I
Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research
Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies
Beer Sheva as a Growth Machine
Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of “Master of Arts”
By: Brian Rock
March 2007 II
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies
Beer Sheva as a Growth Machine
Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of “Master of Arts”
By Brian Rock
Under the Supervision of Dr. Moshe Schwartz and Professor Isaac Meir
Department of Man in the Drylands
Author's Signature…………….…………………………………………Date:………
Approved by the Supervisor…………….………………………………..Date:………
Approved by the Director of the School …………………………………Date:……… III
Beer Sheva as a Growth Machine Brian Rock This thesis in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Arts Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies 2007 2007
Abstract
The growth machine theory, first proposed by Harvey Molotch in his paper
The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place (1976) postulates that in American cities coalitions of local elites (land owners, politicians and bureaucrats) profit through promoting the idea that urban growth is good for everyone. They achieve this end through the manipulation of urban politics and media.
The growth machine theory has also been used to explain urban growth outside the United States. In this study, through the lens of two case studies,
Kanyon Ha’Negev and BIG, in Beer Sheva, Israel, an attempt is made to understand growth in Beer Sheva and whether or not the growth machine theory applies to it and helps understand it better. Despite the proponents’ declarations about how good these projects are for Beer Sheva, both have had an adverse effect on the Old City (and possibly on the city as a whole). Clearly growth is not good for everyone. Whose interests is the growth of Beer Sheva really serving? What are the portents of such growth for Beer Sheva?
IV
Acknowledgements
This work was supported through a scholarship of the Albert Katz International School of Desert Studies.
I would also like to thank the following individuals:
Dr. Moshe Schwartz Professor Isaac Meir Dr. Yodan Rofe Wolfgang Motzafi-Haller Dorit Levin Esti Markovitch Dr. Gerald Young Shira Fundamensky Liat Frankel Uri Mintzker Segal Rosenfeld
My deepest gratitude goes to my wife, Carina, and my Creator.
This thesis is printed on 100% post-consumer-waste paper.
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Abstract ...... III Acknowledgements...... IV 1.0 Introduction...... 3 1.1 Theories in the Urban Political Economy ...... 5 1.1.1 Introduction...... 5 1.1.2 Elite Theory...... 5 1.1.3 Pluralist Theory...... 6 1.1.4 Regime Theory...... 7 1.1.5 Human Ecology Theory...... 7 1.1.6 Marxist Theory...... 8 1.2.1 Growth Machine…Beginnings ...... 9 1.2.2 The growth machine in the US context...... 9 1.2.3 The components of the growth machine ...... 10 1.2.4 Urban Fortunes...... 11 1.2.5 The growth machine in an international context...... 12 1.2.6 Summary ...... 12 2.0 Literature Review...... 14 2.1 Introduction...... 14 2.2 Israeli and International Literature...... 14 2.3 US Studies...... 18 3.0 Methodology ...... 20 3.0.1 Why Beer Sheva...... 20 3.0.2 Particular Study Questions...... 22 3.0.3 Methodology ...... 22 4.0 Israel’s Planning System...... 24 4.0.1 Introduction...... 24 4.0.2 National Planning...... 25 4.0.3 District Planning ...... 25 4.0.4 Local Planning ...... 26 4.0.5 The Plans...... 26 4.0.6 National Outline Plans (or Schemes) ...... 27 4.0.7 District Outline Schemes...... 28 4.0.8 Local Outline Plan...... 28 4.0.9 Detailed Schemes...... 28 4.0.10 Building Permits ...... 29 4.0.11 Plan Implementation ...... 29 4.1 Land in Israel...... 29 4.1.1 Introduction...... 30 4.1.1 The Israel Lands Administration...... 30 4.1.2 The Ministry of Construction and Housing ...... 31 4.1.3 The Jewish National Fund...... 32 5.0 The Negev ...... 33 5.0.1 The Outline Plan for the Southern District ...... 33 5.0.2 The Challenge of Periphery Development...... 34 5.1 Beer Sheva ...... 36 5.1.1 Introduction...... 36 VI
5.1.2 Early Settlement until the British Mandate in Beer Sheva ...... 36 5.1.3 Zionist Ideological Planning ...... 37 5.1.4 Summary and Forward...... 40 6.0 Case Studies and Findings ...... 41 6.0.1 Introduction: The Shopping Mall...... 41 6.0.2 Kanyon Ha'Negev: David Azrieli and the Mall Concept...... 41 6.0.3 Yitzchak Rager...... 43 6.0.4 Moshe Zilberman ...... 45 6.0.4 Eli Ron ...... 46 6.1 BIG...... 46 6.2 Did Kanyon Ha'Negev and BIG develop according to Growth Machine Theory? Were there Coalitions?...... 50 6.3 Who Benefits and Who Suffers as a Result of the two projects?...... 53 7.0 Conclusions...... 55 References...... 56
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Figure 1: Map of Israel with Beer Sheva, courtesy of geology.com 2
Kanyon Ha’Negev
BIG
Figure 2: Beer Sheva with the locations of Kanyon Ha’Negev and BIG,
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1.0 Introduction
Cities are unique foci of economic, political, social, intellectual, and cultural activity that provide crucial strength to their countries. In the last century, especially after WWII in American society, but also in industrialized societies across the globe, many cities witnessed remarkable evolution and prosperity, growing rapidly while providing their countries with engines for growth and economic benefit.
Harvey Molotch’s paper “The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a
Political Economy of Place” (1976), proposed the growth machine theory, to explain American urban politics and growth. The theory claims that coalitions of urban political, bureaucratic, land owning, and business elites profit by promoting the idea that growth is good for everyone, i.e. that development is value-free. In the theory, the coalitions are thought to achieve their end by manipulating urban politics. The growth machine theory also suggests that, contrary to many governmental pronouncements, not all of urban growth is positive. While “growth machine” theory only emerged in response to the unbridled urban growth of the
United States after WWII, Logan and Molotch suggest that the theory applies as early as the industrial revolution in the United States, in the nineteenth century.
Growth machine theory has been especially formulated with respect to big cities, while they were growing rapidly, and some research (see below) does exist on how it might apply outside of the American context.
This thesis applies the theory to the Israeli city of Beer Sheva, a small city with a population of 180,000, with respect to two relatively small-scale commercial projects, Kanyon Ha'Negev (KHN) and BIG power center. The 4 impetus for this study derives from an interest in the history of Beer Sheva, especially with respect to the developments of the past 25 years. The history of
Beer Sheva’s development, beginning with Israeli liberation in 1948, was affected by the planning ideologies that shaped the urban fabric in the country at that time.
It is important to understand the planning context of the city in order to appreciate how KHN and BIG fit in the city’s ongoing commercial activity and whether the concept of growth machine applies to it.
First, while a new city master-plan (though as yet, unapproved), does exist, the previously designated light industry zone is now home to large strip malls, defined in planning language as a shopping center that usually has parking directly in front of the stores and does not have enclosed walk-ways linking the stores.
Several of them, known as power centers in real-estate language, already exist and a new strip mall is under construction. These developments are not in accordance with the most recent master-plan (or the previous, 1969 plan, for that matter).
Second, the developments appear to be drawing businesses away from the civic city center, which has been the focus of intense development activity since the late seventies when the central bus station was relocated there. Unplanned developments also put extra strain on the municipality to provide infrastructure services, possibly to the detriment of the city as a whole.
Our choice of these two commercial projects as topic is not arbitrary: some of the actors who orchestrated their development are the same, others different, but as our study will show, the two projects have common features. Those features are consistent with the concept of the growth machine, or rather an original Beer
Sheva version of that machine, situated in a context wholly different from that of the United States. 5
Understanding the case studies requires putting them in several layers of context. The layers include {1} the ideological underpinnings of planning in
Israel; {2} the planning system itself and its incumbents (organizational and individual); and {3} the geographic and demographic context (regional and local).
Hence, this thesis is organized in the following manner: The first chapter presents a brief overview of theories of the urban political economy, as well an introduction to growth machine theory. Chapter 2, presents a literature review on the growth machine in both the US and international contexts. Chapter 3 presents the research methodology used in our study. Chapter 4 describes the planning process of Israel, in general, Chapter 5 - in Beer Sheva, in particular. Chapter 6 presents the findings of the thesis. Finally, Chapter 7 offers conclusions and suggestions for further research.
1.1 Theories in the Urban Political Economy
1.1.1 Introduction
Several theories - elite theory, pluralist theory, regime theory, human ecology theory, and Marxist theory - have been used to explain urban politics and economic growth. The following section provides an overview of these theories.
1.1.2 Elite Theory
Floyd Hunter’s Community Power Structure (1953) was the first important sociological study of urban power structures and their effect on urban economic growth, in what he called “Regional City” (Atlanta, Georgia). Through his use of
"the reputational method", he uncovered the presence of a local elite, i.e., a handful 6 of players, most of them businessmen, affecting local politics to suit their personal interests. The reputational method involved Hunter asking a handful of people who knew about Atlanta’s inner workings to pick out the names of the most influential people from a list of organizational leaders. He then went on to interview those who received the most votes; next, he constructed his explanation of urban power structures around what the interviews revealed. Critics claimed that Hunter’s reputational method allowed for a wide margin of bias, thereby calling into question Hunter’s conclusions. Nonetheless, his work profoundly affected the direction of studies on urban power structures.
