National-Level Planning in Israel: Walking the Tightrope between Government Control and Privatisation (original) (raw)
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National-level planning in Israel: Walking the tightrope between centralization and privatization
National-Level Planning in Democratic Countries: An International Comparison of City and Regional Policy-Making,, 2001
Compared with most other Western countries, Israel has maintained a very high dosage of national-level planning institutions and powers. This is not surprising. Given Israel's unique constraints and national goals, it should be a 'natural' for national-level planning. Yet, as our story will show, these institutions have not always functioned to the same degree or held the same status. The exposition of national-level planning in Israel begins with an introduction to Israel's 'vital statistics' and built-up form. Next comes a section that introduces the key national urban and regional policies in order to give the reader a feel for the context. We then move to the general constitutional and institutional setting for policy-making by national and local government. Then, we focus on the major national-level agencies charged with a comprehensive view and with setting overall policy. This leads to an analysis of the relatively large degree of state involvement in sectoral planning and implementation, and is followed by a detailed presentation of the statutory land-use planning system and of national statutory plans. A separate section recounts how leading planners cleverly utilised the national crisis brought about by mass immigration from the former USSR in the early 1990s, to raise national-level planning to a new plateau through initiatives like the 'Israel 2020' project. To conclude, I sketch my view of the future role for national-level planning in Israel, shaped as it is by the conflicting forces of centralisation on the one hand, and decentralisation and privatisation on the other.
A Proposal for Suitable Representation of the Arab Minority in Israel’s National Planning System
National planning in Israel, as articulated and mapped by a range of national master plans, contributes significantly to shaping the country's character, spaces, economy and environment. Israel's first national master plan, 3 devised by planner Aryeh Sharon in 1951, had far-reaching implications on the shaping of the country's physical space. Ever since, up to and including the latest national master plan, TAMA 35, approved in late 2005, national planning has made a considerable impact on Israel's geopolitical, geographic and demographic space. TAMA 35 defines "the planning of the entire area of the state" and addresses, among other things, the purposes and uses of land, industrial zones, the demarcation of primary road networks, the location of railway lines, national supply lines, ports, power plants and facilities of the electrical grid. The plan also includes directives pertaining to recreation areas, forestry and land preservation; directives on preserving antiquities, holy places, landscape and natural areas; sites for factories and public use at the national level; and a projection of changes in the state's population distribution, the stages of development and desired timing of each stage; and town planning (the projected size, type and location of new communities).
Urban Development and Planning in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Impacts on Urban Form
Urban development and planning practice and experience in Palestine which stemmed back to mid 19th Century had passed through various changes and developments in terms of characteristics, policies, principles, and management. In addition, the urban planning system in Palestine seems to be unique in its composition and context. This uniqueness is related to the fact that planning practice was controlled and experienced by external forces (or foreigners) and not by native bodies (the Palestinians themselves). This, of course, is due to the long period of mandate and occupation for the Palestinian land by several nations. The current interim and temporary stage that the Palestinian society in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) (West Bank and Gaza Strip) passes through, particularly after signing the Oslo Agreement in 1994 and the followed Israeli partial withdraws from the OPT, despite the continuous land confiscation for building Israeli settlements and by-pass roads as well as the reoccupation of most of the Palestinian cities and villages since the beginning of Alaqsa Intifata (second uprising) in 2000, and the resulted destruction of houses and infrastructure besides the construction of the Separation Wall along the West Bank have imposed a new situation and put various challenges in front of the Palestinian planning institutions (specially on the local level) and prevented the possibility of providing and implementing the attained physical planning. The limited available land, the rapidly growing population of Palestine, the misuse of urban development, and the decisions of policy makers and all planning issues associated with the political situation and the long period of occupation with its policies and implications played a major role in the formulation of urban form, in addition to the spread of uncontrolled urban developments in the cities, and to the diffusion of urban sprawls within the landscapes and around the cities.
