Baguio is now more than 100 years old from the time it was created as a city by the Americans. There might be many things that are bad about the Americans in this country but thinking small was not one of their faults. They thought big and when they designed the city they had to have enough space where to move around. It would not be off the mark to say they needed enough space where they could swagger in and throw their heavy weight around on the natives of these mountains.
So Camp John Hay, Wright Park (with the Mansion House), Teachers’ Camp, and Burnham Park were established with enough distances from each other. The first school they put up, Easter School (now Easter College), was put up not in the center of town. It is about three kilometers from City Hall. Even Brent School that was erected later has enough breathing space from the city proper.
The La Trinidad Farm School, now Benguet State University, also attests to this. Its area is hundreds of hectares.
But where are all the spaces in between and inside these institutional areas? They are all cramped now with squatters or legit structures that reflect how we think. Perhaps we did not or do not need spaces in between as the Americans need these. Perhaps we don’t need enough spaces to swagger around in.
Or perhaps we just don’t think big enough that we did not mind being crowded in a small area like Baguio City. Now as in other Philippine cities, all you see around in this Summer Capital are concrete buildings.
With this mentality, we never thought about maintaining enough spaces to assure healthy living or the general wholesomeness of the community.
So what to do? Can the situation be reversed? Perhaps not but it should be worth pondering on this 108th year of our summer Capital. We might not be able to demolish the concrete structures and start development again with a clean slate, but we might be able to start thinking big.**