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Khalifa City A: They’re rooting for this outback
Khalifa City A: They’re rooting for this outback Silvia Radan / 21 August 2013 Situated north-east of Musaffah industrial area, a bridge away from Abu Dhabi main island, Yas island, and a short ride to the international airport, between the two highways to Dubai and Al Ain, Khalifa City A has become the Capital’s hottest residential area. It covers 22.9 square kilometres of sea level land, having about 2,000 villas and counting. At a first glance, there isn’t much to it — residential houses for as far as the eye can see, endless construction sites for even more residential homes, a labyrinth of small streets that would require any visitor a GPS to navigate, a complete lack of green spaces and dust, dust, dust everywhere! Yet, anyone who left the big towers of Abu Dhabi behind and moved out here is hooked on to it. “I would not want to go back and live in the city for so many reasons. For starters, there is never a parking issue here. The rent is much lower and we get much nicer living conditions. In Abu Dhabi, we lived in one of the tower blocks. It was a new one, very clean, with very good services, but windows wouldn’t open, there was no outdoor space, nowhere for children to play and we never heard a bird singing. Here, we live in a villa apartment, with a private garden and swimming pool. It’s bigger space and cheaper,” said British national Diana Oliver, who moved to Khalifa City A six months ago, with her family. Like many housewives here, Diana spends the morning with a leisurely coffee after taking her daughter to one of the local schools. It is her quiet time of the day, when she gets to write in her diary, which she hopes to turn into a book one day about her experience of living in an Arab country. Lunch is often with friends in the Garden Plaza, a complex part of Al Raha Gardens with a few shops, a small supermarket and a couple of cafes. “We did initially consider moving into Al Raha Gardens, but we found the villas have a lot of space inside and not too much outside. They are consider the creme de la creme out here, but to be honest, I believe if you take the time to look around, you find much nicer villas in Khalifa City itself,” said Diana. The commercial area of Khalifa City A. — KT photos by Shoaib Anwer Flanking the north of Khalifa City, stretching along the E10 highway leading to Masdar City, Al Raha Gardens are a series of residential compounds developed by Aldar Properties. Each compound is a cluster of tall two- to three-floor-high villas, dotted with trees, narrow alleys and a community playground for children. It is the only area in Khalifa City to have gas supply. The villas are available for rent only and they are intended for families, as most of them are three to four bedrooms. Yves Tarabout, a French expatriate, moved into a three-bedroom villa in Al Raha Gardens on March 1 and his life took a happier turn. “I’m very happy here! The location is good, with easy accessibility to Yas island and Abu Dhabi. The villa is well structured with good finish. There are lots of wooden features and top-to-bottom windows that can be fully opened. There are trees, space, light and the compound is nice, with security gates,” he described. Tarabout’s two dogs have become healthier and more playful since relocating, as they get to spend a lot more time outdoors. Several close-by vet centres make life easier for any pet owner — and there are quite a few in Khalifa City. “There is also access to decent recreational facilities in Al Raha Gardens itself, including a gym for Al Raha residents only. It’s quite small, but it’s good to have. There is no swimming pool yet, but we are promised one soon,” added Tarabout. Apart from tight and not that many parking spaces in the compound, Tarabout’s only complaint is the “quite restrictive communication channels” with Al Raha administration, which is not as quick and prompt in sorting out issues as it should be, especially since the Gardens are considered a top-of-the-market location. “We were lucky to only pay Dh155,000 rent per year, but a friend of mine who plans to move here found a similar three-bedroom villa for Dh190,000 now,” mentioned Tarabout. The price rise reflects a serious increase as Dubai residents are moving in, as a result of Abu Dhabi’s government ruling that all its employees must reside in Abu Dhabi. By the end of this year, thousands of families are expected to move from Dubai to the Capital, and many of them are looking at Khalifa City A. Apart from the Garden Plaza, the suburban town also has the Etihad Plaza, a lane of cafes, shops, an Etisalat branch and Khalifa City’s most expensive supermarket, Abella. Further inland is the largest supermarket, Spar, next to a post office branch. The “market area” is another landmark, a raw of grocery shops and small, mostly takeaway cafes, most popular with the Arab and South Asian populations of Khalifa City. A myriad of schools, nurseries and ladies salons dot the main streets. “None of these existed when we moved in,” pointed out Emirati Lee Al Romaithi, one of the first residents of Khalifa City. He and his family moved in 13 years ago, in April 2000. The house belongs to his father, who built it after getting a plot of land here in 1989. “When we moved here, there was only one other house in Khalifa City, about one kilometre away. We were able to see the airport from our home,” he remembered. It took six months to get telephone lines and one year and 10 months for the Internet connection. “We didn’t even have running water back then. We only got water for one hour a day, and I used to store about 20 tonnes of water daily for our consumption, the garden and for emergencies, in four massive tanks. We didn’t use it all, though.” The first grocery shop only opened three years later and access in and out of the city was limited, only through the small side road past the Abu Dhabi Golf Club. “I remember that road being closed for a while and we had to drive all the way down to the airport and come back through that side,” said Pamela Al Romaithi, Lee’s wife. “Yet, I loved Khalifa City back then. It was quiet and nice. It still is, especially if you keep away from the main 15th street,” she added. To this day, sea shells are still found in the earth around here, a reminder of the early days of Khalifa City, when it was a patch of land under the sea levels, taking the government a couple of years to raise it by a few metres with sea sand before infrastructure construction began in the early 1990s. Further away, Khalifa City B in the southwest is yet to catch up. Residents here, mostly Emirati homes, suffer from a complete lack of facilities — not even a grocery shop in sight. This keeps the rent low, but tenants are few and far between. Earlier this year, the Abu Dhabi Municipality announced plans to open a 25,000-square-metre community centre in Khalifa B that will include shops and cafes. The centre is meant to be ready by December 2014. In between the two “cities” is a large empty plot of land, where a third Khalifa City is planned — the Capital District, which will become the seat of power and government for the whole of the UAE as per Abu Dhabi 2030 plan. The largest Zayed University campus is the only building here and next to it is planned the Abu Dhabi railway station. silvia@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Farm Subsidies: A Welfare Program For Agribusiness