1.1.3 Pluralist Theory
Robert Dahl, in his work Who Governs (1961), performed an empirical study of the urban governance and economy of New Haven, Connecticut. His methodology focused on the conflicts between groups competing with each other for their demands to be met, who won, and why. His assertion was that city decision-making process is “pluralistic”, rather than a reflection of Hunter’s
“single” group of elites. To be more precise, urban-pluralism is one aspect of pluralist theory, which many have used to describe the workings of the US democratic system. Urban-pluralism has seven basic components:
first, power is seen to be fragmented and decentralized; second, there is dispersed inequalities in so far as all groups have some resources to articulate their case, even if their demands are not necessarily, or successfully, acted upon; third, that this dispersion of power is a ‘desirable feature in any system approaching the status of democracy’ (Jordan 1990, 293); fourth that political outcomes in different policy sectors will reflect different processes, different actors and different distributions of power within those sectors; fifth, that the exercise of political power extends beyond the formal institutional structures of elections and representative institutions in liberal democracy; sixth, ‘the interaction interests would supply a practical alternative to the “general will” as the source of legitimate 7
authority’ (Jordan 1990, 293); finally, that the disaggregated nature of decision making, and the very uncertainty of outcomes of the bargaining process, helps bind participants to the process (Judge 1995, 14)
In essence urban pluralism attempts to refute Hunter’s findings, showing that other elites (not only businessmen), including elected city officials, were
“…still of significance in shaping issues, still operated in the context of a
‘democratic creed’, and were still subject to popular control” (Judge 1995, 15).
1.1.4 Regime Theory
Clarence Stone is the most noted regime theorist. In his 1989 book about urban growth in Atlanta, Georgia, he explains that regime theory claims that there is an “informal partnership between city hall and the downtown business elite.”
According to regime theory, it is not exclusively the local elite, but a partnership between two powerful groups that shapes urban economic growth.
1.1.5 Human Ecology Theory
The human ecology school attempts to understand urban economic and spatial growth as emerging from functional needs. To be more specific, a city should grow like an organism, having both central and peripheral components; with important services located in an urban center, easily accessible to the residents. Services such as auto shops and other industrial activities will be located in the city's periphery as they are “undesirable” for a residential area, and have different space requirements (Logan and Molotch 1987). The driving force and moderator of urban economic and spatial growth is the market, as Logan and
Molotch explain: 8
We thus end up in the ecological perspective with a “hidden hand” that secures the greatest good for the greatest number as a natural outcome of the market mechanism. In the world of human beings, money reflects fitness for dominance and provides the access to a given niche; price reflects the inherent desirability of a particular piece of property to those who can put it to the “best” use. High prices “signal” producers to mark out new land and create buildings to meet additional needs; consumers follow the same signals in determining where to live or set up shop. The market, in a biological metaphor, shapes the urban landscape and because of the social adaptations it demands, determines the relations of people within the city. (Logan and Molotch 1987, 6)
1.1.6 Marxist Theory
The human ecological understanding of urban dynamics stands in contradistinction to that of the Marxist theory. As Logan and Molotch explain about the theory, “…for the Marxians residents are ‘labor’, whose urban role is to be ‘reproduced’ as a factor of production. Whatever exists in the urban realm, as in any other, must be there because it serves the exploitation of workers by capitalists” (Logan and Molotch 1987, 10). In this framework, land is only a secondary concern to the capitalist/worker dynamic.
Elite Theory Pluralism Regime Theory Human Ecology Marxist Theory
A local elite, i.e., The city An informal Urban economic Urban economic a handful of decision-making partnership and spatial and spatial players, most of process is a between the local growth emerges growth is only a them function of the business elite and from functional surface revelation businessmen, conflict between city hall effect needs. Market is of the deeper affecting local interest groups. the urban the driving force. conflict between politics to suit economic the capitalist and their personal growth. worker. interests.
Table 1. Summary of the main urban politics, economic, and spatial growth theories. 9
1.2.1 Growth Machine…Beginnings
In 1976, Harvey Molotch published a paper that significantly altered the sociologists' understanding of urban power dynamics. Molotch’s insight was that
“…there are extensive literature on community power as well as on how to define and conceptualize a city or urban place, there are few notions available to link the two issues coherently, focusing on the urban settlement as a political economy”
(Molotch 1976, 309). From this insight into what was lacking in sociological theory was born growth machine theory.
1.2.2 The growth machine in the US context
Growth Machine theory attempts to explain urban growth in the unique context of the United States where, in contrast to many other countries, most land is privately owned. This arrangement allows a land based local elite to seek development, i.e., growth, which will raise the rent value of the properties which it owns. In every urban place, the theory points out that these land-based interests band together, informally or formally, with others who share their interest in growth. Interested parties in this growth coalition may include, but are not limited to the city council, entrepreneurs, or shop owners. The growth machine theory conceives of land as a commodity, and the landed interests, land owners, renters, shop owners, politicians, entrepreneurs, as the main shapers of urban place. Thus, the “conditions of community life are largely a consequence of the social, economic, and political forces embodied in this growth machine” (Molotch 1976,
309). The theory also contends that it is “…this growth imperative [that] is the most important constraint upon available options for local initiative in social and 10 economic reform”, even though, in fact, growth is not good for everyone (Molotch
1976, 309).
1.2.3 The components of the growth machine
The growth machine is best described in terms of its component parts. The most important part of the machine is the land owners. The second is land location, such as near a major transportation route providing rapid movement of goods, or near natural resources, or other such desirable features. Multiple owners of adjacent land lots unite under the banner of growth, thereby coalescing into a growth coalition. This is what generates what Molotch calls the “we” feeling, the feeling of community, which may express itself as “we want growth or, we will bring jobs to the city”. The growth machine theory is not concerned whether the coalition is a conscious one or not. This group of people working together for a common cause may be doing so unconsciously, because when individuals promote growth, they are in effect bound together by its pursuit. Therefore, a growth coalition can be formal or informal (an example of a formal coalition would be
New York City’s Business Improvement District scheme).
Land owners, the first line in the growth coalitions in the United States, will use available resources to achieve their growth goals. A main resource is City
Hall, which plays a major role in land use zoning, planning, and infrastructure development. Thus, land owners will cajole City Hall bureaucrats and politicians, to achieve whatever interests they have in mind. In consequence, City Hall politicians and bureaucrats are also major actors in a growth coalition.
Another member of the growth coalition, depending on context, is the business owner. A business owner may also be a land owner (just as a politician 11 may be a business owner and have an interest in developing city infrastructures
(e.g., a bus stop), population base, or other urban specific factors, to increase the success of his/her business. Obviously, business owners will also do their best to insure control of their share of the market and suppress potential competition.
The growth machine awakens serious moral problems. Simply put, its claims are false and its rhetoric is misleading: growth is not good for everyone - there are winners and losers. A general trend is that those with little money, political power, and restricted access to the decision making process are often the ones made to bear the costs of projects that bring with them heavy environmental, health, and economic costs. This has given rise to anti-growth coalitions.
1.2.4 Urban Fortunes
In 1987, Harvey Molotch teamed up with John Logan and published,
Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. The book expands upon the growth machine theory, adding a new dimension to its explanation, by contrasting exchange-value to use-value. A land-owner wants to increase the exchange value of his or her property, more commonly known as rent and/or resale value. Hence he/she allies him/herself with the growth coalition, expecting that increased physical development will raise the price of its land. An urban citizen uses a place, e.g., an apartment, and hence appraises the location in terms of its use-value. The use-value of a place can be measured in terms of the satisfaction a user receives from it, for example, how close is it to their work, social network, transportation routes, and so on. There is an inherent conflict between a use- and exchange value.
At the center of the conflict is the issue of quality of life versus quality of business.
An environment conducive to industrial businesses will usually not lead to a high 12 quality of life. Production and commercial space needs to be able to access goods and services, increase consumer population draw, and so on. The conflict between use and exchange values finds its most acute expression in environmentalism
(Logan and Molotch 1987).
1.2.5 The growth machine in an international context Over the years, researchers have tried to uncover growth machines in international contexts. Molotch (1999) explains that the applicability of the growth machine concept to international contexts rests on the commodification of land, which itself rests on three basic assumptions. First, “…owners can physically manipulate property to 'highest and best use' by market criteria.” The second assumption is the necessity that the government protect contracts, that is, “There can be corruption in matters as zoning and infrastructure access (such corruption is endemic to growth machine systems), but there cannot be corruption in terms of basic property rights.” Lastly, “financial stakes in land-use manipulation must be high relative to other sources of fortune building. If one can make only trivial amounts in real estate but vast amounts, for example, by gaining contracts for local government projects, the investment energy will go toward such contract manipulations.” (1999, 251) The next chapter presents a literature review of the growth machine in US and international contexts, setting the framework for this study.
1.2.6 Summary
To recap, several fundamental concepts around which the parameters of this study are constructed emerge from growth machine theory. First, growth is the central concern of local government and “…must be understood not as a function 13 of economic necessity but as the target of political action” (Logan, Whaley, and
Crowder 1997, 605). Second, a coalition of elites “has a vision of the city’s future that conforms to their own interests and has the power to make it happen” (ibid).
