This is not to say, nevertheless, that they are
not important, as further, better-funded studies on these lines are sorely needed and
these conjectures might provide a good basis for the furtherance of the understanding of
this phenomenon.

Though the Geographic codes used by the MEPA are different from those being used here,
the Harbour Area pie chart is still fairly representative of the Southern Harbour Region.
Map 1 in Appendix 3 shows that the Harbour area has the largest stock of vacant housing
in the whole of the Maltese Islands and this difference is also statistically significant, thus
indicating that this is not due to a chance occurrence.

Lastly, apropos of social attractiveness, the Southern Harbour Region scores lowly. This is
so because of its being a relatively socially deprived region (despite the fact that this may
not hold for each and every individual area comprising the Southern Harbour Region).
What is more, several housing estates built therein have resulted in the relocation of
relatively worse-off individuals in society to the area, thereby worsening the social stigma
associated with the same region. Since sociological agents usually strive to climb up higher

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