UC in Crete: Blazing New Trail for Backwaters-Turned-Boomtowns

Over many centuries, Crete’s thousand-year olive groves and its simple stone villages have withstood armed invasions, colonization, emigration, economic shifts and all the other vagaries of human history.  Now, they face a challenge that might prove their ultimate undoing: Tourism. 

Less than 10 years ago, the coastal towns and traditional interior villages of this Mediterranean treasure trove of Minoan archaeology, ancient tree groves, mountains and pristine beaches were passed over by the millions who visit Greece each year.  Now, however, Crete’s coast is a tourist target from April to November of each year, drawing close to 3 million visitors, and creating a spiral of environmental and cultural destruction.  With the approach of the summer 2004 Olympics in Athens, the effects are likely to worsen dramatically.

Or, perhaps not, thanks to long-term work by University of Cincinnati teams comprised of planners, architects, biologists, economists, geographers and others that have been going back almost every summer since 1998 to the municipality of Hersonissos.  All the teams have been led by UC Planning Professor Michael Romanos, who fled his native Crete for the United States more than 30 years ago after martial law followed upon a Greek coup.  And all the teams have the same goal:  observe, consult, research and then apply their professional talents to resolving the ugly side of tourism – its choking traffic congestion, pollution that is rapidly degrading the land and water, shortages of potable water, loss of economic and environmental diversity, and dilution of native traditions and cultures.

This past summer, Romanos, who has a long international resume of helping countries with emerging economies; Carla Chifos, assistant professor of planning; Menelaos Triantafillou, visiting associate professor of planning; and 20 undergraduate and graduate students labored and again added to a growing UC legacy of changing tourism practices.

For instance, three of the UC students – Bill Bogenschutz, Nate Hoelzel and Alan Marrero – literally blazed a 4.5-kilometer mountain hiking trail between traditional interior villages.  It offers mountain views, cultural exposure, and historic interest, passing by Minoan ruins, the Monastery of Kardiotissa, natural springs, traditional watermills and a canal.  Hoelzel, 23, a graduate planning student from Columbus, Ohio, recalls, “They gave us a one-page proposal for the trail and a really rough sketch to start out with.  After interviewing local officials, business owners and residents, we then plotted a trail that follows an old watermill system once used to ground flour.”

The trio removed overgrowth, fallen trees, and rocks from the trail while also making recommendations concerning goat gates, waterway crossings, rock steps, rock wall restoration and watermill restoration.  They also suggested trail-sign and bench designs as well as brochures.  Hoelzel explained, “We physically walked the woods and cleared a trail, piling up stones so that a contractor would just have to follow the piled-up stones to see where the trail should go.  We also mapped it and suggested trail width, where the safety railing, sitting areas and trash cans should go.  We even made up the brochure in English and Greek that tells the history of the area and regulations for using the trail.  We basically made it so easy that all the municipality has to do is hire the contractor.” 

The trail they started will be completed by spring 2004, and that, said Hoelzel, is the best part, “Our project had a much smaller scope than other efforts.  It’s encouraging for us as students to see our work implemented.”

Other projects the group worked on include:

• The use of two traditional, interior villages – Gonies and Avdou –

as case studies.  The team carefully noted village life, mapping pedestrian and traffic flows, environmental resources and public spaces to determine how the villages could attract tourist dollars without suffering the same degradations common on the coast. 

The preservation and enhancement recommendations made by the UC team have already received funding from the national Greek government and will be implemented.

  According to Romanos, “Avdou and Gonies can become models for other villages because both still have resources to devote to diversifying their population and economies in environmentally sensitive ways.  Gonies is a traditional shepherd’s village, and meat consumption has risen ten-fold in Greece.  Thus, herds are larger, and the village is doing very well.  People are staying in the village… Shops are there and a school.”

• A straightforward transportation plan for Hersonissos that would transform the town into a pedestrian-friendly zone.  Buses, taxis and visitors’ cars would be limited to parking in a green space/transit center on the town’s edge.  Two significant thoroughfares in town would each become one-way streets.  Says Romanos, “It’s an inexpensive, easy-to-implement plan that would pay off in terms of congestion and quality of life.  Right now, Heronissos is gridlocked during tourist season.”  Not too surprising considering the town built for 5,000 residents now contains 55,000 tourist beds.  Romanos adds, “When the tourists pour in, traffic flow stops.  That’s not only due to the tourists.  Streets stop mid-way because of archaeological ruins.”

These efforts build on the work of previous UC teams. 

One past recommendation that is currently being implemented

concerns a public square containing two abandoned 19th-century schools and a 14th-century Byzantine chapel in Avdou.  They are undergoing renovation for use by visiting artists and for cultural events.  The idea here is to help move tourism away from a coastal concentration and spread it throughout the 150-mile-long island where many interior villages are being abandoned by the younger generations who seek the jobs generated along the tourist-rich coast.  

Other previous recommendations have been acted upon, including a new sewage-treatment plant and changed zoning and building codes. 

Next year, Romanos and a UC team have been invited back to Hersonissos to continue their work.  He’s also received invitations from other locales, including the picturesque volcanic island of Santorini north of Crete.  For now, Romanos plans to return to Hersonissos, but if enough faculty and students volunteer to give their time and talents, other municipalities might be added to his research list. 

A Few Facts on Crete:

• Tourism supports about 90 percent of the regional economy around Hersonissos, an area that once relied on agriculture.

• Tourism in

Crete jumped about 50 percent between 1990 and the year 2000.

• Tourism amounts to more than 30 percent of jobs on Crete since, directly or indirectly, many jobs rely on tourism.

These links include more background from summer 2003, background from summer 2000.