For many Palestinians, the norm is tight-quartered living with barely a garden in sight, no defined sidewalks and a poor water system. But this is about to change with an ambitious plan for a new way of living. Just six miles north of Ramallah, Palestinians have begun planting thousands of evergreen tree saplings as part of a major greening project to grow a forest to hug the edges of what will be the first planned Palestinian city. The city is already named Rawabi, Arabic for "hills". For Palestinians it presents a new kind of urbanism, which aims to draw middle-class professionals away from smoggy towns and villages towards a better way of life.
For many Palestinians, the norm is tight-quartered living with barely a garden in sight, no defined sidewalks and a poor water system. But this is about to change with an ambitious plan for a new way of living.
Just six miles north of Ramallah, Palestinians have begun planting thousands of evergreen tree saplings as part of a major greening project to grow a forest to hug the edges of what will be the first planned Palestinian city.
The city is already named Rawabi, Arabic for "hills". For Palestinians it presents a new kind of urbanism, which aims to draw middle-class professionals away from smoggy towns and villages towards a better way of life.
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Besides being the first planned city, it also marks the first planting of a major forest by Palestinians in the territories since Israel took control 42 years ago. It is also the first time serious arrangements are being made to provide Palestinians with American-style mortgages.
Palestinian entrepreneur Bashar Masri is the force behind Rawabi. A chemical engineer by training, he is the human bulldozer who aims to turn his vision into a reality and modernize the heart of the Palestinian territories.
"There is a great shortage of housing in Palestine," Masri said during a tour of the planned site. "As you can see there is hardly anything here. That required setting the city up from scratch, which made the project much bigger and much more sophisticated and complicated, but we love it."
It will be home to about 40,000 residents who aspire to own an affordable apartment. Neighborhoods will be spacious and green. They’ll have sidewalks and parking garages, something unheard of in most Palestinian communities. The town center will be a hub of high tech, mainly IT businesses, to provide jobs for the educated but underemployed Palestinian work force.
According to Bayti Real Estate Investments Company, which oversees the Rawabi project, Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank has granted the permits necessary for the "Grow-for-Greener Palestine" project, which will see the planting of 25,000 trees. The first 3,000 trees were provided by the Jewish National Fund, who also provided consultants on growing forests – an area the Palestinians have been unable to develop experience in.
Construction has yet to begin as Masri waits for Israel's permission to move the jurisdiction of the necessary access road to the Palestinian Authority, a road that currently winds through Israeli controlled Area C.
Article continues: http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/12/06/14196/rawabi-palestine-planned-city/