Third, this elite molds the framework of relations of urban place, politics, and economic growth.
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2.0 Literature Review 2.1 Introduction
Nearly 30 years after its introduction, growth machine theory still provides researchers with a viable framework to understand urban politics, economics and spatial growth. While there are “new concepts and empirical themes” in urban sociological theory (Jonas and Wilson 1997), the growth machine theory demonstrates staying power, as evidenced by the continued research under its aegis. Of course, challenges to the growth machine theory abound. They emanate from die-hard Marxists, human ecologists, regime theorists, and others. Yet the theory remains a framework for research, -in the US (Vogal and Swanson 1989;
Logan, Whaley, and Crowder 1997; Logan and Crowder 2002; Troutman 2004;
Pallagst 2005). Despite the above focus on American cities in research on the theory, there is a small but growing body of international comparative research on the growth machine. The main focus of this literature review is on research about the international comparative context. Where appropriate, I will also consider US studies, because the questions that they raise help to shape the framework for some of the issues covered in this study.
2.2 Israeli and International Literature
There have been only two studies using the growth machine theory that have been undertaken on urban centers in Israel. One was carried out recently in the city of Eilat for a Master’s thesis (Kave 2005) and the other by Andrew Kirby and Thabit Abu-Rass (1999) on the wider Israeli context. Kirby and Abu-Rass’ article, Employing the Growth Machine Heuristic in a Different Political and
Economic Context: The Case of Israel, challenges some of the ideas of the growth 15 machine in the US context by highlighting some startling similarities revealed in the Israeli setting. They felt that Logan and Molotch were wrong to downplay the involvement of the “state” in their assessment of US urban development because of the following three points:
first, the broad spatial patterns of investment and disinvestment in the United States have, since 1945, been strongly influenced by state agencies such as the Department of Defense; second, that urban growth has been in different locations, either stimulated or constrained by the decisions made by agencies, both civilian and military-the story of Las Vegas could not be written in any other way (Parker and Feagin 1992); and third, that the state as major landowner in many western states is increasingly becoming a political target for developers and landowners because of its interventions in the market there. (Kirby and Abu Rass 1999, 224)
The Kirby and Abu-Rass study itself is focused on how a strong state apparatus accomplishes its national goals which is the strengthening of Jewish settlement in the country. However, there is a political message to the article, as indicated by the authors’ presentation; the growth machine thesis merely provides a backdrop to criticize state policies, without taking a closer look at the interface between the state and the local actors. It is facile to argue that the state is an overpowering, almost totalitarian, biased machine, hindering growth in the Arab sector. While the article does introduce the reader to a context of growth in which the state has tremendous power, it really is more a study of national policies than of growth machine principles. Molotch has little to offer when he considers the article in his Growth Machine Links: Up, Down, and Across (1999):
The Israeli situation…would, one presumes, be comprehensible only through considering the charged atmosphere of competing religious, political, and nationalist goals. Within an arena of place commodification, constraints abound from all manner of market- exogenous forces….Moreover, both [Arabs and Jews] are strongly attached to the land, implying that property owners would hold their places for generation, this vitiating still another element of growth machine systems: the potential for change in owners, uses, and hence exchange value of property.” (253) 16
Related coalitional studies exist for the Israeli context. I was only able to find two such studies (and a third one in progress, but not brought to consideration here) by the same author. The first of the two studies, by Shlomo Hasson, is entitled The New Urban Order: Urban Coalitions in Israel (1996). Hasson's research has isolated seven types of urban coalitions since the early 1990’s:
Traditional maintenance coalition; Participatory maintenance coalition;
Contractual maintenance coalition; Urban development coalition; Economic development coalition; Welfare coalition with neighborhood organizations; and
Welfare coalition with non-profit organizations.
The economic development coalition, which incorporates some aspects of the growth machine, is described as “…based upon partnership between local and central government and the business sector. It is involved in the creation of local jobs. The major innovation is the entrepreneurial role of local government”
(Hasson 1996, 46). Hasson explains that these economic coalitions take on different forms in differing urban contexts.
One member of the economic coalition is the city economic development company, and one such company exists in Beer Sheva. A city company makes municipal bureaucracy easier to deal with, procuring land as well as obtaining necessary permits for the developer. Hasson mentions differences between the core of the country and the periphery, stating that “naturally” businesses are attracted to the core where the more established cities are. Moreover, city development companies reflect local reality. He contends that city companies in the core of the country will be more concerned with land management, allocation, and land use competition, and that peripheral cities will have to be more entrepreneurial in their tactics, to attract private capital. 17
Hasson’s article is in accord with most research on coalition building and entrepreneurial motives of the city. The article also shows that such tactics have consequences. He contends that poorer peripheral cities, characterized by higher unemployment, have a harder time organizing against industrial interests that are merely profit-motivated, should one, for example, be seeking to build a factory that could harm resident health and the environment. This is a fancier way of saying that poorer people have a harder time of achieving NIMBY (Not In My Back
Yard).
Hasson has produced another article, entitled Municipal-Private
Partnership: Opportunities and Risks (1997) in which he critiques the coalitional framework in more detail. He underscores that municipal profit-making outweighs public interest by embracing project related planning as opposed to comprehensive city planning resulting in a disjointed urban fabric (Hasson 1997).
Hasson explains that the privatization of urban space taking place in Israel is related to the privatization of the country’s economy. In terms of Beer Sheva, the building of the Kanyon was one of the first steps in that direction. A few years later, BIG, the first "power center" in Israel, was built in that same city. Therefore, in the Beer Sheva context, the observer may wonder just who is in charge of urban planning and design implementation, is it the city or the entrepreneur?
Several other studies bear mentioning here. One is entitled, The Post
Socialist Growth Machine: The Case of Hungary (Kulcsar and Domokos 2005).
Although the Israel context differs from that of Eastern Europe, there are similarities, as the Israeli economy had some socialist features, until the mid-80s.
The authors purport to develop a growth machine framework for the post- socialist context. According to them “… we also expect a different type of growth 18 machine in the post-socialist context, where some of the usual actors are not even slightly important, while actors who lack power in the conventional model gain significant influence” (Kulcsar and Domokos 2005, 551). What they found, was that in the Hungarian context a local political elite was created by being in the right place at the right time when the economy switched over to the non-socialist model.
The local political elite also became the local economic elite by capitilazing on the fact that the initial recession in the country's cities after the fall of socialism turned economic growth into the central issue. However the power of the local growth machine in the Hungarian context is restricted by transnational corporations and the state government apparatus (Kulcsar and Domokos 2005).
2.3 US Studies
Community Power and Population Increase: An Empirical Test of the
Growth Machine Model (Lyon et. al. 1981) presented the first empirical test of the growth machine theory. The research was apparently reacting to the growth of a disconcerting body of literature focused on how irrelevant community power studies in the urban context were becoming. It appears that this was the first rigorous study of the growth machine theory since its debut in 1976. Lyon et.al. used data gathered in an earlier study (Clark 1971), which included many of the variables that they found relevant to their questions. Their study corroborated one of the growth machine theory’s tenets that business drawing power can be linked to increased population growth.
However, the empirical model works best for the American context, i.e., for large and growing urban centers, powered by general growth in the economies of 19 the state, that have no higher government planning constraints, and for research using census data.
What makes the present study unique is not only its context, Israel, but also the movement from the data of two case studies to the macro context. At the micro level, some data is lacking, as noted in Chapter 3 below. However, when the data gathered in this study is compared to data from more macro level analyses, it becomes apparent that the growth machine model applies well to Beer Sheva. 20
3.0 Methodology 3.0.1 Why Beer Sheva
The focus on Beer Sheva in the present study and the choice of the case studies of Kanyon Ha'Negev and BIG was not arbitrary. The Israeli context of land ownership and urban planning is markedly different from that of the United
States, where land is largely privately owned with little, if any, Federal or State involvement in what one does with it. In Israel, 93% of the land is “publicly owned,” so that there is no “land-based elite” as in the United States.1
At first glance, because of the large involvement of the private sector in urban growth, Tel-Aviv may serve as a purer setting to study the growth machine in the Israeli context. However, what makes our study unique is the apparent presence of a growth machine under circumstances in which, according to theory, it should not exist.
Beer Sheva is located in the southern part of Israel at the start of the Negev highlands. It serves a regional population of nearly 500,000 Negev residents.
Although much of Beer Sheva’s development has been state-driven, unlike the development of American cities, Beer Sheva does have important similarities to the United States context. First, urban development is uneven in Beer Sheva, and development of some areas comes at the expense of some others. Thus, the construction of Kanyon Ha'Negev far from the historic urban core, has fostered the decline of the latter's (see Chapter 6). Secondly, in Beer Sheva, new residential neighborhoods and high-rises are built out of synchrony with demand. Although housing construction is often based on projected demand, Beer Sheva’s
1 Publicly owned land is administered by several agencies, discussed in Chapter 4.
21 development history has consistently shown such projections to be overly optimistic. The resultant renter’s market has damaged apartment owners, as the value of their property declined (Alfasi and Portugali 2004). Such problems are compounded because Beer Sheva’s growth is not constrained by lack of available land (as in Tel Aviv, for example). This makes new growth, as opposed to rehabilitation and densification, enticing to developers (and to local government, because of higher revenues).
