Having already begun to reclaim its sidewalks for pedestrians, the Jordanian capital is now setting out to reclaim its streets from traffic chaos.

The Jordan Times reported this month that construction is underway on a new Bus Rapid Transit system in central Amman. Planners believe that the project, whose first stage is expected to be completed within a year, will radically change the way people get around the city.

In the first stage of the project, three BRT lines are slated to be built through the center of the city. The routes will have a combined length of 32 kilometers, at an estimated cost of $170 million. High-capacity buses, carrying over 120 passengers, will traverse the routes through segregated lanes, arriving at stops every three minutes.

While Bus Rapid Transit technology has rapidly spread throughout the world in recent years, it has been slow to reach the Middle East. When completed, Amman’s BRT system will join successful BRT projects in Istanbul and Tehran. Several Israeli cities are currently developing BRT projects as well.

The Amman Municipality is also planning a major overhaul of public spaces along the new BRT corridors, which will receive new sidewalks, crosswalks, landscaping and parking areas. According to The Jordan Times, King Faisal Circle, a major plaza in the city center, is slated for rehabilitation as well, with a focus on preserving its historical character and developing the area for tourism.

If done right, these moves will provide the ancient city with a serious facelift and a new image, while improving the way it functions for its 2.5 million or so residents. It will also be a move toward the fulfillment of the city’s new master plan, whose slogan is: “A livable city is an organized city, with a soul.”

Here’s Amman BRT’s animated PR video (in Arabic):

This post was originally published at TreeHugger.com on July 25, 2010. Image via Amman BRT.

A man examines plans for the boardwalk’s renovation last week at a public hearing in Tel Aviv. (photo by Jesse Fox)

Two years ago, Tel Aviv presented a plan to redesign its central promenade. The plan – vague, unclear and buried inside another policy proposal – drew significant opposition from the public.

Last week, however, an improved version of the plan was presented at a public hearing. Over 100 residents showed up, all eager to make their voices heard. City officials listened to their concerns, and promised to take them into consideration as they draw up the plan’s final version. But neither the process nor the plan itself could please everyone.

Municipal officials and a handful of city council members also attended the meeting, which began with a short presentation by municipal planner Orly Harel, followed by a presentation by Udi Kassif, the architect charged with designing the new boardwalk.

Kassif, of Mayslits Kassif Architects (which was also commissioned to redesign Tel Aviv’s old port), was charged with designing the section of the beach between the Dolphinarium in the south and Gordon Pool in the north. The goal, he said, was to fuse the beach, the boardwalk and the adjacent Herbert Samuel street into a single public space, while connecting the beach to the city.

Among the problems with the current boardwalk, according to the architect, are the many obstacles (including scattered palm trees and benches) to pedestrian traffic, the old fashioned paving stones and street furniture, the wall that exists between the boardwalk and the beach, the haphazard storage spaces along this wall and a large, “unused” strip of sand between the boardwalk and the beach’s main bathing areas.

In order to improve the situation, he proposed removing those obstacles, new paving stones, stairs leading down to the sand instead of the wall that currently exists, new street furniture and shade-providing structures and a paved pedestrian area at the bottom of the stairs that would cover several meters of sand. He also proposed paved handicapped paths to the sea, as well as moving seaside restaurants closer to the boardwalk and away from the beach.

A rendering of the new “tayelet,” Tel Aviv’s central boardwalk. (courtesy of Tel Aviv Municipality)

The hundred or so residents in attendance began by listening patiently to the presentation, but soon began losing their patience. The text of Kassif’s presentation, displayed in a small and dense font, was impossible for most to read. An important related plan to narrow the adjacent Herbert Samuel Street was not presented at all, and many were outraged at the architects’ claim that parts of the beach were underutilized and could be paved over without inconveniencing anyone.

However, residents were very pleased to hear that the promenade would include a new bike lane (this, in fact, was the only part of the presentation which drew the crowd’s applause).

After the presentations, the audience was divided into small discussion groups, in which everyone was encouraged to contribute their thoughts and ideas, which were duly recorded. City officials promised that some of these suggestions would be integrated into the final designs.

Ira Rozen, a recent graduate of an urban planning program at Tel Aviv University, was disappointed with the event. “The presentation was poor,” he said. “The hall was large and the screen was small and difficult for the crowd to read, even from the front rows.”

