Doing the Just City: Social Impact Assessment and the Planning of Beersheba, Israel

Abstract

This article documents the making of a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) for Beersheba, Israel, using a modified version of Susan Fainstein’s ‘just city’ vision. Four key dimensions are analyzed: equality, built environment, diversity and democracy. The SIA reveals that the new plan offers positive steps towards narrowing spatial inequalities. However, it overlooks threats of social dislocation as a result of massive development planned for the city. It also ignores the needs of minorities and creates a democratic deficit. SIA is shown to be needed if planning is to face the challenge of the twenty-first century – doing the just city.

Keywords:

• Just city
• social impact assessment
• Beersheba
• urban inequalities
• urban democracy

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for Ben-Gurion University MA planning students who participated the project. Their labor, wisdom and technical ability has enabled us to complete the preparation of the SIA. They are (in alphabetical order): Hagar Ben-Shlomo, Anat Dor, Doron Efrati, Dalia Fruman, Amit Kadmiel, Heley Marko, Rotem Nissan, Dani Rodman, Tzlil Shildkroit, Amitai Shnizik, Ohad Solomon, Erez Stein, Adi Steinberg, Nitza Tzafrir-Cohen, Ehud Israeli, Inbal Zamir, and Rotem Zarihan.

Notes

1. The first author of this article was a member of the expert group and participated in writing the final book (Yonah & Spivak, 2012).

2. The full Hebrew report, including theoretical and international comparative sections, as well as the complete detailed findings of the various preparatory studies in the city neighborhoods is freely available here www.geog.bgu.ac.il/FastSite/coursesFiles/report.pdf.

3. These activists included public figures who led the 2011 protests, such as. Yossi Yona, Emily Silverman, Gil Gan-Mor and local social activists such as Yehuda Aloush, Haim Bar-Yaakov and Adar Stern. In addition, the team also held professional discussions with planners Ami Shinar, Merav Morad and Esther Levinson.

4. Personal communication with the Municipality budget director, 6 April, 2014.

5. The interviewees included the following positions: a member of the BGU student guild, a retired professor representing middle-class Western Jews, a member of women’s international Zionist organization (WIZO) (a large women’s organization) representing women in the city, the director of the Beersheba federation of Soviet immigrants, the head of the Arab NGO Adalah in the Negev, the manager of an immigrant absorption center representing Ethiopian Jews, and the chair of the Beersheba Pride House representing the LGBT community. Respecting their wishes, we kept the interviewees anonymous. Their names are kept with the authors.

6. In spring 2017 the city council finally agreed to provide a community center for the LGBT community in the old city. During the summer of 2017, after a struggle, a pride parade marched for the first time in Beersheba.