Clarendon
Clarendon's bauxite mining and sugar processing create dual economic pillars while May Pen serves as commercial hub for Jamaica's south-central interior.
Clarendon occupies Jamaica's south-central interior, its bauxite deposits making the parish a cornerstone of the mining industry that once provided Jamaica's second-largest export earnings. The parish's economic identity reflects the boom-and-bust cycles of commodity extraction—global aluminum prices determining employment levels and community prosperity in ways that agricultural diversity once buffered against.
Sugar cane processing at the parish's factories represents the older agricultural economy that bauxite partially displaced. The dual presence of extractive and agricultural industries creates employment that neither alone could sustain, though both face structural challenges. Citrus cultivation, particularly limes and oranges, provides income streams less vulnerable to global commodity swings.
May Pen serves as parish capital and commercial hub for surrounding agricultural communities. The parish's position along major transport corridors creates logistics employment servicing north-south and east-west routes. Whether Clarendon can diversify beyond bauxite dependence—or whether the mining sector's eventual decline leaves infrastructure without economic purpose—tests the adaptability that agricultural traditions once provided.