The
Adventures of Superman, 1952
THE PLANNING OVERVIEW
THE THOUGHTS BEHIND THE VISION
Coming soon
Would
it be libelous to say "They're baaaack"? It's an expression
that was popularized in ads for a series of horrible
Hollywood movies, then took on specific associations on this isthmus.
Los Chukis, named after the infamous fictional Chucky, are a
real-life infamous Panamanian street gang, formerly of Barraza, now
of this country's prison system.
But
then, the unreal sales hype of the upscale Panama City real estate
bubble of a few years ago still echoes in real life --- we have one
of its loudest and dullest voices as our mayor, after all. And though
there are all of these luxury condos unsold and all of the condo
flippers who came to Panama to get rich quick have long departed, we still
sometimes see or hear Panama touted as "the
next Dubai." There are also people who remember Panamarina Pacific, the new gated city over the ocean with underground parking. Some of us may even pass by the site of the pharaonic but now abandoned Faros de Panama project.
So
now come a couple of insurance
guys, who got
into real estate during the bubble years, selling us
Panatropolis:
Well, hey, if they
have an expert, then it must
be true.
But it seems that,
although he coined the term, Professor Kasarda has never actually built an "aerotropolis." He just
touts them.
Kasarda is a
member of the Urban Land Institute, the international real estate
industry think tank headquartered in Washinton DC, which is renowned
for its promotion of gentrification schemes across the
planet and these days busies itself lobbying to weaken California's environmental laws,
which it says require "excessive documentation."
So what does this "aerotropolis" word mean, anyway? A quick reference
to Wikipedia
alleges that this reporter used to live near a couple of these for many
years: Detroit Metro Airport, a major passenger hub, and nearby Willow
Run
Airport, which started out as part of a World War II bomber plant and
was once a major place for bringing in and shipping out key parts for
Michigan's now moribund auto industry.
So an
"aerotropolis?" With upscale luxury housing where the glamorous jet set
lives conveniently near the airport?
Things have not
changed since this reporter returned to Panama nearly 17 years ago.
Residential prices are lowered, not enhanced, by proximity to Detroit's
airports. It's that way almost everywhere in the world, because of the
noise.
Yes, there are
measures that can be taken to manage the noise problem around airports.
In San Diego, they don't allow planes to take off or land at
night. In some communities where residents have sued airports over the
noise, settlements have included the retrofitting of homes with
soundproofing to ameliorate the noise. But forget about quiet
relaxation in the garden.
There are health
issues about the noise. The Umweltbundesamt, Germany's environmental
agency, conducted a study around Cologne's airport, and did all the
statistical adjustments to take social class, pre-existing health
conditions and other noise sources into account. They found that
aviation noise sharply increases the rate of heart attacks, with the
effect about twice as severe among women as among men. Although there
is a weird cult of Panamanian yeyes that celebrates the noise of car
alarms, boom trucks and firecrackers all day and night, any reputable
physician will tell you that noise is a stress factor and that stress
contributes to heart attacks, strokes and other unpleasant conditions.
But the Panatropolis promoters sure do
make a cool video:
So why would anyone want to
take this thing seriously?
The money
The promoters, headed by CEO Juan Luis Chevalier and board president
Joseph Homsany, say that they intend to develop the project on 850
hectares of land between Tocumen Airport and the Pacific Ocean. 325 of
these hectares, they say, will be bought by the public authority that
runs Tocumen Airport from
the University of Panama for "approximately $109 million," presumably
for resale or some other sort of transfer to the private developers. In
an
unsourced press release widely disseminated over
the Internet, it is
claimed that:
These
first steps to acquire the land were made after a meeting which was
attended by the president, Ricardo Martinelli, the vice president and
foreign minister, Juan Carlos Varela, the CEO of Tocumen SA, Juan
Carlos Pino, Comptroller Gioconda Bianchini and the director of the
Ministry of Economy and Finance's Catastro Office, Publio Cortés.
Let's see: 325
hectares is 3,250,000 square meters, at $109 million. That's slightly
more than $33.50 per square meter. Granted, we are dealing with low-lying land that's adjacent to the airport where in the recent floods
one
of the taxiways was damaged by water seeping under the pavement. But
that's still relatively cheap if it's the turf on which an upscale
residential community is to be built.
The politics
Now think about
the politics of that.
Juan Carlos Pino
is part of Vice President Varela's Panameñista Party entourage, and the
airport authority (Tocumen SA) is that ruling coalition partner's
political fiefdom in this administration.
The conventional
wisdom has been that the University of Panama's scandal-afflicted
rector, Gustavo García de Paredes, is a shoo-in for re-election to a
fifth term next year. However, the students voted heavily against his
re-election referendum in June, and more recently his candidate for
dean of the business administration and accounting faculty ran a
distant third.
Whether $109
million
coming into university coffers represents a price that's arguably too
low from the university perspective, or whether it represents a shrewd
deal by the university administration, in either case it's a massive
slush fund for the rector to bring into play during a re-election
campaign. "This is university land," notes one of the rector's sternest
critics, law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal. "Varela's people are
involved and Martinelli and Varela are behind it." He doesn't expect
much to come of Panatropolis, but he is expecting a deal for the land
that will be detrimental to the university.
(The university
angle gets weirder, if one wants to believe the mysterious but
widespread press release. García de Paredes is cited as saying that the
university will reserve three to five hectares of its land near the
airport to build a new medical school, of all things.)
Land use
The Panatropolis
promoters claim to have raised 40 percent of the money they need and
are looking for investors. So what if they actually find these and the
Panatropolis project is built?
For many years one
of Panama's development goals has been to turn our main international
airport into Latin America's principal commercial air passenger service
hubs. Tocumen received a huge boost by the US reaction to the al-Qaeda
attacks of September 11, 2001, because for many Latin Americans it
became difficult or impossible to get a visa to travel to or through
the United States, and many others who have no visa problems found the
reception they got from Americans unfriendly. As both an air hub and a
shopping destination, Panama City took business away from Miami.
Tocumen Airport has expanded and over the longer term airlines and
airport planners were looking to the land just south of the airport for
further expansion, to build new runways to accomodate more traffic. But
that's precisely where the Panatropolis development is being touted.
Also
in this section:
Improbable
Panatropolis project has government fingerprints
US-RP
tax information deal enrages lawyers, bores bankers
Text
of US-Panama Tax Information Exchange Agreement (PDF)
Latin
America and the Caribbean will grow by 6 percent in 2010
Panama
will grow by 6.3 percent in 2010
Peasant
and indigenous organizations reject market schemes for global warming
Television in Venezuela: who dominates the media? (PDF)
Centennial
Bridge woes
Coronado
grows as a commercial center
Father
Gallego's continuing legacy, by the cup
Panama
Vacations
Tankless
Water Heaters ---
http://www.eztankless.com/
Panama
Hotel:
Luxury apartment rentals in Casco Viejo, Panama City
Panama
Real Estate:
Original travel and investment articles on The Panama Report
Make
the Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City
Find the
boat of your dreams through Evermarine