Rozen, who wrote his master’s thesis on the privatization of planning in Israel, said the event was typical of participatory planning exercises in Tel Aviv, in which public input is only welcome at the end of the design process.

“It was like: ‘This is what we are going to do, now tell us what you think’,” said Rosen. ” It was clear to everyone that the municipality is not obligated to take anyone’s comments into account, and I think that because of that a lot of people related to the event as a chance to let off steam.”

Originally posted at TreeHugger.com on April 18, 2010 and at GreenProphet.com on April 22.

A massive corruption scandal has implicated some very senior people in Israel and cast doubt on plans to reform the planning system.

The “Holyland Park” apartment complex in Jerusalem. (image by Adiel lo, via Wikipedia)

A massive corruption scandal involving some of the most powerful people in Israel and an almost universally loathed building complex in Jerusalem has highlighted the need for tighter regulation of the country’s land planning system. But this hasn’t stopped the Prime Minister from pushing his plan to radically deregulate the planning system.

Quite a few ugly buildings have been built in Jerusalem in recent years, but none have been as traumatic for the people of the city as the Holyland Park project, known to most simply as “Holyland.” Built about a decade ago on what used to be a pine-covered hilltop in southern Jerusalem, the neighborhood contains almost 1,000 luxury apartments in a row of buildings that stick out like a sore thumb on the city’s modest skyline.

Back in the 1990′s, the project was rejected by planning authorities for sloppy and unprofessional planning. A few years later, however, Jerusalem’s local planning committee approved a vastly expanded version of the project, ignoring protests from neighbors and environmental groups. What made the authorities change their minds? Apparently, millions of dollars in bribes to key officials.

Holy Scandal

The Holyland scandal broke in early April, and since then barely a day has gone by without some new senior figure being implicated. Thus far, two former deputy mayors, a former mayor, the former city engineer and even former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (also a former mayor) have been named as suspects, along with a host of political cronies and the project’s developers.

The affair has been described as the biggest corruption scandal in the Israel’s history, and the country’s National Fraud Squad is reportedly focusing exclusively on it, with all other investigations put on hold.

Planning Reform in Doubt

The scandal, which has exposed the weaknesses of Israel’s planning system for all to see, broke at a particularly inconvenient time for current PM Benjamin Netanyahu, whose attempt to push through an already controversial reform of the planning system no longer seems like such a wise idea. Worse still, it turns out that one of the architects of Netanyahu’s reform apparently used to work for the developers of Holyland.

Critics of the PM’s reform, who claim it would benefit real estate developers at the expense of the public, have latched onto the Holyland scandal as proof that the planning system needs to be bolstered, not weakened. Last week, at an Earth Day ceremony, environmentalists sarcastically granted the PM a “black globe” for his attempts to promote the reform.

Netanyahu has responded by ordering a “reassessment of oversight mechanisms” in the new law, but opponents are calling on the government to scrap the current reform altogether and start formulating a new one – this time, with the participation of the public and the NGO community.

The ‘Holyland’ Effect

Meanwhile, in the wake of the scandal, exposing questionable real estate projects that fell through the cracks has become the new national sport (the local press has deemed this “the Holyland effect”).

In Jerusalem, a city councilor has asked the police to investigate how an apartment complex was approved in place of a soccer field, while its developers were exempted from paying tens of millions of dollars in betterment taxes. In Tel Aviv, a residents’ organization is appealing against the approval of a hi-rise planned for their neighborhood, claiming the building’s architect was implicated in the Holyland scandal. In Haifa, a city council member put together a list of seven shady real estate projects which he says must be stopped before they become local ‘Holylands’.

These efforts could turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg, as Israel’s big cities are littered with dubious real estate deals and seemingly arbitrary planning decisions – all of which are now potentially suspect as the next Holyland.

Originally posted on TreeHugger.com on April 25, 2010.

Calls for greater transparency at the Tel Aviv Municipality have met with limited success, while key parts of the city’s decision-making process remain concealed from the public.

City hall in Tel Aviv. (photo by Jesse Fox)

Mya, a 30 year old writer, lives near King George Street in central Tel Aviv. “It’s a narrow street, and it’s always backed up,” she says. “I work from home, and it’s difficult to concentrate with all the cars honking and buses and delivery trucks idling outside.”

“I think the city has started building a subway,” she adds. “That might help things, but I’m not really sure when it’s actually supposed to start running.”