From Sharon to Sharon: Spatial planning and separation regime in Israel/Palestine
Two personalities, more than any other, represent the history of Israeli spatial planning: Arieh and Ariel Sharon. Both have had an enormous impact on the political, military and legal geographies of Israel/Palestine. Despite notable political differences, the two men led Israeli planning to promote a similar spatial strategy throughout the last six years, encapsulated by the acronym SEEC (Settlement/Security, Expansion, Ethnicization, Control/Commercialization). This strategy has provided a meta-planning framework for the contested Judaization of Israel/Palestine. The paper uses Gramscian, (post)colonial and Lefebvrian approaches to conceptualize planning as a mediator between hegemonic and oppressed forces in a ceaseless societal process of space production. It argues that the SEEC strategy was not merely a guide for spatial policies, or an important element in the project of Jewish liberation, but a critical foundation of a new regime, reshaping both space and society and determining key elements of citizenship, such as property, mobility, rights and power. Hence, the Sharonian planning strategy has constituted a central pillar in Israel's ethnocratic regime, by granting professional legitimacy to the planned geography of -separate and unequal.‖ This has become part of the infrastructure of a process of -creeping apartheid‖ now evident in Israel/Palestine.
Changes in land use in Jewish and Arab municipalities, 2003-13
Israel Affairs, 2020
This article compares the amount of land designated for various uses in the Jewish and Arab municipalities in Israel between the years 2003-13. It is generally accepted that the Arab-Jewish conflict in Israel is heavily based on land ownership. This conflict still has implications for the policies and actions of the State of Israel on the one hand, and the attitudes and behaviours of the Arab population on the other. Two main conclusions emerge from this article. The first is that in 2013, the area per capita used for residential living in Arab localities was larger, presumably because of the lack of high-rise buildings. The second conclusion is that the areas designated for economic and public purposes in the Arab sector are much smaller. The Israeli government should therefore allocate additional government land to the Arab local authorities. KEYWORDS Land use; Arab sector; local authorities; Israel Land Authority A rising standard of living has increased the demand for land, while awareness of the importance of preserving open spaces has reduced the supply. These two opposing processes characterise land use in the modern world, including in Israel. The result is that land is in short supply. In Israel, this problem is particularly acute because of its high population density, relative to other countries. 1 One area in which the land problem is particularly evident is the relationship between Jews and Arabs. The Arab-Jewish conflict in Israel, which began in the early 20 th century, dealt largely with the issue of land ownership. This conflict still has implications on the policies and actions of the state towards the Arab population on the one hand, 2 and the attitudes and behaviours of the Arab public on the other. 3 This conflict is reinforced by the fact that the socioeconomic situation of the Arabs in Israel is less favourable, relative to that of the Jews. 4 The purpose of this article is to
Washington University Journal of Law Policy, 2000
Traditionally, land use law in most countries rarely distinguishes among planning contexts in terms of the rate of growth that is to be managed. The same legislation presumably is expected to apply to situations where a town, city, region, or country is relatively stable or stagnant, and to situations where these are undergoing accelerated growth. That was true for the traditional United States zoning-based system, which has been criticized for not being well suited to managing rapid growth. 1 "Growth management" is ostensibly better suited for managing growth. Growth management in American planning lingo refers to planning-based policies adopted by cities and towns to control the extent, type, and most importantly, the rate and timing of development. Most of the tools usually classified under this category are growth limiting, not growth promoting, and include means such as service boundaries, phases, moratoria, freezes, and infrastructure * Rachelle Alterman is the David Azrieli Professor of Town Planning at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and chairs the Technion's Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning. Dr. Altermanm who holds a BA Honors and an M.C.P. from Manitoba, a D.Sc. from the Technion and an LLB from Tel Aviv University (in that order), is well known internationally for her research and numerous publications on comparative planning and land use law, land policy, and planning theory. 1. DANIEL R. MANDELKER ET AL., PLANNING AND CONTROL OF LAND DEVELOPMENT: CASES AND MATERIALS 653 (4th ed. 1995). Wash U Law Repository 6. Seventy-four percent of the population in the United States is urban, seventy-seven percent in Canada, eighty-nine percent in Britain, eighty-four percent in Sweden, and eighty-nine percent in the Netherlands. UNITED NATIONS, DEMOGRAPHIC YEARBOOK (1996). 7. Since over fifty percent of Israel's land area is in the inhospitable southern desert, the effective density is much higher. 8. Rachelle Alterman, Implementing Decentralization for Neighborhood Regeneration: