Planning allocations and the stubborn north–south divide in Tel Aviv–Jaffa

Abstract

Several master plans have attempted to lessen the divide between the poor southern neighborhoods of Tel Aviv–Jaffa and the well-off central and northern ones. We compared the planning visions, the main policies and detailed schemes, financing methods, and actual implementation efforts. We found that each planning generation has promoted different development locations, regulations, and allocation methods, and yet implementation has generally been much more durable and with superior socio-spatial impacts in the more affluent areas. To analyze and explain these findings we studied planning allocations in the light of ideas of distributive justice and of urban regime practice. We found that while the welfare state's direct allocation of housing and infrastructure for communities and individuals was not really equal, the later indirect allocations by neoliberal regimes mainly stimulated market forces in the more affluent or attractive areas. We also found that while planning allocation varied in different neighborhoods, the pace and order of planning and realization became crucial elements in urban inequality.

Keywords::

• socio-spatial divide
• planning realization
• planning allocations
• Tel-Aviv–Jaffa
• fair distribution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. When compared with the northern and urban average. Jaffa and the southern and southeastern quarters host about 32% of the urban population, including Jews and Arabs, but not including labor immigrants and asylum seekers (Tel Aviv–Jaffa Municipality, 2012). The indicators include average income, real-estate values, education, welfare requests and housing densities, size and extent of public spaces, facilities, and services. Tel Aviv–Yafo Municipality, 2010, 2012; Israeli Borough of Statistics, 2014: http://www1.cbs.gov.il/publications14/rep_07/pdf/map5000_h.pdf.

^2. In 2003, Tel Aviv's White City was nominated to be a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and the center of the city was acknowledged as the world's largest concentration of modern/international style architecture. In 2008, the Tel Aviv World City program was initiated, with clearer focus at the central parts and the beachfront (http://www.visit-tlv.co.il; http://www.white-city.co.il/hebrew/index.htm; Tel Aviv Master Plan 5000 schemes and documents, 2013, http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Tolive/development/Pages/Outline.aspx).

^3. The expansion plans included the Geddes plan drafted in 1925–26 (approved in 1938 as Planning Scheme 58), followed by area plan 50 (1941), and a suburban plan for the beach area north of the Yarkon River (1947). Each plan expanded municipal borders while appropriating substantial lands in the villages and outskirts of Jammasin el-Gharbi, Summeil, and Sheik Muwannis, lying at the city's northern perimeter.

^4. Palestinian revolts mainly in 1929 and 1936.

^5. Then a common phrase in Tel Aviv, see http://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/.premium-1.2231030; Razi (2009).

^6. Tel Aviv Schemes no. 44, 50, F; Jaffa schemes A, B, D.

^7. After the war about 3,500 Arab residents were still living in Jaffa. The lands included Arab absentee properties in the villages and in Jaffa, assets of former Mandate governments, lands bought from German Templers. When the Israeli Land Authority (the ILA) was founded in 1960, it also took over the management of lots acquired earlier by the Jewish National Fund (Golan, 2001; Margalit, 2009; Tel Aviv Municipality, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1952, 1954; Yodfat, 1969.

^8. MAPAI – the Workers' Party of Eretz Israel. This movement was highly powerful during the British Mandate era and the first decades after 1948 while the party ruled the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and the government until 1977.

^9. See also Tel Aviv Municipality survey of land uses 1952–1954, published in 1960.

^10. Some small-scale clearances were designated in the built-up areas of the northern Arab villages now housed with Jewish refugees. The vacant areas around the Summeil and Jammasin villages were mostly developed according to Area Plan 50 (1941) (see Note 3 above) (for details see Golan, 2001; Margalit, 2009).

^11. The calculation was published in several places: in Horwitz's intermediate report of the master plan (1953), and with a slum clearance map, the map titled “Opportunities for New Development.” They were both published in the municipal bulletin (Yediot Tel Aviv) 8–9, 1954, in 1956 with a detailed calculation of the financing needed for distinct projects in an essay titled “Poverty clusters in Tel Aviv–Jaffa, when and how they will be destroyed?” (Yediot Tel Aviv 1–2, 1956), and in the municipal survey of land uses 1952–1954 (Tel Aviv–Yafo Municipality, 1959).

^12. During the 1950s, when half of the urban dwelling units were built by national agencies, more housing was built in the northern suburbs. Until 1967, the national housing programs available to middle-class families produced almost 10,000 dwelling units, the majority of which were built in the “new north.” Six thousand units were built for new immigrants and slum evacuees, mostly in the south and southeast. The municipality added 2,700 units, some of which were for slum evacuees. All together the housing projects did not add up to the amounts Horwitz had calculated. Construction statistics: Tel Aviv Municipal Year Book (1967) Statistics of public construction between 1950 and 1967, pp. 256–257.