However, despite her annoyance with the situation, Mya has never bothered to contact the municipality about it. “It just seems like a total waste of my time,” she explains, adding with a sigh that her trash cans keep disappearing too.

Theoretically, the body responsible for dealing with urban issues like transportation and garbage disposal is the city council. Consisting of democratically elected representatives of various communities, the council’s role is to govern the city. Yet, in Tel Aviv, this is not necessarily the case.

“The way that the mayor has engineered matters, the city council has no role at all in determining what the city does and how it does it,” says Dr. Noah Efron, a member of the city council since late 2008.

In his year and a half serving on the council, says Dr. Efron, a professor of history and philosophy at Bar Ilan University, “not a single policy or ordinance proposed by a city council member has been brought up for debate, much less approved.”

Dr. Efron represents Ir Likulanu (City for All), an ideological political movement that has had an adversarial relationship with Mayor Huldai since winning five seats on the council in the last local elections.

But it isn’t only members of the municipal opposition that would like to see a more democratic process in the city council. Says Reuven Ladianski, a city councilor and member of Mayor Ron Huldai’s coalition, “The fact that so many motions raised in the city council are simply transferred to the various municipal committees without discussion undermines the city council, to the point where it becomes almost irrelevant.”

The general public, for its part, no longer bothers to attend council meetings. This was not always the case. Following the 2008 elections, which swept a number of fresh faces onto the council, a rowdy and energetic crowd regularly packed the isles. Since then, however, the enthusiasm seems to have worn off. In 2010, city council meetings draw an audience of barely a dozen or so spectators, mostly local bloggers, journalists and political activists.

With a low hum of chatter emanating from both the council and the audience, meetings are conducted in technical and legal language that spectators often find bewildering. Council members frequently slip out for cigarette breaks, and even the mayor himself often gets up and simply walks out of the room, mainly when members of the opposition get up to speak.

A meeting of the Tel Aviv city council. (photo by Jesse Fox)

“Our job is to translate everything that happens there into something that the residents of the city can understand,” says Tamar Neugarten of Council Watch (mishmar hamoatza), an organization that monitors city council meetings. “That means separating the important from the unimportant, reading the documents and breaking through the legalese.”

Council Watch, a project of the Society for the Protection of Nature’s Tel Aviv Green Forum, recently opened a new blog, where it posts summaries of city council meetings and analysis of municipal decisions, including those of the city’s urban planning committee.

“These are important public bodies,” Neugarten insists, “and they should be transparent, along with dozens of other municipal committees that are not open to the public. But the truth is that the mayor manages everything behind closed doors. In Tel Aviv, the real policy-making is done by the Management Committee.”

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The Management Committee (va’adat hahanhala) is a body chaired by the mayor. Its members include deputy mayors, members of the coalition, and a handful of powerful senior officials. Although little is known about its workings, the committee is considered the real decision-making body in the municipality, sort of a shadow city council.

On its blog, Council Watch writes: “The Management Committee was set up based on the Municipalities Ordinance, which defines it this way: ‘The council may choose from among its members a permanent Management Committee to advise the mayor with regard to carrying out his duty, and serve as a committee in any matter that is not the authority of another committee, permanent or temporary.’”

In reality, claims Council Watch, the Management Committee has largely become the body that determines municipal policy de facto, effectively superseding the city council. However, unlike the city council, the Management Committee does not publish its discussions, and its meetings are closed to the public, opposition parties and the media.

“The Management Committee publishes nothing,” says Neugarten. “We do not know when it meets, what issues it discusses or who is invited to speak at its meetings.” In this way, she says, important decisions are made without transparency, and without the possibility to hold politicians accountable.

According to Dr. Yishai Blank, a law professor at Tel Aviv University, the tendency to hold important policy discussions in closed committees, instead of on the city council, reflects a will to weaken opposition parties, while deflecting public criticism.

“Municipal committees are supposed to be the local version of parliamentary committees, like those in the Knesset,” explains Dr. Blank. “Their job is to hold in-depth discussions and develop municipal bylaws, but also to make sure that the leadership carries out the will of the city council.”

The problem, he explains, is that city councils in Israel have chronically weak oppositions. “This is especially conspicuous in Tel Aviv, where for years there was no significant opposition in the city council, which allowed the mayor to function virtually unchecked.”