Another reason why this study fits into the growth machine model is that despite central planning, business interests have affected urban development. The thesis focuses on two commercial projects in Beer Sheva that do not fit with much of the literature about Beer Sheva’s growth, which criticizes the spatial planning of the city (Shadar 2004 and Meir 1992). This approach leaves out an important component of city growth, namely entrepreneurial interest. Our two projects were not planned. Rather entrepreneurs approached the city, which allowed the projects to go forward. These points make for an interesting locale to study the growth machine in comparative context.
To find out whether growth machine theory is applicable to Beer Sheva, local level relationships need to be understood. Local planning and building committees include the elected members of the municipal council and are responsible for planning and evaluating plans presented by developers (as well as allocating permits and initiating enforcement of the laws in cases of illegal buildings or building additions). Understanding the relationships between local planning committee members, city hall, developers, investors, the ILA, MOCH, and the city engineer, is important for growth machine research in Beer Sheva. 22
3.0.2 Particular Study Questions
The present study aims to answer three questions:
1.) Did the case studies of Kanyon and BIG develop according to growth machine theory? 2.) Were there coalitions? 3.) Who benefits and who suffers in consequence of the development of the Kanyon and of Big?
3.0.3 Methodology
The research methodology involved two components. The first was conducting interviews with the relevant actors. The interviews were limited on several accounts. In the case of Kanyon Ha'Negev, some important actors had passed away. The remaining ones have little recollection of events over 20 years ago. However, several crucial interviews were conducted, and in conjunction with the autobiography of Yitzchak Rager, (see chapter 6), they revealed a composite picture. In regards to the BIG project, I conducted several interviews. However, the key players (such as Yodan Naftali, the owner of BIG) were too busy to reach
(despite numerous attempts), and their company representatives were helpful to a limited extent.
The second component of the study involved the evaluation of newspaper articles about the case studies, Beer Sheva, key players, and growth related topics.
The articles were culled from Beer Sheva’s two local newspapers, Sheva and Kol
Bi, as well as national newspapers (the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz) and the online
Israeli business journal Globes.
My initial plan was to review the protocols of the city council meeting in which these projects were discussed. Unfortunately, visits to city hall proved unfruitful. The records are, in the case of Kanyon Ha'Negev, 15-20 years old and in that of BIG, over 10 years old. Hence, the relevant protocols, I was told, were in 23 the archives. Unfortunately, those were in such disarray as to be useless, and I had to focus on the other material.
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4.0 Israel’s Planning System
4.0.1 Introduction
This chapter is devoted to the planning and land management system in
Israel and lays the groundwork for assessing its effects on Beer Sheva, which is dealt with below. As Rachel Alterman (1986) states, “the history of land use planning in Modern Israel is a mirror of changing ideologies and values.”
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Beer Sheva. For years up to and after the founding of the state, Zionism was forging itself as an ethic with strong ties to the historical land of the Jewish people, Israel. The Zionist enterprise was to be achieved through the reestablishment of the Jewish people in its historic homeland, creating an agrarian, socialist-utopian society. Tilling the land, the major focus of early Zionist ideology, found expression in the built environment through the establishment of agricultural Kibbutzim (communes) and Moshavim (smallholder cooperative villages). The emphasis of early Zionist ideology on agricultural settlement marginalized urban needs (Cohen 1970).
However, as the years went by, it became clear that the country could not live on agriculture alone. According to Alterman (2002), the residual clinging to the agricultural ideal may have become an impediment for dealing with the
Russian Aliyah for example (as well as Ethiopians and others), that came during
1989-1992. That Israel could not survive on agriculture alone, coupled with
Israel’s practical need for survival, demanded that the country rapidly acquire advanced technology in defense and industry as well, so as to cope with security threats and mass -immigration.
The basis of the Israeli planning system is the British Mandate Town
Planning Act of 1936. The system was governed by it until 1966, when the Israel 25
Planning and Building Law of 1965 (PBL65) went into effect. The PBL65 changed many regulatory processes. However, the initial foundation set by the
British Town Planning Act of 1936 remained in the new law, which is still in effect. For example, the PBL65 centralized planning authority to a greater extent than Mandate era planning, yet preserved most of the local-level planning aspects, by establishing a hierarchy from National to District to Local Level Planning (the former enjoying precedence over the latter). A major change was the establishment of the National Planning Council, which centralized authority over planning issues. Nonetheless, the district and local governments remained important.
4.0.2 National Planning
A 22- member National Planning Council administers National Planning.
Eight members are from government ministries; the Minister of the Interior (the council’s chairman) chooses six local government representatives; and eight members come from NGOs or other public groups, most of them appointed by the same Minister. Their duties, as provided for in the PBL65, are to generate
National Master Plans, approve district plans, arbitrate local level planning conflicts brought to them by the District Planning Commissions (see below).
4.0.3 District Planning
The PBL65 established District Planning Commissions to serve six regional districts: the Northern, Haifa, Central, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Southern Districts.
The District Planning Commission itself is comprised of 15 representatives: eight from government ministries, five appointed by local authorities, and two 26 professionals. The responsibilities of the District Planning Commissions are initiation of and approval of district plans (Strong 1971 and Alterman 1986).
4.0.4 Local Planning
The lowest rung in Israel’s planning hierarchy is the Local Planning
Commission. There are three different commission frameworks. The first is for cases in which an area falls within the jurisdiction of a single local authority. In that case, the Local Council (the main municipal governing body) also serves as
Local Planning Commission. In metropolitan areas such as those of Tel-Aviv,
Haifa, Jerusalem, or Beer Sheva, the City Council appoints a sub-committee for planning. When a local planning area is made up of two or more jurisdictions, the planning commission is made up of representatives from the local and central government (Alterman 1986). Local Planning Commissions are responsible for preparing local outlines and detailed plans, appropriating land for public uses, building permit approval, approving local plans and hearing appeals and objections against local plans.
4.0.5 The Plans
For every level of the planning process there is a corresponding level of plan. Plans are given status and framework for content by the Planning and
Building Law of 1965. However, the PBL65 provides no guidelines about how plans should be drafted. Different bodies prepare them differently and incomplete plans are a time-consuming problem in the approval process. There are efforts underway to rectify this, through planning regulation by the Ministry of the 27
Interior. The regulations attached to the law actually specify such things as the form of building permit, and the contents of plans.
4.0.6 National Outline Plans (or Schemes)
National Outline Plans have the greatest authority, i.e., no lower level plans may conflict with them. They designate areas for industry, recreation, afforestation, agriculture, and population dispersion, which are approved by the
Knesset.
In 1951, the new state needed to provide housing, employment, security, and food to a population that doubled in the first three years statehood years. The
Sharon Plan of 1951 was Israel’s first National Outline Plan. It provided guidance on settlement location, suggested the National Water Carrier and the National
Road Network, and designated areas for national parks and agriculture. However, most immigrants settled in urbanized areas (Troen 2003) and the Sharon Plan was not fully implemented.
The mid-late 1960s saw the rise of new pressures on planners. Large new territories were occupied in the Six-Day War, while a “…changing national economy, increased living standards, growing levels of personal mobility, environmental degradation and increasing social problems” (Mazor and Yiftachel
1992). The Sharon Plan (1951) could not effectively respond to these challenges, but there was no alternative until the National Outline Plan #31 (NOP31), which responded to the Aliyah of citizens from the former USSR of the early 1990s.
NOS31 was initiated in 1992 as a non statutory "master plan" to explore development visions and alternatives. It established a new planning ethos and language, partly transferred to a plan known as “Israel 35”, a statutory NOP.
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4.0.7 District Outline Schemes
How the national outline plan is implemented in each of Israel's six districts is the object of the district outline scheme. More specific than the National Outline
Plan, a district scheme provides regional specific designations of industrial areas and employment centers, secondary road networks, afforestation sites, seacoast preservation, archaeological sites, and the setting of city limits. According to
Alterman (2002), the district outline scheme is the least effective, as both national and local planners can exert extensive influence on it, even though the latter are subject to District authority.
4.0.8 Local Outline Plan
A local outline plan is drafted by the Local Planning Commission and needs approval from the District Planning Commission (and cannot conflict with higher level plans). The plan provides guidelines for land uses and their respective intensity, health, sanitation, safety, major transportation and roads, densities, utility easements, etc. Although legislation mandates such plans, very few exist, and, cities often refer back to the partial outline plan and its subsequent amendments.
4.0.9 Detailed Schemes
A detailed scheme includes the specifics of any given project, such as height, number of units (office or residential), architectural design, building lines, setbacks, etc.
29
4.0.10 Building Permits
A building permit is not a plan in the spatial sense, but rather for a specific project, and it serves as ultimate guide for builders. By law, building permits need to conform to the detailed plan(s) governing the area. If they do not, one can apply for a variance (which, according to recent changes, can be approved by the local council up to a point) or change the plan – both of which need district commission approval. A variance allows the builder to overstep the limitations set by local outline plans, in effect changing them (Alterman 1986). If the building does not conform to what the permit allows (no variances are granted), then the local planning commission can fine the owner, have the building torn down, or otherwise force it to conform, often at great expense.