^13. Kiriat Shalom was built on the site of the former Jaffa suburb Abu-Kabir and its plantation. Ramat Aviv was built on the dunes near the remains of the village Sheikh Muwannis. Some southeastern neighborhoods were built on municipal lands bought from German Templers during WWII, or in the area of Kfar Shalem. For Unit A planning see Israeli Association of Engineers and Architects (1959), The Bulletin of Engineering and Architecture, 7–8.

^14. A density of 16.5 units per dunam (1000 square meters). The densities then planned in Jaffa were eight dwellings per dunam, in Ramat Aviv five to six units per dunam.

^15. The Metropolitan master plan was also prepared by Mazor's firm. The Dan metropolitan area is a much wider but quite continuous urban area around the core city of Tel Aviv–Jaffa.

^16. As suggested in a memo for the discussion of the participation of the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Tel Aviv–Jaffa municipality: “The rehabilitation of Tel Aviv–Jaffa” written by architects Mazor and Karmi (1978).

^17. Other planning documents issued include the beach development for tourism and leisure, the Ayalon Highway, and the administrative centers.

^18. Neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv had the lowest rates of realization in Israel (Carmon, 1989, 1997; Lerman, 1988; Weinberg, 1986). Schemes for the southern and southeastern neighborhoods were approved between 1985 and 2009. Implementation rate was less than 2% and only in two neighborhoods. This deficiency was attributed to difficulties of implementation caused by municipal policy. The State Comptroller's report in 1995 determined that the process of inclusion and exclusion of neighborhoods from the NRP was managed with no clear criteria. See Hirsh, 1988; Center for Information and Research in the Israel Knesset, 2009.

^19. Scheme Mem (M), Samech (S).

^20. Named Hamashtela, Tel Baruch North, and Kohav Hazafon.

^21. Regeneration plans were also authorized for the southern neighborhoods Hatikva (1991), Shapira (1988, 1991, 1997), Florentin (1991), Neve Sha'anan (not approved), Thethe Maronite neighborhood (1992). Plans for western Jaffa were authorized in 1992, 1995, 1997, and 2001.

^22. For a detailed chronology see Rotbard (2005); http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did = 1000879226 [Hebrew].

^23. For the documents of Tel Aviv–Jaffa Strategic Plan and Tel Aviv–Jaffa 5000 see http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Tolive/development/Pages/Outline.aspx. For the master plans propositions for Jaffa and each of Tel Aviv's areas, see http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Tolive/Infrastructures/Documents.

^24. Tel Aviv plan 5000 presentation to the municipal council of conceptions for Jaffa (http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Tolive/Infrastructures/Documents).

^25. Master plan for Florentine (Planner: Eli Stern, 2001), strategic plan for Neve Sha'anan and Central Bus Station area (planner: Shamai Asif, 2004).

^26. This information was obtained/learned from the municipality's strategic documents and from planning documents (http://gisn.tel-aviv.gov.il/iview2/.

^27. Tel Aviv's municipality ended its 2013 local election year's budget with a cash surplus of 3 billion NIS (almost US$1 billion). A report published by S&P Maalot Credit Ratings revealed that “Tel Aviv will end 2013 on a positive horizon, with an operating surplus of 3.9% of its revenues and the city's financial liquidity is high by international comparisons.” Maalot approved a perfect rating (AAA) for Tel Aviv's municipality and noted that financially they forecast a continued scenario for the coming years (http://www.themarker.com/markets/1.2236401)

^28. See http://www1.cbs.gov.il/publications14/rep_07/pdf/map5000_h.pdf.

^29. For details on foreign in-migration see: http://assaf.nfshost.com/en/, Cohen and Margalit, forthcoming 2015, Knesset Center for Research and Information, 2012. For Israeli migration trends see Ben Yosef (2009), the Israel Bureau of Statistics (Demographic surveys of 1991–2012), Israel Ministry of Housing (2013), and Shlomo (2012). These sources show out-migration from Tel Aviv since 2006. Municipal statistics of 2012 show out-migration in all the areas except the most affluent, and substantial out-migration in Jaffa and the southeast quarter.

^30. Three corrections were issued (TAMA 38/1, 2007, TAMA 38/2, 2010, TAMA 38/3, 2012). As of 2012, the program was not found particularly attractive for contractors working in peripheral parts, while central and northern Tel Aviv projects were found to be the biggest beneficiaries. To overcome this, the later version allows full demolition of existing residential buildings and replacement with larger structures (Israel Ministry of the Interior, 2013; http://www.moin.gov.il/Subjects/BuildingsStrengthening/Pages/Tama38.aspx).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Talia Margalit

Talia Margalit is a senior lecturer at the David Azrieli School of Architecture in Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on the politics and history of Israeli urban planning, specifically on public–private high-rise projects, context-related path dependency and issues of urban citizenship. She is currently co-conducting wide angle research on planning justifications, funded by the Israeli Science Foundation.

Efrat Vertes

Efrat Vertes is a graduate student at the David Azrieli School of Architecture in Tel Aviv University. Her research thesis focuses on the social impacts of building preservation in central Tel Aviv–Jaffa. Efrat Vertes is grateful to the Azrieli Foundation for the award of an Azrieli Fellowship.