“Now that we are seeing the development of a new opposition,” he says, “it would be proper to invite members of the opposition to participate in Management Committee meetings as well, so that the body is reflective of the entire city council.”

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A hint as to the character of Management Committee discussions was provided earlier this year, in an article by Yoav Zeitun on internet site Ynet. The committee was reportedly discussing a proposal to grant residential parking permits to young people who live in Tel Aviv, but whose cars are registered in other cities (under their parents’ names).

Huldai, according to the article, opposed the idea, and began to raise his voice, yelling sarcastic and vulgar remarks that embarrassed committee members. He was eventually convinced to support the idea, however, and later apologized to the committee, explaining that he simply got carried away with enthusiasm.

The secrecy surrounding the Management Committee may also be concealing a lackadaisical organizational culture, in which meetings are held at irregular intervals and pressing issues wait in line for months before being brought up for discussion.

The Management Committee has been criticized as a sort of municipal “black hole,” into which motions from the city council and municipal committees tend to disappear for an extended period of time. Says Tamar Neugarten: “We know from comments by city council members that the Management Committee has a huge backlog of issues up for discussion, due to the fact that it doesn’t meet often enough.”

This creates a situation in which important decisions languish for months while waiting for the Management Committee’s approval. This is apparently what happened to a motion submitted by Pe’er Visner of the Green Party, which proposed granting children free entrance to the city’s museums.The proposal, submitted in July of 2008, was finally approved this month, nine months later, by the Management Committee.

Reuven Ladianski of Latet Lichyot is a member of the Management Committee, which he describes as a forum that discusses both motions and recommendations that rise from the city council and the municipal committees, and policy proposals that come down from the mayor and senior officials.

He confirms that there is a backlog, adding that during his first year in office, the Management Committee convened only about once every two months. Lately, however, he says that the body has begun meeting more frequently, approximately once every two or three weeks. The change is apparently due to pressure from the media and city council members.

“It makes no sense that the body that effectively runs the city should meet only once every few months,” says Ladianski. He also believes that the workings of the Management Committee should be made more transparent, even suggesting that its decisions be brought before the city council for discussion.

“Aside from certain issues which might be considered especially sensitive,” he says, “I don’t see a reason why the Management Committee’s discussions should not be published.”

Adds Efron: “If city council members were truly able to represent the people that voted them into office, the city would look very different.  There would be real efforts to keep housing affordable and air breathable.  Schools in the south of the city would get more money and resources.  The agenda of the city would look radically different, and better, than it does today.”

In response to claims raised in this article, the Tel Aviv Municipality issued the following response: “First, it should be emphasized that Management Committee meetings do not take place in the dark, as is implied, but are work meetings that are conducted in accordance with the law, with their discussions recorded and decisions publicized in an orderly manner. Any citizen, including city council members and members of the opposition, may review the minutes of the meetings.”

“In addition, it should be noted that, contrary to claims, a majority of coalition members are of the opinion that discussions in the Management Committee are much more effective and efficient than plenary discussions in the city council, especially regarding issues that require a long and thorough discussion that allows for input from professionals. Moreover, every operative decision that is approved in the Management Committee is eventually brought up for approval by the city council.”

“It should be understood that with the scope of activity required in a city like Tel Aviv – Jaffa, most decisions reach the city council after having been processed and discussed at the professional level and in the relevant committees.”

Regarding the Management Committee’s backlog, the Tel Aviv Municipality told Metro: “Every motion that is transferred to the Management Committee will be brought up for discussion. In the case that a backlog is created, additional meetings are scheduled, as directed by the mayor. It should also be noted that many times discussions are postponed on the request of those who submitted the motion.”

Update: According to Ha’aretz commentator Ze’ev Segal, Israel’s Justice Ministry is attempting to secure cabinet approval for the creation of a new unit that would enforce the concept of freedom of information vis a vis public authorities. Segal suggests that Israel follow the example of US President Obama, who on his second day in office, issued an “open government directive” ordering all government authorities to publish information online about their activities in an open and accessible way.

This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post’s “Metro” magazine on April 30, 2010 (click here for a pdf of the print version, here for online version).

Israel readies to meet Copenhagen climate change goals.

Tel Aviv’s Reading power plant. Built in the 1930′s, it was recently converted to burn natural gas instead of crude oil. (photo by Daniel Cherrin)

In a sign that it is beginning to take climate change more seriously, Israel has appointed a high-level body to suggest policies for reducing the country’s carbon emissions. The body, an inter-ministerial committee composed of senior representatives of various government ministries, was set up this month by a government decision. Its recommendations will be presented to the government in October, ahead of the next UN climate summit in Mexico City.

While local environmentalists have been pushing the government to adopt greener policies for years (with limited success), the government’s newfound enthusiasm for climate change policies is apparently the result of external pressure, namely the recent Copenhagen climate summit and the environmental requirements of the OECD, which Israel seeks to join.

Israel committed to a 20% reduction (below business as usual) in carbon emissions by 2020 last year in Copenhagen. A tiny country, Israel’s contribution to climate change is negligible compared to the big polluters, but, left unchecked, its emissions are set to double by 2030.

The committee’s work will likely build on research done by the international consulting firm McKinsey. In a report commissioned by the Environmental Protection Ministry and presented to the government in November 2009, McKinsey emphasized the economic benefits of reducing emissions.

The report’s recommendations (which environmentalists have described as under-ambitious) include setting up a network of electric cars, increasing renewable energy production (mainly from wind and the sun), converting power plants to cleaner-burning fuels and building more energy-efficient buildings.

While an inter-ministerial committee is a clear sign that the government intends to take action, it is worth noting that a similar committee, which operated between 1996 and 2004, was dissolved without having presented any recommendations.

Meanwhile, the government is promoting a plan for reforming the statutory planning system, which environmentalists allege would have severe social and environmental repercussions.  The reform, essentially a new law replacing the old planning law (which was passed in 1965), is moving quickly through the Knesset, despite overwhelming opposition from diverse sectors of society and a recommendation by the High Court to allow more time for public debate.

The reform is one of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s flagship policies, after having already instituted far-reaching and controversial changes to the country’s land ownership system and a half-baked transportation reform.

Originally published on TreeHugger.com on March 21, 2010.

A review of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier.

Flooding in Gonaives, Haiti after Tropical Storm Hanna in 2008. (photo by Reuters, via The Big Picture)

Until the recent earthquake, Haiti was not the kind of place whose turmoils were featured on the evening news. I vaguely remember the only time I saw Haiti on CNN pre-quake, back in 2004. The image was of American Marines invading the country, after its elected President had been flown off the island on a US airplane. Little explanation was given – Haiti was just another failed state, which Uncle Sam had to set straight every now and then.

I read Amy Wilentz’s book The Rainy Season, a first-hand account of Haiti’s transition from dictatorship to something approaching democracy in the late eighties, before the recent earthquake. Before reading it, I knew next to nothing about Haiti. But when the quake hit in January, killing an untold number of Haitians and leaving a million homeless, it felt like a terminal blow to an old, ailing friend.

Two hundred years after becoming the first Latin American country to throw off the burden of colonialism, Haiti is still the poorest country in the hemisphere. After being forced to pay France, its former colonial master, massive compensation for profits lost from the slave trade, it came under the influence of the United States, which occupied the country for almost twenty years in the early part of the last century. Then came the brutal Duvalier dictatorship, which used death squads called Tonton Macoutes to cement its iron rule.

Wilentz’s narrative takes up the story on the tail end of the Duvalier era, when the dictatorship was already on its way out. Arriving on the scene as a young journalist, Wilentz would experience several years of push and pull between an emerging popular movement for democracy on the one side, and the forces allied with the old regime on the other.

The Rainy Season was published in 1989. It is a modest book and, as far as I know, was never a best seller. I got my copy off the shelves of a used book store. After that it sat on a bookshelf in my parents’ house for a couple of years until I eventually picked it up again, intrigued by the cover. Once I picked it up, it couldn’t put it down.

A blurb on the back cover from Time Magazine describes the book as “history’s first draft,” a description which pretty much captures its essence. Not quite a novel, not quite journalism, it does somehow manage to bring together several genres in a very readable, supremely informative and richly detailed account of life in Haiti in the late 1980’s.

Wilentz does not pretend that she has all the answers. As a single white woman from New York, she had little chance of blending into the crowd in Haiti, and she does not try. She is neither scholar, nor participant, but plays the part of the sophisticated observer with great skill. Through the people she meets, interviews and befriends, the reader experiences on a personal level the momentous events that rocked the country during those years.