4.0.11 Plan Implementation
In Israel, plans can be implemented in several ways. First, they can be authorized through regulatory powers, for example, the power to issue building permits which belongs to the planning authorities. Second, such plans can be implemented through the appropriation of land for public purposes. According to law, up to 40% of privately owned land can be appropriated without compensation.
Re-parcelation can open up land otherwise closed to development because of multiple owners.
4.1 Land in Israel
30
4.1.1 Introduction
The state of Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, in coordination with the United Nations Resolution’s timetable to partition what was then Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On May 15, 1948, armies from
Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the nascent state. The invading armies were defeated and Israel’s borders increased to a size slightly larger than arranged under the partition plan. The Six-Day War in June
1967 expanded Israel’s land holdings, with the acquisition of the West Bank from
Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt (Israel withdrew in from the Sinai Peninsula in 1979 and the Gaza Strip in 2005), and the Golan Heights from Syria (later annexed by the under the Golan Heights Law 1981). The West
Bank territories were never officially annexed by Israel. Although settlement development has been underway therein, their final status is yet to be determined.
As mentioned in Chapter 3, several agencies, both state and quasi-state, are directly related to land development in Israel.
4.1.1 The Israel Lands Administration
Aside from being involved in development projects, the Israel Lands
Administration (ILA), created in 1959, administers the publicly held lands owned by the State and by JNF. The ILA took on the management of JNF lands in 1961.
Today, the JNF’s connection to the ILA is under negotiation because as a state agency the ILA is not allowed to distinguish between selling lands to Jews versus non-Jews, which the JNF does, because of its historical mandate to redeem and develop the ancient homeland of the Jewish people (Ha'aretz [Tel-Aviv] 28
January 2005). The ILA also manages land placed under the custody of the 31
Custodian of Absentee Property (Apotropos Le’Nihsei Nifkadim) and lands vacated by the British High Commissioner upon the cessation of the British
Mandate over Palestine in 1947. The Custodian of Absentee Property administers lands whose heirs are unknown and lands vacated by Arabs who fled the country in
1948, during the War of Independence.
The ILA Board of Directors is made up of 27 representatives, 13 from the
JNF and the remaining from the state. Ostensibly, the ILA’s policy of
“…guaranteeing sufficient land for the construction necessary for the development of the country and the absorption of immigrants and to contribute to the preservation of agricultural land and national security” (Werczberger and
Borukhov 1999, 134) remains dubious, at best, as it is affected by interest pressures, so that the policy and actions of the ILA are “ad hoc” (ibid.).
The most extensive land holdings of the ILA are in the southern region of
Israel, where it owns 99.7% of the land. ILA land ownership in other parts of the country is: 94% in Jerusalem; 88% in the North; 67% in Haifa; 82% in the Center; and 53% in Tel-Aviv.
4.1.2 The Ministry of Construction and Housing
The Ministry of Construction and Housing (MOCH) is another governmental entity involved in land development. It oversees all construction in
Israel and is responsible for the planning and building of State development projects. The actual authority of MOCH varies regionally. Thus, in Tel Aviv, where much of the development is done by the private sector, MOCH has little influence on urban growth. The opposite is true where private enterprise is 32 minimal, as in Dimona and Yerucham, where much of the building is funded by the Ministry.2
4.1.3 The Jewish National Fund
The JNF was established in 1901 at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basle,
Switzerland. Its primary activities were (and still are) purchasing and developing land in Israel on behalf of world Jewry. The JNF’s effect on the spatial distribution and up-building in Israel is undeniable. It owns very little land in the south of the country, as in the pre-state period it was not practical for the jewish institutions to purchase plots therein. Since 1948, its influence on Beer Sheva has been negligible. One interesting recent development has been the Blueprint Negev project, which may be an outgrowth of the JNF’s changing relationship with the
State discussed above.
2 For an in-depth study of the influence of MOCH on the development of Beer Sheva see: Hadas Shadar The Influence of the Ministry of Construction and Housing on the Urban Development of Beer-Sheva 1948-1999 (Ph.D. diss., Israel Institute of Technology, 2000). 33
5.0 The Negev
5.0.1 The Outline Plan for the Southern District
The southern part of Israel, commonly referred to as the Negev, accounts for 60% of Israel’s land mass and is home to only 8% of its population. Modern settlement began in this region after its conquest in the 1948 War of Independence.
The national policy for population dispersal led to the development of Ashdod,
Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Sderot, Netivot, Dimona, Yerucham, Arad,
Mitzpe Ramon, Eilat, and Beer Sheva. The plan was drafted in the 1970s but only became statutory in the 1980s. In the 1990s changing demographic needs required its updating. The new plan has six principles:
Increasing the population of the district within the
framework of the national goals of immigrant
absorption and population dispersal, and its
distribution into an efficient and balanced settlement
network;
Economic and employment development in the
Southern District, in accordance with the needs of
the existing and expected population, based on the
region’s resources and contribution to the national
economy;
Improvement and expansion of the infrastructure and
the transportation systems in the Southern District as
a lever for its development; 34
Providing conditions and opportunities in the
southern District similar to those in the other parts of
the country, improving the standard and quality of
life, providing special treatment of the weak
populations and integrating the Bedouin population
in the development of the district;
Preservation of the values of the unique nature and
scenery of the Southern District, preservation and
attention of the quality of the environment under
conditions of accelerated development;
Efficient and balanced utilization of the existing land
and natural resources in the area of the Southern
District for the benefit of its inhabitants and in
accordance with the needs of the district and the
country as a whole. (Dunsky 1992, 103-104)
As with any general outline plan, the challenge is translating the principles into realities. The Negev has always been considered a development challenge, but it was perceived as a blessing and a curse at different times. After the state’s founding, Ben Gurion garnered will and resources to rally behind a Zionist vision of blooming the Negev desert. However, a premature shift of National goals to developing the Galilee (in the mid 1960s) turned the Negev Frontier into a periphery (Kellerman 1993 and Gradus 1996).
5.0.2 The Challenge of Periphery Development
From an economic and planning perspective, there are two major peripheries in Israel: the Galilee in the north and the Negev in the south. The 35 relationship between the core and the periphery is important for understanding local municipal development because the attraction of the core (Tel-Aviv and its environs in Israel’s case) often undermines peripheral localities’ efforts to grow.
In turn, peripheral localities are consistently in need of government support to remain afloat. While it has been national policy for the State of Israel to direct new immigrants to the periphery, without the creation of services and employment opportunities, the staying power of any locality diminishes.3 Three theories attempt to explain the inequalities between the core and the periphery: spatial equilibrium theory; spatial disequilibrium; and radical theory. Spatial equilibrium theory contends that core-periphery inequality in the early stages of national economic growth is natural, due to lack of coordination between regional and national economic growth. Over time inequality will diminish with the movement of production factors. Spatial disequilibrium theory holds that the movement of production factors increases regional inequality and only central government intervention can control the disparity. The third theory, radical theory, considers government as a market force which ultimately increases regional disparities.
According to this theory, countries have little hope to move from being underdeveloped to being developed, because of the dependent nature of the periphery (Lipshitz 1996).
Several factors have contributed to the peripheral status of the Negev region and Beer Sheva in particular. The main factors are the immigrants to this area and their motives, as well as the location. Before the establishment of the state, many immigrants came from educated European backgrounds. They tended to settle in Tel Aviv and Haifa. The relatively poor, uneducated, and unskilled
3 See section 5.0.1 for the Southern District Outline Plan’s response to these points. 36 immigrants were settled in the periphery where the government often offered them financial incentives. In the early years of the state’s development, the Negev was promoted as a frontier, which generates positive connotations (Gradus 1996). The image of the Negev as a Zionist Frontier may still hold sway, as assumed by the
Jewish National Fund’s intensive Blueprint Negev campaign.4 However the
Negev has mainly served as a dumping ground. Much of the land is closed off to development due to its designation for military exercise. The country’s only hazardous waste collection site, Ramat Hovav, is located some 20 kilometers south of Beer Sheva. The region is also home to most of Israel’s natural resource industries, the potash, phosphate, magnesium, and bromine industries whose exploitation offers limited benefit to the region's inhabitants. This is also the case of the plans to develop the Shale Oil industry in the northern Negev,5 a notoriously water consuming and polluting industry. The frontier has turned into a periphery.
5.1 Beer Sheva
5.1.1 Introduction
Beer Sheva, one of Israel's most ancient cities, is located at the start of the
Negev highlands. Beer Sheva has proven a development challenge for the ancient
Israelites, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottomans, British, and now modern Israel.
Presently, the city houses 186,000 residents, from over 60 countries of origin and, as mentioned, serves a regional population of 500,000.
5.1.2 Early Settlement until the British Mandate in Beer Sheva
Based on archaeological evidence, settlement in Beer Sheva is dates back to as early as 3300 BCE. While settlement preceded Biblical times, the name is
4 http://www.jnf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=negevindex 5 http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/shale/shale.asp 37 derived from two Biblical accounts, one involving Avraham and the other
means either “Well of the Oath” or ,באר שבע Yitzchak. The name, in Hebrew
“Well of the Seven”. In either case, the name refers to an oath (sealed by the sacrifice of seven ewes) taken between Abraham and Avimelech. In ancient times,
Beer Sheva served as a strategic oasis on the trade routes between Egypt and Syria and from present day Saudi Arabia to Gaza. Beer Sheva and its environs have also served the interests of the Nabatean, Roman, and Byzantine empires. After the
Arab Conquest in the 8th century, the site was little more than a watering hole for the flocks of local Bedouin and a meeting place to discuss intertribal matters. The
Ottoman Empire gained control of the area in the early 20th century, and began the modern period of Beer Sheva (Berman 1965). The Ottomans created an administrative center to control of the local Bedouin, as well as a strategic military locale. They established a grid pattern settlement, now known as the “Old City”.
Beer Sheva was brought under British control at the end of WWI. Israeli rule ensued after the withdrawal of the British and the war of Independence in
1948. Regional demographics were dramatically altered with the establishment of
Israeli rule over Beer Sheva and the Negev. During the war, some 80,000 Bedouin fled the area (the remaining 17,000 resettled mainly between the yet to be established development town of Dimona and Beer Sheva).
5.1.3 Zionist Ideological Planning
Understanding the development of Beer Sheva under Israeli rule cannot be divorced from Zionist ideological planning. Thus, Beer Sheva became a laboratory for urban development ideas (Efrat 1984). As Hadas Shadar (2004) writes:
Be’er Sheva was planned in accordance to a ‘place’, a Zionist- conscious ‘place’, an imaginary ‘place’ existing in the minds of the 38
planners, a ‘place’ that integrated the green European landscapes of their childhood and the Zionist ideology that ‘sanctified’ agriculture and its green image. (35) The first such experiment was the implementation of the garden city planning concept and the urban agricultural unit to Beer Sheva (Meir 1992). The garden city concept was pioneered by Ebenezer Howard, in reaction to the horrible living conditions generated by industrialization in many European cities. Many planners who received their training in Europe, including those who immigrated to
Israel, embraced this model. Thus, Israeli planners attempted to implement a garden city in the desert environment of Beer Sheva. Unfortunately, the large and wide-open areas set aside for private and communal gardening could not provide any shade from the hot desert sun, dust/sandstorms, and cold winter winds. The motivation to create a “garden” city in the desert was most certainly influenced by the making the desert bloom concept. Only through being inspired by the vision of a better tomorrow through technology, would planners envision gardens in the desert. This is an example of the power of ideology overriding the ability to perceive the reality of what is on the ground.
The first such garden city neighborhoods were Neve Noy and Shikun
Ha'Darom, whose construction began in the early 1950s. Gimel, Hatzerim,
Meshek Ezer, Bet, Dalet, and Hey, followed between the mid 1950s and the early
1960s. These new neighborhoods received migrants from the old city. The layout of the city allowed for an industrial zone in the east. In the 1960s, the industrial zone had pesticide factories, tile and brick manufactures, and flour mills (Berman
1965). Today, this area is a new, and unplanned, emerging business district in which the BIG shopping center is located.
The 1960s brought about the recognition that the garden city concept may be inappropriate for the dryland environment of Beer Sheva. After the Six-Day 39 war in 1967, the country was euphoric; its impending doom had been turned into unmitigated victory. New planning for Beer Sheva included the relocation of the business district from the Old City, to a new location on the axis connecting the city to the center of the country (Yitzchak Rager Avenue today). Also, residential units were planned to be denser, providing more shade. The new planning of Beer
Sheva included huge swaths of land, to be left undeveloped until it reached the predicted population numbers. However, those numbers were not reached and resulted in wide open and very low density expanses within the city.
In the 1970s, the automobile was increasingly seen as the preferred method of transportation, and city planning was reflecting that. Thus, in Beer Sheva, the experiment continued. Large main avenues were created to accommodate car use for a population most of which could not afford it, another example of the vision not contending with the reality on the ground. But, more importantly, the Yom
Kippur War of 1973 almost ended in the annihilation of Israel and the political hierarchy took a turn. In 1977, for the first time in the country’s history, Labor was ousted from power and the right-wing opposition, Likud, took over.
Meanwhile, as early as 1974, the energy crisis quadrupled inflation and the decline of government budget made the life of Beer Sheva residents even harder, as they had depended heavily on government subsidies.
The 1980s, with hyperinflation and the shrinkage of government budgets, also saw the deterioration of the Labor ideals of a welfare society, and the rise of individualism. It was also the decade that saw the rise of Bne Beitcha, “build your home”. Single-family housing requires larger amounts of land, expensive infrastructures (because units are spread out and individual, as opposed to being 40 compact and in one place), as well as increased levels of irrigation and energy costs, as the architecture is usually inadequate for the climate (Meir 1992).
5.1.4 Summary and Forward
Zionist ideological planning had a profound effect on the role of the Negev in Israel’s national spatial development and, subsequently, on Beer Sheva, due to its being the regional nexus of goods and services. A national growth machine, predicated on the Zionist ideological planning, gave rise to the spatial difficulties with which Beer Sheva contends to this day. The failure of central planning to find appropriate expression at the local level, and economic system changes in the
1980s and 1990s, allowed Kanyon Ha'Negev and BIG, to develop. They set into motion complex developments, unexplored in this study due to time and space constraints. These developments include the civil center’s subsequent development due to the Kanyon Ha'Negev’s presence and the newly developing business district in the city's industrial zone. 41
6.0 Case Studies and Findings
6.0.1 Introduction: The Shopping Mall
The concept of the shopping mall manifests itself differently in different locales. The idea of indoor shopping mall is to have a wide variety of retail stores under one roof. The earliest mall hails back to the 10th century with Isafan’s Grand
Bazaar in Constantinople. It took nearly nine centuries until the idea made its way to the United States in Providence, Rhode Island, under the title “The Arcade” in the early 19th century. But the concept received its modern form in the mid-20th century, as suburban development, accompanied by automobile transport infrastructure development, gave rise to car oriented shopping centers, and later on to strip malls. This last development is especially important, as it relates to the reasoning, as we shall see, behind the location choice of both Kanyon Ha'Negev and BIG.
6.0.2 Kanyon Ha'Negev: David Azrieli and the Mall Concept
David J. Azrieli’s influence on Israel’s retail markets is undeniable. The
Polish-born, Israeli-educated, Canadian billionaire first brought the concept of the mall to Israel in 1985, with the construction of Israel’s first indoor shopping mall the Ramat Gan Kanyon. In total, he owns seven malls in Israel, the other six being: Kanyon Ha'Negev (22,000m2 + 8,000m2 of office space) opened in 1990;
Kanyon Jerusalem (37,000m2 + 3,000m2 of office space) opened in 1993; Kanyon
Azrieli (25,000m2, part of the Azrieli Center which is 150,000m2) opened in 1998;
Kanyon Holon (15,000m2) opened in 1997; and Kanyon Margalit Hod Ha'Sharon
(7,000m2) opened in 1997. Having narrowly escaped from the Nazis, Azrieli made it to what was then Palestine in 1942. He fought in the War of Independence and 42 went on to study architecture at the Technion in Haifa. In 1954 he emigrated to
Canada where over the years he has become a billionaire real estate developer. His dream was always to invest in Israel and he has made a fortune doing it.
In a Jerusalem Post article dated February 23, 1990 by Joseph
Morgenstern, we catch a glimpse of how Azrieli’s business mind works. His retailing concept was simple and effective…not to sell the retail space in his malls, which translates to increased control over how to move the merchandise. Each store rents the space, with no option to buy, and the mall administration keeps strict cleanliness and maintenance. More importantly, it designates where given types of stores go and strongly affects window display and design, to maximize sales.
Early skeptics did not think that the mall concept would take hold in Israel and before it did, it was under fire for doing too much too fast. David Rosenberg, in his Jerusalem Post article How Many Shopping Malls Are Too Many? (6 January
1989), reported that lack of demand threatened the success of the shopping mall boom, as too much retail space could not be supported by what was then a population of 4,000,000. From the supply side, shopping malls were not appropriate in that the number of large anchor stores (typically three for a mall of
20,000m2) would not be enough. Over 10 years later, Shlomo Avi reported in
Ha'aretz (2 February 2001) that unsupervised planning may lead to the closure of commercial centers in an already mal-distributed commercial retail space system.
In 2004, the commercial retail per capita in Israel was fourth in the world, with an average .3m2 per person (Ha’aretz [Tel Aviv], 17 November 2004). The explosion of commercial retailing under the guise of malls can be traced to David J. Azrieli’s pioneering efforts in the field. His idea of bringing the mall to Israel was guided 43 the market possibilities of a growing country due to increasing immigration and job development.
6.0.3 Yitzchak Rager
The story of Kanyon Ha'Negev begins in 1984. The most helpful document about the story of the Kanyon is the late Yitzchak Rager’s autobiography. The idea to build an American style shopping mall in the desert city of Beer Sheva came up over a bonds sale to David Azrieli. During their meeting Azrieli, was talking about a soon to be completed indoor shopping mall, the first of its kind in Israel, in Ramat Gan. Rager remarked, "…if such a project was built in Beer Sheva, the city would advance twenty years into the future"
(Rager 1998). Because of a “…love for the land and pure Zionism”, Rager wanted to do something for Beer Sheva’s development; in his eyes Beer Sheva was “…a mission in the desert.” Azrieli agreed to fund such a project, as long as Rager oversaw it. With a “Canadian salary” and 5% of the profits, Rager began working for the Canit Company, the Israeli subsidiary of Azrieli’s Montreal- based Canpro
Investments.
According to Rager, it took four years to issues permits and another two to build the mall. Kanyon Ha'Negev officially opened its doors on March 13, 1990, and commerce in Beer Sheva has never been the same since. Whether the changes have been positive depends on whom you ask. Rager describes the process leading up the initial approval and then building of the mall in anything but glowing terms.
The city “…where in the last ten years nothing has happened, not one important investment”, was suffering from debt and neglect by the national government. I 44 quote at length from Rager’s autobiography, as it provides us with a description of life in Beer Sheva while Rager proposed to build the mall:
[Eliyahu] Naoui [Beer Sheva’s mayor at the time] was skeptical to say the least. He asked where I proposed to build the mall. I said I would find out and get back to him. On that day I came to Beer Sheva on the bus and I went home on the bus. As I was standing in the Central Bus Station, I saw a Bedouin woman crossing with a large herd of sheep in the area between the Eli Cohen junction and the Central Bus Station. I said to myself, "How can this be? Isn't this the heart of Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev?" I decided then and there that in this place I would build the mall. Right then and there I returned to City Hall. "NO!" said Naoui. "When the time comes, that is to be the place for the Opera House. The theater, the cultural center." I was astounded. I said to him, " Eliyahu, open up you ears and listen! Sheep graze in that field. I am offering you a 40 million dollar investment, a mall that will change life in Beer Sheva. You don't even have a decent movie house in Beer Sheva. And you talk about an Opera House?" I succeeded in convincing Eliyahu; he saw he had no choice. "OK, we will go for it." (Rager 1998, translation Baruch Rock) However, the going was slow. Rager remarks that two “young” people helped a great deal, the city treasurer, Avi Har-Sagi, and its legal advisor, Asa
Avliav. Perhaps it was their “youth” that enabled them to see the project's value for the city’s future. At every step of the way, critics stated that the project would never be completed. Even residents were criticizing Rager, saying that Azrieli will lose his money, to which Rager replied “Then you are crazy for living here. You have here property. Every time you talk like this the value of your property goes down. You're crazy!!"” Rager concludes his recollection with the following:
Now there is no need to justify the project. Now in Beer Sheva you can go to a movie and to a café in an air-conditioned building, to go shopping, like they do in Europe and America. The shop owners in the old city attacked me, saying that I robbed them of their income. Little by little they realized that they needed to improve their prices and their service. So the mall improved Beer Sheva in general. (Rager 1998, translation Baruch Rock) 45
It is not clear what Rager means when he relates that the shop owners in the old city had to improve their prices. Logic dictates that, this would mean lowering them to stay afloat. Nor is there any indication that the shop owners did improve their prices and services according to Rager’s criteria. With some condescension, he seems to be saying “if you can’t put out a quality product, you won’t get the quality customers.”
6.0.4 Moshe Zilberman
Moshe Zilberman, Beer Sheva’s mayor in the years 1986-1989, who sat on the regional and local planning and building committees, explained that there was no resistance from city hall when Azrieli “came to town”. When I asked him why
Azrieli was willing to build in Beer Sheva, he said “that was his problem…the municipality was happy that Azrieli had come” (Zilberman 2006) He was fondly recalling how right Azrieli was in building the parking lots larger than standard size and insisting that the mall needed to be close to the public bus routes. There was a promotional campaign administered by the city to get the public on board about the project, which was “…one of the nice things in Beer Sheva, the first [of its kind].” Zilberman did not consider himself a politician and did not run against
Rager (Likud) when the latter entered the running (and won) against 10 others, his main rival being Bentz Carmel (Labor). Zilberman had no party connection and his term as mayor came when Naoui stepped down and asked Zilberman to step in.
When asked what the response was of the municipality to objections from the business sector of the old city, his response was remarkably similar to Rager’s:
“there is enough for everyone and everyone needs to take care that his shop is attractive so people will come. Competition is good.” (Zilberman 2006) 46
6.0.4 Eli Ron
Eli Ron, the city engineer during the planning and building of Kanyon
Ha'Negev, reveals a few more details. According to him, after decades of failed planning, both in the physical and social sense, Eliyahu Naoui (the mayor when
Rager first approached the city) and him were looking for something to raise the
“self-confidence, the pride” of the city. Ron was subsequently sent to Canada by
Naoui to learn more about the mall that Rager wanted to build. He mentions that he was impressed by the “power” of it, the “power to raise the quality of life” and the decision of putting the mall in the middle of the city was based on the precedent set by Ben Gurion University's being built in the city. In his view, the
University’s placement was a success and had an “influence” on the city. Seen in this light, the city decided to go with an urban mall as opposed to the peripheral mall (on the city outskirts), as both models were offered as possibilities. As he recalls, there was no opposition to building the mall, only discussions about how to build it, i.e. where to reroute streets, put up new traffic lights, etc. (Ron 2006).
6.1 BIG The story of BIG is strikingly similar to that of Kanyon Ha'Negev.
However, before going into its details, a background story is in order. David
Frankel was Beer Sheva’s legal advisor from 1989 to 1997. When he entered office, a bylaw required businesses to close between the hours of 1300-1600, then again at 1900, all day Tuesdays, as well as Fridays from 1200 until Sunday mornings. Kanyon Ha'Negev had to follow these rules too. In 1991 Frankel spearheaded "quality of life" legislation that changed that reality. He had been inspired by a precedent set with respect to SuperPharm. SuperPharm is a chain of 47 drugstores that are more than pharmacies, as you can buy not only medicines, but also household needs and the like. Other stores in the country were open until midnight every night. In Beer Sheva, the pharmacists were not required by law to work at night and be on call on Shabbat. Frankel was working with the Ministry of
Health at the time, and they gave SuperPharm a dispensation to open until 2200 on
Friday nights, holidays, and Shabbat, in order that a drugstore would be available should the need arise at those times. As Frankel put it, “The SuperPharm became a cultural center because it was the only place open on Shabbat. Everybody went, not to buy; just to meet some friends, it was very central; everyone went there just to meet.” (Interview) When the other pharmacists realized what was going on, they filed a lawsuit saying the stores opening hours were in violation of city bylaws. By the time the case made it to the Supreme Court, Frankel was already with the municipality. As Frankel recalls:
I appeared in the high court of justice, and the Supreme Court said at least two pharmacies should be open every Saturday and holiday in Beer Sheva. One of them should be the SuperPharm, in addition to it, another pharmacy. They [the other pharmacists] lost the case, but this was very helpful because it was a clue, a hint from the Supreme Court, you can’t go on building a town, city, or whatever more than a village, but cling to the old ancient traditional laws [emphasis mine] (Frankel 2006)
With this precedent, the new bylaws that Frankel spearheaded stipulated that restaurants could be open until 2100, in some cases until midnight, and on
Saturday night as well. More and more businesses were allowed to open during these hours. Then Frankel’s attention turned to nightclubs, which were closed
Friday night and on Shabbat. Dispensation was given to them to stay open Friday nights to stem the flow of youth traveling to Tel Aviv for the nightlife.
In Frankel’s opinion these changes in the quality of life legislation paved the way for the commercial developments that came to Beer Sheva in the 1990s, in 48 particular that of the BIG project spearheaded by Yehuda Naftali. Yehuda Naftali was born and raised on a kibbutz in Israel. In the 1970s, he immigrated to the
United States and settled in California where he became a successful real estate developer. Upon his “return” to Israel in the early 1990s (his permanent residence remains in California), he founded the BIG Shopping Centers company based in
Herzliya. His retailing method entails very large shopping areas, at least 10,000 square meters (with an average of 18,000 for the eight BIG Centers in Israel. It requires extensive parking (1,000 spots on average), as 80% of his customers are car owners, and necessitates location on a major arterial road for maximum access to car drivers.
The first BIG Center in Israel was built in Beer Sheva in the light industrial zone. In the mid-1990s, Yudan Naftali approached the city engineer of Beer
Sheva, Tzfi Tal-Yosef, with the idea to build the very large mall in Beer Sheva.
The land was under the authority of the ILA, but owned by Shikun Ovdim. Shikun
Ovdim, a subsidiary of Israel’s largest development company, Housing and
Construction Holding. It began to diversify its holdings into income-producing projects when Naftali joined with them in the mid 1990s with the advent of the
BIG project in Beer Sheva.
According to Tal-Yosef, Rager, then mayor, did not like the idea of the BIG project. Nevertheless, the city council approved the project, as Tal-Yosef recalls:
“…when everyone in the committee [saw that it was] a very big project, [and would] give opportunities to work, and [make] changes to the industrial zone, which was awful, most of them were convinced it was a good project” (Interview
28.12.05). The extent of the change was unforeseen. Shortly after construction began on BIG, another power center entered a bid to build called B7 (B-Sheva). 49
This new shopping center hosted Home Center (a major household goods chain), as well as Beer Sheva’s first 24- hour restaurant, Nafis. The major difference between BIG (including B7) and Kanyon Ha’Negev is that BIG was permitted to be open for commercial activity on Shabbat. This led to protest on the part of
Kanyon Ha'Negev, with threats that it too would open on Shabbat,6 which it never followed through on.
Since the opening of BIG and B7, a very large supermarket called Tiv Tam opened next to BIG, and a new power center called Chutzot Sheva is opening up across the street from BIG and B7,. According to an interview that I conducted with Aliza Manor, the director of MProjects, a consultant company to commercial projects in Beer Sheva, the property value surrounding these projects has quadrupled in the past 10 years.7 Incidentally, Yehuda Naftali bought full rights to the BIG project in Beer Sheva, as well as parcels of the surrounding land (and building rights) from Shikun Ovdim in 2003 for 32 million dollars. Clearly, the light industrial zone is undergoing major commercial transformations. In order for them to happen, zoning changes were required. According to Tal-Yosef, the changes passed with no objection. Even more interesting is that the new masterplan for Beer Sheva, conceived in mid 1990s (but still undergoing a protracted process of approval), has been adjusted to reflect the commercial demographic change to the area.
Matti Cones, an architect and member of the Committee for the
Preservation of the Old City, explained to me that one of the major problems with unplanned growth is the strain on the municipality to provide infrastructure and correct for planning mistakes. In his words, “The main problem in Beer Sheva is
6 Ha’aretz (Tel-Aviv), 4 April 2004. 7 I have not been able to substantiate the claim with hard evidence at this time. 50 that they are so desperate to get developed that whoever comes with money and asks for some project is welcome. Whether [or not] the project is needed where it is.” (Interview 23/2/06) The financial reality of the municipality, for both Kanyon
Ha'Negev and BIG was such that the developers had to fund the onsite infrastructure development for the areas that they wanted to build in.
6.2 Did Kanyon Ha'Negev and BIG develop according to Growth Machine Theory? Were there Coalitions?
One theme common to the accounts of Kanyon Ha'Negev is that Rager,
Naoui, and Ron were seeking to implement positive change for the city. For
Rager, it was to “save the city”, for Naoui and Ron, to raise the quality of life (and as far as Zilberman is concerned, he was along for the ride). This similarity between mayors may be attributed to their desire to be remembered honorably.
Whatever the case, it provides a deeper perspective into the context of the Kanyon
Ha'Negev development.
On the surface, it may seem that the mall was an obvious choice to build in that location. But we must keep in mind that entrepreneurs have been the driving force behind construction of malls in the city, and some planners involved in the process profited from the construction, aside from whatever altruistic motives they may have had. With Rager’s memoir of the downtown, who could argue that Beer
Sheva was economically backward? In our case studies, it seems clear that one (or two) initial investors and others who followed understood the potential to make a lot of money in one project. Beer Sheva now has two other shopping malls (both smaller than the Kanyon, Shaul Ha'Melech and Kanyon Avia), in addition to the strip mall of which BIG is a part. 51
In terms of assessing the projects as reflections of a growth machine, we must consider the land issue, which is central. The land that the mall was built on was originally owned by the city of Beer Sheva. It was sold to Azrieli for 3.5 million U.S. dollars. The city had come to own the land after years of legal haggling with the State. According to Eli Ron, the ’67 war uncovered some interesting documentation in Gaza relating to the pre-State town of Beer Sheva. It appears that the town, then under Turkish rule, had purchased land on behalf of the citizens.
When the municipality caught wind of this, it went to court to assert that land holdings held by the city of Beer Sheva prior to the War of Independence should be returned to it. The nuances of this legal battle, which lasted for a decade, are beyond the scope of this study. What is of interest is why the city decided to sell the land instead of allowing it to be developed and then collecting revenues from increasing property values as time went on. Rager comments in his autobiography that the city was offered 5% more than the appraisal, in order to forego a bidding tender for the land. It is clear from these two points of view that the city then was functioning under two premises: The first is that money paid for the land would help the struggling municipality stay afloat, and the second - that the city did not see any real future for the land (despite Naoui’s “when the time comes” remark, and which would explain Rager’s continued remarks about the skepticism he faced during the building's construction). Or, with respect to the second point, perhaps for Beer Sheva, every pronouncement about their bright future was just theory, that is, the vital growth of the city was understood as improbable. Nevertheless, in terms of the dynamics of the growth machine, the 52 city’s acquisition of land served as a base for entrepreneurial expansion of the urban landscape for profit.
The growth machine was alive and well at the national level, translating to the local and regional level of Beer Sheva and the Negev, respectively, in the form of the Zionist doctrine of blooming the Negev. Azrieli, under the guidance of
Rager, picked an area where land was easy to obtain, and the charismatic Rager, who had a financial stake in the project, could see it through to its conclusion.
Azrieli and Naftali are not part of a local elite, but international businessmen who need only focus the churnings of the Zionist enterprise or post-Zionist capitalist enterprise to their advantage. Both were Israeli expatriates who knew how to capitalize on cheap land and some subtlety of Zionist leanings (as evidenced in
Rager’s autobiography) in Beer Sheva.
As part of the growth machine, local government needed only supply the preconditions for growth to occur. In this case, the legacy of national planning and a struggling municipality did just that: the catch being that it was a reactive not a proactive growth mechanism. This was caused by the then limping Zionist dream of making the Negev bloom. The economic system in Israel did not develop like that of the United States. Nevertheless, the land market took on growth machine- like attributes; land served as a commodity, as seen by the selling of the land to
Azrieli on which Kanyon Ha'Negev is built and that of the land for BIG, as well, by Shikun Ovdim to Naftali.
The economic system in Israel took time to shift from a socialist to a free market economy; in the two case studies under review, it succeeded remarkably in embracing the new system and illustrating the power of the growth machine model. 53
In this case, the growth coalition was formed among the city, the private entrepreneurs, and, in the case of BIG, a large development company, Shikun
Ovdim, that later opted out of the arrangement altogether by settling for payment for the land rather than remained involved in revenue making developments.
6.3 Who Benefits and Who Suffers as a Result of the two projects?
As early as the late 1960s, in Beer Sheva planners were already pushing for a civic center removed from, yet still connected by the urban fabric, to the old city, which had served as the central business district and civic center since pre-state times. In all of the interviews, when asked how the two commercial projects affected the Old City, the unequivocal answer was "negatively". The most telling answer came from Tzvi Tal-Yosef, the city engineer of Beer Sheva from 1993-
2005, when he remarked:
The old city is the main problem of every change, or every development in Beer Sheva. When the Kanyon was built, everyone said that it is death for the old city. Of course, it is true…still we can’t stop the future…of course, when we [brought] this power center BIG again, it [will] hurt the Old City. Now, as I told you, I am taking care of the third power center, because in the street again some people will say it will hurt the Old City. But you can’t go on with it, if everything you do in the city you say will hurt the Old City because the Old City has a problem, you don’t have a place to do big things. (Tal-Yosef 2005)
All agree that the Old City is deteriorating and needs tremendous support to be rehabilitated. However, there is no quantitative evidence to a direct connection between the deterioration of the Old City and the rise of Kanyon Ha'Negev and
BIG. But the planners, city bureaucrats, etc., agree that there is a relationship and not a beneficial one.
One study of consumerism in Beer Sheva understands the deterioration of the old city as a “Zionist reading of local history” (Markowitz and Uriely 2004) in 54 which the “primitive” area of the Old City is neglected for the new, flashy, image of progress that both Kanyon Ha'Negev and BIG represent. However, Tal-Yosef’s comment that the old-city is no place to do “big things” reveals an ideology that is, in its essence, at the heart of the growth machine, something in which land is the central player: bigger is better, bigger means growth, growth is good, and to grow you need land.
The Old City in Beer Sheva seems to have been sacrificed, or is powerless to help itself, despite repeated calls for its better planning and more productive use.
There is no entrepreneurial savior available to invest in the old city. Conditions do not favor such investment, at any rate, as cheap land is available elsewhere for development. As the area declines further, it will become viable for rehabilitation and gentrification. Economic forces will prevail, in an as yet formed growth coalition, perhaps facilitated by progressive urban planning. Once more, Beer
Sheva will illustrate the power of the growth machine to shape the forces behind urban growth. 55
7.0 Conclusions
The growth machine model has its limits. It is focused on macro variables, large cities, westernized society, unimpeded growth, and so on. Nevertheless, we have shown how it can apply outside the US. Moreover, we have seen that it applies to smaller projects like shopping malls as much as to larger-scale investments in large American cities. Thus, the model of the urban growth machine can be considered a broad one, reflecting that cities and other urban regions function like urban “adaptation machines”. Beer Sheva is a powerful case in point, one that is mirrored in many cities as they confront the difficult tasks that endanger their economy, quality of life, and integrity.
This particular study met with great obstacles. Had I foreseen the problems that this study ran into I would have taken it into a different direction. Instead of restricting the study to these two case studies, future research might deal with the two respective zones in which they are situated as wholes. In the case of Kanyon
Ha'Negev, a general survey of property ownership and more recent developments in the area should be considered and the same goes for the former light industry zone.
Two topics for further research include an in-depth look at the ILA and its influence on the urban growth of Beer Sheva. The authority may be functioning as local entrepreneur under the guise of a national body. As well, an area of further study would be relationship between the ILA and MOCH, and the subsequent effect of the ILA on Beer Sheva’s growth. 56
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