Some years ago, a municipal official told me about a plan to build a Bachelor City. It conjured images of great towers filled with Subbuteo-playing singletons.
Finally a place to call home for commitment-dodgers everywhere. I never got to put my deposit down in time and instead ended up in Marriage City, where the lease terms are much longer and have fewer break clauses.
The Bachelor City plan was conceived back in the days when property developers had got into the habit of calling every hamlet-sized project a city. They would gather every year at the Cityscape exhibition to display their miniature citadels.
Thankfully, their bricklaying wasn't as good as their model-making, and most of the plans never made it out of the ground. As the property exhibition returns to the capital today, the models will be fewer and smaller.
The property narrative hasn't really changed that much since the third quarter of 2008, when house prices collapsed. Every year we ask "have we reached the bottom?" as if we're walking down the Victorian stairwell of a London tube station when the lifts are not working.
Meanwhile, much of the residential and commercial space that has been delivered since then remains empty. Repurposing some of that space into low-cost housing for blue-collar workers or "bachelors", might now be a sensible idea.
Bachelors can have a hard time of it in the city. Even we married men find ourselves personae non gratae on occasion.
My local parks do not allow men to enter during the week, for example.
If you're a mum, you have unhindered access to the playgrounds of Umm Suqeim every day. But if you are a dad, forget about it. The only solution is to leave the toddlers with their change bag at the entrance and tell them you'll be back for them in three hours.
I shouldn't complain really. It means I can go to Starbucks. And the children are always really glad to see me when I remember to go back for them.
At the height of the boom, labour camps were full to the brim and briefly attracted investor interest as a new and exciting asset class - bachelors were momentarily hot property.
Of course, a great many of them are not bachelors at all. They have wives and families back in their home countries. Increasingly, they are being shunted out to the outskirts of cities - as in Sharjah recently, when municipal inspectors evicted working men from three more neighbourhoods. Similarly, signs have begun appearing in Dubai's Discovery Gardens picturing bunk beds with red lines through them.
The confinement of labour accommodation to industrial areas deprives cities of their character and indeed their purpose. It has an economic impact as well as a social one.
It is not efficient for people to have to travel for hours to their places of work every day - especially at a time when there is so much more property available in many city-centre locations than there has ever been.
Today there are plenty of available residential and commercial units in city centres that could with a little imagination be turned into good-quality housing for people working on low wages. At least that would generate some revenue rather than none at all.
There are also employers out there who would pay more for their staff to live nearer to where they work.
What better social penance for property developers who over-borrowed and overbuilt than to set aside some of their empty buildings for affordable housing where it is really needed - in a bachelor city in the city centre.
scronin@thenational.ae
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A4 35 TFSI
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Transmission: seven-speed S-tronic automatic
Power: 150bhp
Torque: 270Nm
Price: Dh150,000 (estimate)
On sale: First Q 2020
A4 S4 TDI
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Transmission: eight-speed PDK automatic
Power: 350bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh165,000 (estimate)
On sale: First Q 2020
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Range: Up to 610km
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
How to register as a donor
1) Organ donors can register on the Hayat app, run by the Ministry of Health and Prevention
2) There are about 11,000 patients in the country in need of organ transplants
3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register.
4) The campaign uses the hashtag #donate_hope
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
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Director: Ahmed Moussa
Starring: Ahmed El Sakka, Amir Karara, Ghada Adel and Moustafa Mohammed
Three stars
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Seven tips from Emirates NBD
1. Never respond to e-mails, calls or messages asking for account, card or internet banking details
2. Never store a card PIN (personal identification number) in your mobile or in your wallet
3. Ensure online shopping websites are secure and verified before providing card details
4. Change passwords periodically as a precautionary measure
5. Never share authentication data such as passwords, card PINs and OTPs (one-time passwords) with third parties
6. Track bank notifications regarding transaction discrepancies
7. Report lost or stolen debit and credit cards immediately
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
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