t’s one of the most widely reviled federal programs. So why is Congress fighting to save farm subsidies? By The Week Staff | August 10, 2013 Most farmers are wealthier than the average American, with a household income of $87,289 in 2011 — 29 percent higher than the $67,677 average for all U.S. households Why is the farm bill so controversial? Critics contend that the subsidies it hands out are wasteful, illogical, and counterproductive — a welfare program for millionaires and giant agribusinesses. Over the last decade, the farm bill has cost taxpayers more than $168 billion. In theory, the program uses loans, price supports, and payments to protect family farmers from the fickle fluctuations of weather, price, and economic conditions, so that their businesses remain stable and Americans are ensured a steady supply of affordable food. In practice, the program keeps food prices high, costing consumers billions, while funneling most of its aid to giant agribusinesses and wealthy farmers. About 75 percent of total subsidies go to the biggest 10 percent of farming companies, including Riceland Foods Inc., Pilgrims Pride Corp., and Archer Daniels Midland. Among the “farmers” who get federal subsidies are Bruce Springsteen (who leases land to an organic farmer), Jon Bon Jovi (who owns bee colonies), former President Jimmy Carter, and billionaire media mogul Ted Turner. “The typical farmer has literally millions of dollars of wealth,” said Dan Sumner, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis. What about the average farmer? He’s doing pretty well too. Despite droughts and high temperatures, farmers have enjoyed record crop-production levels and prices, as well as double-digit increases to the value of their land for the third year in a row in 2013. In fact, most farmers are wealthier than the average American, with a household income of $87,289 in 2011 — 29 percent higher than the $67,677 average for all U.S. households. And yet many still get taxpayer dollars to protect their incomes. In fact, the farm bill pays some farmers not to grow crops — in order to avoid oversupply that would drive food prices down for the rest of us. “Only an evil genius could have dreamed this up,” said Scott Faber, vice president for governmental affairs at the Environmental Working Group. How did the program start? Subsidies originated during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl catastrophe of the 1930s, when there was a genuine fear that the nation’s agricultural sector was on the brink of collapse. At that time, about a quarter of the country’s population lived in rural areas, and tens of thousands of American families found themselves literally in danger of “losing the farm.” So President Roosevelt pushed through the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which pegged crop prices to their historic highs and introduced the policy of paying farmers not to produce. It was supposed to be a “temporary solution to deal with an emergency,” as Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace put it. But in 1949 the Agricultural Act was made permanent, and — more than six decades later — a version of that same legislation still exists today. Why not reform the program? Congress tried that in 1996, with the Freedom to Farm Act, which removed price supports and grain management in an attempt to let the free market dictate prices. That reform didn’t last long. As commodity prices fell and farmers began to complain, lawmakers caved in and introduced several new programs that continue today. They include the much-criticized “direct payments” to farmers — checks written regardless of market conditions or the farmer’s crop yields — and the controversial crop insurance program, which critics say has encouraged widespread fraud. In that program, taxpayers pick up 62 percent of any farmer’s insurance premiums and help fund payouts if a claim for crop damage is made. Why not kill subsidies altogether? Politics. The farm lobby has immense power in Washington, thanks to its generous contributions to congressional campaigns and political parties, and to the large number of legislators from farm states — most of them Republican. Democrats have also traditionally supported the farm bill because it contains food stamp funding. This year, that partnership broke down, when House Republicans passed a version of the farm bill that strips the legislation of its food stamp provisions for the first time since 1973. President Obama responded by threatening to veto any legislation that doesn’t include food stamp funding. At the moment, the situation is at a stalemate. What’s likely to happen? A deal will probably get cut that will keep farm subsidies fairly intact. The House version of the bill, in fact, contains some of the most generous farm spending in history: While ending direct payments, the legislation channels $8.9 billion into an expanded crop insurance program, which already ballooned from $1.5 billion in 2002 to $7.4 billion by 2011. In the House bill, moreover, the farm subsidies that used to expire every five years are made permanent. “It’s hard to understand how anyone in the House who calls himself a conservative could support this, but many did,” said Chris Chocola, president of the free-market-oriented Club for Growth. “They’re locking in historically high commodity prices at taxpayer expense.” New York City’s ‘farmers’ New Yorkers wouldn’t know it, but they live in a city of farmers. Over the last decade, the farm bill has paid out millions of dollars in subsidies to more than 1,500 city residents — 374 on the plush Upper East Side alone. They aren’t receiving payments for farms in the city, but for property they own elsewhere. Recipients include Mark F. Rockefeller, a fourth-generation heir of the famous family who was paid $342,634 to not farm from 2001 to 2011, so that his land in Idaho could return to its natural state. Other top New York farmers include a managing director at Wells Fargo bank, and a neurologist in Queens. “Payments are going to people in Manhattan who simply have invested in farmland and are about as far away from farmers as one could imagine,” said Craig Cox, senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources at the Environmental Working Group. “That should really make people wonder what on earth has happened to the farm program.” Continue reading
