גליון תכנון 16-1 (2019)

The 2014 "Law to Promote the Construction of Priority Housing The national strategic housing plan is the main driving force behind the current Israeli planning efforts. The Planning Administration is advancing a widespread effort to meet the goals set by this plan. However, the assumptions and data underlying this plan have never been made public. Moreover, the plan did not undergo any public or professional scrutiny. In this paper we try to identify the data and assumptions that underlie the national strategic housing plan. Then we discuss it critically. The national housing strategic plan sets housing "needs" way above previous plans, and critiques National Plan # 35, the national physical masterplan. Yet, in contrast to National Plan #35 the housing plan makes no provisions for employment or infrastructure considerations. It thus returns to practices which were common before the 1990s, undoing the advances made in planning practices since. However, the most problematic aspect of the national strategic housing plan is the excess residential units that are planned to fulfill it. These plans far exceed demand and thus by the time they will be built they will be outdated, thereby limiting the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and desires.

Israel's real estate market should, ideally, offer all of the country's citizens suitable places to live, without bias or discrimination. However, two population groups have different and distinct housing attributes that need to be studied separately if their demand for housing is to be met in the coming decades. The groups in question are the Israeli Arab sector, and the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) population. The Haredi population has unique housing characteristics centered around the community's institutions. Unlike most of Israel's urban residents, who choose where to live based on the personal and individual preferences of each family, Haredim live in communal frameworks dictated by each individual's community and subcommunity affiliations. Severe housing shortages in places where Haredim are concentrated have, over the last few decades, led to steep price increases, inappropriate housing solutions, and (in the absence of planning) to a growing spillover of Haredi residents into low-income neighborhoods in mixed cities, where they are creating new Haredi communities and changing the character of the neighborhoods. The article proposes a "basket" of planning solutions capable of addressing the Haredi community's need for nearly 200,000 housing units over the next two decades, with attention both to specific areas of demand, and to current market feasibility. A basket of this kind should take into account current demographic growth, the diverse groups within this population, and change processes in the Haredi sector.

Israel's urban renewal program, known as "Clear and Rebuild", aims to demolish, rebuild and densify existing built-up environments. In public and professional discourses, the program has been associated both with hopes for social benefits and with concerns over displacement. So far, however, the ongoing debate has been based on little empirical evidence. This paper analyzes six completed "Clear and Rebuild" projects in the Tel Aviv metro area. Based on a survey of residents and demographic data, we offer an socio-economic analysis and a demographic trajectory of each project. Outcomes vary between projects in terms of actual displacement and the levels of tension between newcomer and veteran residents. Based on our findings we suggest a typology of three project types that differ in their neighbor relations, real estate value and regional competitiveness. Moreover, while the policy debate on social outcomes of urban renewal tends to focus on community cohesion specifically at the housing project scale, we argue that these outcomes are rooted in neighborhood and metro-scale factors such as neighborhood effects and housing market trends.

The paper examines the links between residential patterns and social disparities, created by the process of developing and settling Israel/ Palestine. It conceptualizes this process as 'Privati-nation', that is, the intertwining of privatization and nationalization. In the standard planning discourse these two separate policy arms are commonly described as governed by opposing logics. Yet, we argue that in the making of a Jewish settler society over Israel/Palestine, the two policy arms have been intertwined systematically. The analysis shows that the last 'decade of reforms' in the planning and land systems has accelerated the Privatination process. Moreover, Privatination is shown to splinter space and society in Israel/Palestine into a series of 'ethno-classes' by creating deep segregation alongside widening socioeconomic gaps. As such, the process has deepened the association between residential patterns and social disparities, despite some exceptions in integrative middleclass suburbs of large urban centers. In general, Privatination processes have accelerated the commodification of housing and rapidly increased prices, particularly on land appropriated from Palestinians. Privatination upgrades the position of land and housing owners as well as high income earners (mainly, but not solely, Jews) while downgrading the interests of marginalized groups such as Palestinian Arabs, peripheral Jews, youth and immigrants. The paper then outlines a range of 'Privatination' types, and examines their impact on society and space. It ends by bringing into question the role of planning and planners in facilitating or correcting the regressive Privatination process.