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Abstract
This article discusses the nature of urban development practices implemented over a considerable period of time in Tel Aviv, Israel. Its empirical foundations rest on detailed research of high-rise development projects completed in the city between the early 1950s and 2009. The research revealed that the skyline has changed dramatically in the interim, with planning practices adapted to match post-Fordist concepts and globalization. Yet, a persistent national hegemonic narrative still underlies most projects and binds luxury high-rise building, land privatization and erasure of the physical remains that bear witness to the pre-state past. The article thus relates to urban development practice in terms of continued path-dependent process and its necessary social legitimation. The empirical section maps these concepts within the local process while attempting to define the nature of continuing planning and development practices.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Helen Meller for her great editing and advice. I also wish to thank Juval Portugali (Tel Aviv University) and Oren Yiftachel (Ben Gurion University) for the illuminating supervising and Nurit Alfasi (Ben Gurion University) for the good advice and support.
Notes
On the post-Fordist and neoliberal urban restructure, see Fainstein, The City Builders; Brenner and Theodore, “Neoliberalism”; and Lauria, Introduction, 1–9.
For an overlook on the Israeli development policies before and after 1977, see Carmon, “Housing Policy in Israel”; “Urban Renewal Policies”; Nachmias, “Institutional Reform of Urban Management”; and Nachmias and Menachem, Public Policy in Israel.
On the changing hegemonic tastes in current Israel, see Filc, Populism and Hegemony and Ram, “Glocommodification”.
On cultural and ideological shifts in Tel Aviv, see Ram, “Glocommodification” and Kemp and Reijman, “‘Tel Aviv Is Not Foreign to You’”.
Hubbard, “Urban Design and City Regeneration”, 1442. For Tel Aviv, see Monterescu, “To Buy or Not to Be” and Hatuka and Forsyth, “Globalization and Nationalism”.
See ibid., Swyngedouw, Moulaert, and Rodriguez, “Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe”.
A government agency formed in 1960 to manage 93% of Israel's land. It received assurances through legislation, that the land would be leased long-term and rarely sold. It played a vital role in urban and rural development activity ever since. Due to early state laws, land is rarely sold. However, land is effectively privatized through long-term leasing (usually 49 or 99 years); developers’ (or residents’) leases permit them to develop, use and sell their rights under specified conditions. Conversely, the ILA remains involved in the development and redevelopment of urban areas through taxation as well as planning. See Kark, “First Authorities and Land Policy's Design” and Kedar and Yiftachel, “Land Regime and Social Relations in Israel”.
According to Werczberger and Borukhov in “Israel Land Authority”, similar arrangements prevail in Singapore, Hong Kong and Canberra.
For further information about ILA legislation and activities, see also http://www.mmi.gov.il.
For American and European democracies, see Brenner, “Urban Locational Policies” and Fainstein, “Promoting Economic Development”.
On Israeli planning and land institutions, see Alfasi, “Planning Policy?”; Alterman, “Land of Leaseholds”; “National-Level Planning in Israel”; and Werczberger and Borukhov, “Israel Land Authority”.
See Alterman, Land Policy for Israel's Future; and (http://www.mmi.gov.il).
MAPAI – the Workers’ Party of Eretz (The country of) Israel. This Labor Zionist movement was historically connected to the Histadrut, the union cover organization which dominated the Hebrew settlement's economy and infrastructure throughout the British Mandate and was also highly powerful in the first decades after 1948, while the party ruled the Knesset (the Israeli parliament and the government until 1977).
All of which higher than their surrounding built area. For the definition of high-rise buildings employed here, see Bletter, “Invention of the Skyscraper”.
Hubbard, “Urban Design and City Regeneration”, 1442.
Phrase coined by the architect Cass Gilbert in 1900, soon after skyscrapers’ first appearance in urban life; quoted by Willis, Form Follows Finance, 19.
Urban, Tower and Slab; McNeill, “Skyscraper Geography”; Frenkel, “Spatial Distribution of High-Rise Buildings”; Whitehand, Changing Face of Cities; Cohen, Scenes of the World to Come; and Tafuri, “New Babylon”.
Stone, Regime Politics; “Urban Regimes”.
Rast, “Why History (Still) Matters”, 19, in relation to Stone's working model.
Stone, “Urban Regimes”, 8, quoting Rokkan, “Norway”, 105.
For a historic overview, see Golan, “Tel Aviv-Yafo's Municipal Boundaries”.
Jessop, “Neo-Gramscian Approach”; “Recent Societal and Urban Change”.
See also Goodwin and Painter, “Concrete Research, Urban Regimes”.
MacLeod and Goodwin, “Space, Scale and State Strategy”.
Jessop, “Recent Societal and Urban Change”.
Page, “Path Dependence”, 88.
See also Rast, “Why History (Still) Matters”; Mahoney, “Path Dependence”.
Mahoney, “Path Dependence” defines path dependence as ‘specifically those historical sequences in which contingent events set into motion institutional patterns or event chains that have deterministic properties’.
Carmon, “Urban Renewal Policies”; Hatuka and Forsyth, “Globalization and Nationalism”; and Hatuka and Kallus, “Loose Ends”.
The growing city was also surrounded by the Arab suburbs of Jaffa Manshia (south-west) and Abu Kabir (south-east), and the town Salame (far to the east). There were also two German Templar colonies: Valhalla and Sarona, the latter including substantial agriculture land, east of the growing city. The zoning master plans approved in the 1930s and 1940s were for built areas as well as incorporating of the adjacent Arab areas into municipal borders. Zoning plan no. 44 designated building codes and land uses for the built southern and central areas. Plan no. 58 outlined the central–northern areas, planned in 1926 by Patrick Geddes. Plan no. 50 outlined the external area of the villages Summeil and Jammasin. For further information, see Biger, “Scotsman in the First Hebrew City”; Hysler-Rubin, “Changing Appreciation of Patrick Geddes”; LeVine, “Conquest Through Town Planning”; and Municipality of Tel Aviv News Bulletin (“Yediot Hairia”) 1937, 7–8; 1942, 12; 1947, 1–2, 8, 9, The Year Book (1938–1939) (Hebrew).
With dwellers comprising a fifth of the Jewish population, in the 1920s and 1930s, see Greicer, “Worker's Housing Clusters in Tel Aviv”.
Municipality of Tel Aviv News Bulletin (“Yediot Hairia”), 1947, 1–2. Giladi and Golan, “Urban Planning and Development”.
This comparatively large portion also includes public streets and public facilities or beaches. Municipality of Tel Aviv News Bulletin (“Yediot Hairia”): Tel Aviv Municipality, Yediot 3–4, 1951; Yodfat, 60 Years of Development; and Alterman, Land Policy for Israel's Future.
There are several estimations of the number of Arab refugees in the area. The number indicated is according to Golan, Wartime Spatial Changes.
In spatial terms, by the end of the mandate, 1947, Tel Aviv's municipal boundaries included 12,000 dunam (dunam = 1000 mFootnote2), 6000 of it as built areas. Sarona's land added 6000 dunam, mostly un-built. 30,000 dunam of Arab and mandate lands were designated to the city after 1948, ibid; Municipality of Tel Aviv News Bulletin (“Yediot Hairia”): 1947, 1–2; 1948, 1–2; 1951, 3–4; 1952, 1–3; 1954, 8–9 (Hebrew).
Golan, Wartime Spatial Changes.
Aaron Horovitz, Intermediate report on Tel Aviv–Yafo Master Plan; Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, 1952; Marom, City with a Concept; Yediot Hiria 8–9 (1953); 1–3 (1954) (Hebrew).
For further discussion, see Carmon, “Housing Policy in Israel”; Marom (2009); and Birenbaum-Carmeli, Tel Aviv North.
Stone, “Urban Regimes”, 14.
Stone, Regime Politics; “Urban Regimes”.
Rast, “Why History (Still) Matters”, 17.
Hashimshoni, Tel Aviv-Yafo Master Plan.
Relative to the period's standards, see Efrat, Israeli Project.
The letter sent by the Minister of Finance, Pinchas Sapir to the City Engineer was received on 4 August 1957. Because the supermarket was run by a firm named ‘Super-Sol’, high-rises with supermarkets located on their ground floors came to be known colloquially ‘Super-Sol high-rises’.
Berger, Dionysus in the Center.
The city's first master plan (the Horowitz plan) was issued in 1953/1954; the second master plan (Hashimshoni plan) was prepared as zoning amendments during the mid-1960s.
Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Municipal Yearbooks 1960, 58.
Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Properties and Development, Municipal Yearbooks 1963.
Carmon, “Housing Policy in Israel”.
167 high rises were built in this intensive cycle in northern neighborhoods, and 104 buildings were built in the south and south east re-development projects.
Golan, 2001.
Carmon, “Urban Renewal Policies”.
Birenbaum-Carmeli, Tel Aviv North.
Carmon, “Urban Renewal Policies”.
The Mazor plan, 1984, see Mazor, Tel Aviv-Yafo Outline Plan Draft; Hatuka and Forsyth, “Globalization and Nationalism”.
By the end of 1983, bank stocks had collapsed, with bank nationalization came an increase in the national deficit. In 1984, inflation had reached three digits.
Stone, Regime Politics, “Urban Regimes” and Jessop, “Recent Societal and Urban Change”.
Schnell and Graicer, Back to Tel Aviv.
Surveyed by Fainstein, “Promoting Economic Development”, City Builders.
Carmon, “Urban Renewal Policies”; Schnell and Greicer, Back to Tel Aviv; and Hasson and Hazan, Municipal-Private Partnership.
Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity; Alfasi, “Planning Policy?”; and Fainstein, “Promoting Economic Development”.
Yoscovitz, “Urban Planning in Tel Aviv-Yafo”. Yoscovitz was the City engineer at the time and until 1999.
Alterman, “From Expropriations to Agreements”; Razin, “Needs and Impediments”; and Hasson and Hazan, Municipal-Private Partnership.
Hatuka and Forsyth, “Globalization and Nationalism” and Yoscovitz, “Urban Planning in Tel Aviv-Yafo”.
See Jessop, “Recent Societal and Urban Change”.
See Alfasi and Fabian, “Ideological Developers”; Carmon, “Urban Renewal Policies”; Hatuka and Forsyth, “Globalization and Nationalism”; and Monterescu, “To Buy or Not to Be”.
Hatuka and Forsyth, “Globalization and Nationalism”.
Hasson and Hazan, Municipal-Private Partnership.
See Nizan-Shiftan, “Whitened Houses” and Rotbard, White City Black City.
Stone, “Urban Regimes”, 14.
See note 1 above.
Rast, “Why History (Still) Matters”, 17–18.
Fainstein, “Promoting Economic Development”.
Jessop, State Theory, 199.
See also Fainstein, “Promoting Economic Development” and Stone, “Urban Regimes”.
Jessop, “Recent Societal and Urban Change”, 46.
Yiftachel, Ethnocracy, 7.
Vale, “Temptation of Nationalism”, in relation to Hobsbawm, “Introduction”.
Blomley, “Law, Property”, Unsettling the City.