Israeli New Urbanists: Density Will Make Our Cities Better Places to Live
by Jesse Fox, Tel Aviv, Israel on 06.14.08
A model of a revitalized city as envisioned by architecture students from an Israeli university.
No matter how you measure it, Israel is already one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and is expected to become much more crowded in the future. So it took a fair bit of chutzpah to host a conference whose title, translated literally, was “In Praise of Density” and whose message was: high urban density is good for our cities. But that is exactly what the Movement for Israeli Urbanism did last month, in an attempt to initiate a discourse about better urban planning in Israel’s cities.
The questions raised by the speakers at the conference were universal in an age of intensifying urbanization around the globe: If our cities are already so crowded, why the heck should we make them even more so? Doesn’t density so often create feelings of claustrophobia, crowding, chaos, noise and other unwanted stimuli for city residents? And, bottom line, if people want a detached house with a garage and a yard, why shouldn’t we planners just provide them with one?
For much of the previous century, the accepted equation in urban planning in Israel, as in most of the world, was that decreased housing density equals higher quality of life – the less crowded a place is, the better it is to live in. The policy here was one of population dispersal and car dependency, and many of Israel’s cities were built with a spread out and almost suburban character.
Today, however, the old model is no longer viable, as tiny Israel is not large enough to contain many more new towns and villages without destroying what is left of its open spaces. Instead, high population growth and new growth management policies are beginning to channel new development back into cities.
What is urbanism? What elements make up the city? What is the best way to put them together? Above: school, apartment building, road, parking lot and sidewalk in Bat Yam.
According to Irit Solzi, Chairwoman of the Movement for Israeli Urbanism, densifying Israel’s cities is a great opportunity, and not a curse, as some have portrayed it:
Every city can become a pearl! The idea that density is bad is a leftover from the Industrial Revolution era. Today, Israel is building cities with very low densities, which destroys their functioning. Transit, culture, creativity – none of these can survive in low density cities, and this means lower quality of life. Population growth is an opportunity. Mixed uses, varied buildings, small blocks, public transport – all of these will make our cities succeed. Otherwise, our cities will decline, and our open spaces will disappear.
Hovering over the two-day conference, held in the seaside town on Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv (and the second densest city in the country), was the spirit of the late urban theorist and activist Jane Jacobs. Jacobs’ works on the functioning of cities are today considered classics, and her inspiration was clearly evident in all of the discussions. This was no coincidence, as her master work The Death and Life of Great American Cities has just been translated into Hebrew for the first time, and was on sale at the conference at a significant discount.
While they may be colored green on the maps, “green spaces” under the scorching Israeli sun run the gamut from green to beige to brown. Above: conference participants on a walking tour of a Bat Yam neighborhood. Overflowing with green on the map, in reality this park consists of bare, sandy earth and an old bomb shelter.
Left: Bat Yam's historic water tower, a city landmark.
The conference participants, which included a significant percentage of the country’s architectural and urban planning heavyweights, also discussed issues such as transportation infrastructure in dense urban fabrics, population diversity in neighborhoods, open spaces and public buildings in cities, and the connection between high densities and tall buildings. Regarding this last point, a study by the Tel Aviv Municipality found that tall buildings do not necessarily give a place a higher density. In fact, some of Tel Aviv’s most densely populated (and most in-demand) neighborhoods contain buildings no higher than 4-6 stories.
At the end of the day, as Professor Arza Churchman noted, there is no single magic bullet for revitalizing cities. Every city is unique, and all cities are made up of numerous population groups that all have their own definitions of terms like “quality of life.” Said Churchman:
What we do as planners is not determinism, but possiblism and probablism. We can build an environment that allows or encourages certain behavior, but we cannot determine it. Nothing guarantees that people will use the street, but our job is to provide them with the options and the freedom to choose.
For more on urban design in Israel and Middle East:
Israeli Town Plans Radiation-Free Neighborhood
Israel Invests in Mass Transit
Israel Says Shalom to Electric Cars
Pentagon Plans Urban Renewal in Baghdad's Green Zone
See also:
The 2008 Ecocity World Summit: "Ecocity is Beautiful, Ecocity is Possible!"
Farmers Market Comes to Brooklyn Waterfront in DUMBO
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China Gets Dubious Honor Of World's #1 CO2 Emitter
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"if people want a detached house with a garage and a yard, why shouldn’t we planners just provide them with one?"
Considering the death and suffering that has resulted from suburban expansion in the area, that seems a little tasteless of a joke. You were joking, right? The options are to densify, or take land from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, or Jordan. Pick one.
Of course too much density is bad. Again, that's because there are too many people on the face of the earth already. Quibbling that we should start more wars and kill others in order to have 2 car garages and out-breed our ecological niche seems irresponsible to me. People have already paved over much of the good agricultural land the world over (river flood plains especially), and we are almost done slaughtering forests for under 10 years of crops before the soil dies. Surface area is finite.
I suggest best way to love the planet is to start being realistic about tackling the root cause of these problems rather than turning a blind eye to overpopulation and complain fruitlessly about the symptoms instead.
Urban density is a condition of urban diversiy.
Please check the "conditions for diversity" in Jane Jacobs' book: "The death and life of great american cities" (1961), a book no student of urban design should ignore.
Urban diversity means people walking to work, to shops, meeting each other, building thriving cultures and economies, instead of spending hours every day in traffic jams, releasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
However, today, we cannot simply duplicate the urban forms of past centuries, "New Urbanism" style: we have to determine and promote new urban forms. They will retain the diversity of the traditional city, but will also be designed so as to allow for integration of solar gains and natural ventilation.
This has been the subject of our researches, over the years, and can be checked on our website:
http://sustainable-city-project.com/
Energy independence is essential for Israel (and for the rest of the world, of course).
Climate change is a global threat.
Cities are developing powerfully all over the world.
The new Sustainable Urban Forms are a major key to success against global warming and energy dependence.
Jean-Loup Msika
architect, urban-designer
These are great ideas indeed. New pedestrianism is even better though, because they allow more space for people to walk and reduce the overhead of the automobile-oriented city architecture.
New Pedestrianst Michael E Arth explained this best in his latest interview:
http://www.corrupt.org/act/interviews/michael_e_arth
Hmm, I never thought of that. I guess loss of land for urbanizetion in such speed is not going to happen in the US, or at least not in the next 50 years