Shifting borders, shifting center: hedging-out uncertainty in west Jerusalem’s urban core

ABSTRACT

This article argues that contested cities are inherently characterized by uncertainty and uses the interconnections between conflict, uncertainty and urban planning as a new analytical framework for investigating conflict cities. In the contested city of Jerusalem, geopolitical uncertainty stems from the Israeli occupation over East Jerusalem. Focusing on recent urban regeneration plans for West Jerusalem’s city center, the article explores how the municipality locates, plans and imagines the city center when the city’s external and internal boundaries are contested and unfixed. A two-tier analysis is employed. First, a historical analysis shows that the “city center”, as defined by authorities, is an unfixed locale that shifts in concurrence with shifts in the city’s boundaries. Then, a geopolitical analysis shows that by shifting the city center’s boundaries, the Israeli authorities decouple the city’s economic development (in the west) from Israel’s continuing ethno-national policies (in the east).

KEYWORDS:

• Uncertainty
• conflict
• city center
• boundaries
• Jerusalem

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Tali Hatuka, the head of the Laboratory for Contemporary Urban Design at Tel Aviv University, for her assistance and insights throughout this research project, and the faculty and fellows at the Safra Center for Ethics, both at Harvard and at Tel Aviv University, where earlier versions of this paper were presented.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

A. Interviews:

• A senior planner in the “Jerusalem 2000” Master Plan; March 2014, Jerusalem.

• A senior planner in the Jerusalem Municipality; March 2014, Jerusalem.

• A senior planner in the Jerusalem District Planning Bureau; March 2014, Jerusalem.

• A senior planner in the Jerusalem District Planning Bureau; March 2014, Jerusalem.

• A senior architect in the Jerusalem Municipality; July 2015 and June 2015, Jerusalem.

• A senior planner in the urban regeneration plan for the city center; December 2014, Jerusalem.

• A senior official in Eden - the Jerusalem Center Development Company

B. Observations in conferences and seminars (attended by senior planners and decision makers):

• A lecture and discussion during the Israeli Planners Association Annual Conference, Jerusalem, February 2014.

• Lectures and roundtable discussions during the symposium “Jerusalem 2020: the five year plan for competitiveness and economic growth”, Jerusalem, May 2015.

• Lecture and tour in the Jerusalem Gateway Project, Jerusalem, October 2015.

• Symposium about future prominent projects in Jerusalem, Jerusalem, October 2015.

• Symposium at the Jerusalem municipality about “development patterns in Jerusalem”, Jerusalem, May 2016.

• Discussion at the Economic Development Committee at the Jerusalem Municipality, Jerusalem, May 2016.

C. Transcripts and official records:

• Jerusalem Regional Planning Committee, 25/03/2008.

• Jerusalem Regional Planning Committee, 13/05/2008.

• Jerusalem Regional Planning Committee, 29/07/2008.

• Jerusalem Regional Planning Committee, 05/05/2009.

• Economic Affairs Committee in the Israel Parliament, 27/05/2014.

Notes

1. These were two Israeli-Palestinian summits that aimed (and failed) to reach a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The question of Jerusalem was discussed in these talks for the first time.

2. The Second Intifada (also known as the al-Aqsa Intifada) was the second Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. It started in September 2000 after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (where al-Aqsa Mosque is located).