"The roof agreements are political business agreements. They don't look ahead; this is political wheeling and dealing," Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said at the "Globes" real estate conference. "The formats for the government's work with local government are archaic; it reminds me of the sector I came from.
"I went to the Ministry of Finance and said, 'Is it important to you for the Negev, the Galilee, and Jerusalem, the outlying areas, to be competitive?' I did not get an answer. I told them that I wanted to make the basket of services for a child in Jerusalem the same as for a child in the central region. I have no such dialogue with the Ministry of Finance, and the absence of such a dialogue is getting us nowhere. Municipal property taxes on residential property cover 40% of the cost of the basket of services, so someone with a lot of business goes forward, and someone who does not have it goes backward. Three reforms are necessary: a structural reform that includes a switch from a structure of 257 local authorities to a structure of seven metropolises, a budget reform in favor of the outlying areas in all the budgeting systems, and a managerial reform that sets goals and targets and examines whether we are getting closer to or further away from the target.
"I was impressed by the challenges that Tel Aviv has, but Israel has bigger challenges," Barkat remarked. "As a high-tech entrepreneur, I have often heard the word 'no.' From my experience as mayor, entrepreneurship in the public sector is very similar to entrepreneurship in the private sector. Seriously addressing the geographically and socially distant and disadvantaged outlying areas in Israel, including Jerusalem, is one of Israel's greatest challenges."
"Globes" real estate editor Dror Marmor asked Barkat whether treating Jerusalem as part of the outlying areas was not acting like a crybaby. Barkat answered, "Jerusalem is in cluster 3 on the socioeconomic scale. It has 300,000 Arab residents and 200,000 haredi (ultra-orthodox Jewish) residents. I have more Arab residents than there are people in all of Haifa. We're not crybabies; we're doing things. The goal is achievable."
Barkat mentioned work he had done with two renowned global experts. Prof. Michael Porter recommending selecting concentrating on strongpoints: tourism, leisure, and high tech with biotechnology. Prof. Richard Florida recommending making the city attractive to creative people. He noted that "Time Magazine" had cited Jerusalem as one of the world's growing cities, and was rated in 25th place in the high-tech industry, following the rise in the number of startups there from 250 to 600.
Barkat added, "The challenge in Jerusalem is putting women to work. It's not just employment. People choose to live where they want to raise their children, not just where they can get a job. The wide gap between Jerusalem and the central region, which became worse, is now starting to narrow." Barkat further stated that Jerusalem was in the midst of deploying a network of light railways, cable cars in ancient Jerusalem, and a high-speed railway from Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport. He mentioned that a business zone with 1.6 million square meters and 24 towers including nine with 40 storeys in which 60,000 people would be employed was being built at the entrance to the city. "We are leveraging the transportation infrastructure forward for urban renewal. Today, we are the leaders in Israel in urban renewal. We want to penetrate the old neighborhoods, and have created potential for 34,000 housing units, 10,000 of which are in approved urban building plans. What I have discovered is that when you generate momentum for business together with education, culture, and sports, you get movement, and people want to join the city. From being a bear market city, we have become a bull market city. A new dawn is breaking."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 26, 2018
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