Though not an expressly political work, it is clear that the author brings with her a well-formed, sophisticated worldview, and the rare ability to describe the tragic absurdity of the political game in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere – all the while retaining the ability to humanize even the country’s (often loathsome) politicians.

Wilenz is not afraid to challenge powerful people and institutions, recounting their posh dinner parties in detail and examining the minutiae of their flamboyant personal lives. Nor does she let the poorest peasant off the hook – describing his weaknesses and shortcomings with equal precision. She moves between the worlds of the rich and the poor, separated by a chasm of class bias and fear, with ease.

The book’s hero, inevitably, is Jean Bertrand Aristide. At the time a dissident priest, Aristide would eventually rule the country – twice elected, twice overthrown in coups d’etat.

Wilenz has a close relationship with Aristide, whose fiery political rhetoric, inspired by liberation theology, earns him the undying support of the people. For the regime, however, as well as the Church hierarchy, Aristide is a dangerous dissident and trouble maker.

To Wilentz, Aristide is a heroic, though ultimately fallible, figure, who wields his words against the powerful like a sharpened knife. Wilentz spends a considerable amount of time hanging around Aristide’s church, making friends with a gang of street boys adopted by the priest and reporting on his every move.

An entire chapter of the book deals with the country’s environmental collapse. In the eighties, Haitians’ preference for cooking with charcoal had already led to massive deforestation. This in turn made rural life all but unbearable, forcing masses of poor peasants to migrate to cities. Today, a generation later, those same rural migrants are choosing to return to the countryside, fleeing the devastation in Port-au-Prince.

What stands out more than anything else in the narrative is the human solidarity with which the author approaches her experiences in such a foreign land. Wilentz describes fantastic situations: voodoo ceremonies in the countryside, civil upheaval in the wake of collapsing regimes, poverty so grinding that people crowd into houses so small they have to take turns sleeping at night, sometimes standing up. However, she is neither judgmental nor sentimental, and takes every situation, no matter how absurd, in stride. The book radiates soul and humanity.

Wilentz doesn’t give away much about herself. She’s a New Yorker, a journalist who lived in Haiti for three years. That much she tells us. But other details are left unclear. The book ends with her return to New York, which she describes sparingly. The sense of stopping to rest, after the cascading narrative that fills most of the book, is arresting.

After writing the book, Wilentz went on to become the Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker, and an editor at The Nation. Recently, with post-quake Haiti becoming a cause célèbre and the focus of international development efforts, Wilentz has had quite a lot to say about the reconstruction efforts, offering that same fresh perspective two decades after The Rainy Season, in publications like The Nation, The HuffPost and The New York Times.

It took me a long time to read this book, putting it down and picking it back up at intervals. Much of it reads like daily journal entries – ongoing narratives of random experiences and encounters. While this kind of writing does provide an incredible window into the life of an entire range of people, at times I wished that the book was a bit more concise. After finishing the book, I later re-read it in a single week. Reading it all at once, it was easier to follow the book’s complex and layered plot.

I strongly recommend The Rainy Season to anyone who is interested in Haiti, what it was twenty years ago, and where it is headed today.

By Gerard Heumann

Fed by self-styled experts, public ignorance, manipulative marketing and naked greed, the fashion of high-rise, luxury apartment buildings is rapidly transforming the character of many cities across the country. Part of a nationwide trend of anti-urban, antisocial building projects of every type, these towers accurately reflect today’s Israel, which is concerned less with a good society and more with the good life – or at least with what many consider the good life to be. If architecture can be said to be a faithful reflection of the society it serves, then clearly class and age distinctions are on the increase now, rather than being broken down.

The rich have always sought ways to stand out. Building types symbolize social status. Living high above one’s neighbors, separate and superior, seems to answer their need. But as questions of design are little understood by even the most educated and sophisticated members of the general public, it’s hardly surprising that they often end up paying a great deal for an inferior product. The ignorance about design standards among those outside the architectural profession has naturally adversely affected the quality of construction work in many cases.

The negative impacts of isolated, free-standing residential towers are many and severe. Set back from the street and self-contained, they kill the life of the surrounding neighborhood. The space around or enclosed by high-rises is often a depressing no-man’s land, which in turn heightens security concerns. The buildings’ controlled, guarded entrances deter even invited guests. For their residents, the commute to work is often a matter of taking the elevator to the underground parking garage, driving to the office, returning in the evening to the garage and going back up in the elevator to one’s apartment, with hardly any opportunity for social contact. And even were young couples able to afford these apartments, they would quickly discover the unsuitability of such a setting for raising children.

Large-scale projects incorporating several towers – usually identical, like photocopies of one another – are commonplace today, and have proven especially destructive. The Holyland Park project, in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, approved in the face of thousands of objections, dwarfs not only its neighbors but the very hilltop it stands upon.

One argument cited frequently in support of high-rises is that they enable the construction of more residential units on less land. This is a myth. In fact there is no connection between building height and density. Structures of six or seven stories can meet the demands for built-up areas and for apartments just as well as an 18-story tower that requires major setbacks. To give an extreme example: Low-rise, high-density housing that is no more than four stories high, such as the brilliant project designed by architect Louis Sauer at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, is a solution that has never been attempted in Israel.

And yet the fact remains: A great many more towers are on their way. If we must have them, is there not a better way to design them, one that would allow their full integration into the existing urban fabric? In terms of the physical environment, one viable option is to combine high and low structures. This would facilitate the creation of a respectful relationship with existing adjacent (low and moderately high) buildings, while creating well-defined, meaningful, public and private open spaces. One successful example of this design strategy is the Lev Ha’ir project in central Tel Aviv, designed by Israel Prize-winning architect Ada Karmi-Melamede. Where several towers are required, each should be designed individually, in response to its unique physical setting and providing accents to an ordered, varied and harmonious architectural composition.

Residential high-rises need not be overbearing, pretentious or repetitive: Their placement should be carefully considered, always within the framework of a comprehensive policy rather than on a piecemeal, site-by-site basis. To preserve a human scale, lower levels – up to tree height – must be treated with sensitivity. Standing out visually carries responsibilities: towers must be of high architectural quality. Needless to say, this is very rarely the case.

But the problem is not just an environmental one. Luxury residential towers clearly segregate rich and poor, young and old, making it impossible for authentic community bonds to be formed. Simply stated, they help destroy social fabric. And it is quite clear that social integration is not among the goals of building developers. Their interests lie mainly in maximum profit in the short term. Social integration demands a full range of housing types, workplaces and shops located near each other, as well as well-placed public buildings – symbols of community identity – and well-defined squares and parks. Market forces cannot be the governing organizer of urban life. Planning and building need enlightened, well-informed governance. This is a critical time.

Gerard Heumann is an architect and town planner in Jerusalem.

After over two years of study and deliberation – and rising rents – the city finally has a plan.

Good news this week for everyone who’s been feeling uneasy about the spiraling cost of housing in Tel Aviv – after over two years of study and deliberation, the Tel Aviv Municipality has approved a plan to create affordable housing units in the city.

While this does not necessarily mean that rents will fall any time soon, it does mean that a supply of below market value rental apartments will gradually come into existence within Tel Aviv’s municipal borders over the next several years. By approving the plan, Tel Aviv becomes the first Israeli city to come up with a coherent affordable housing strategy – although several other cities, notably Jerusalem, are working on plans of their own.

The plan was drawn up by a special commission, whose advisory team was led by Dr. Emily Silverman, an urban planner and a researcher at the Technion. Sounding less enthusiastic than one might expect, Dr. Silverman reacted to the decision this week on the Coalition for Affordable Housing in Israel’s Hebrew-language blog.

“It isn’t an excellent plan, and perhaps not even an especially good plan,” she writes. “And I say this as the person who headed the plan’s advisory team.”

She continues: “The mandate that was given to us was defined as the creation of a workable solution. Not perfect, not grandiose, not necessarily original or a breakthrough. Not a solution based on significant constitutional changes or one that would require financial support. Rather, a solution that could be put into place now, as a first step in Israel. With all of the limitations, shortcomings and opportunities that exist here today.”

Some details about the plan:

The program will benefit mainly young, working couples with children. According to the commission’s report, 70% of new affordable housing units will be allocated to young families making up to NIS 12,000/month (average wages in Israel, equivalent to around $3,200). Rents would be approximately NIS 2,800 per couple, or no more than 25% of a family’s monthly income.

The program will focus mainly on providing long-term rental apartments. On city-owned land zoned for housing, new buildings will be required to include up to 25% affordable rental units. The city will also offer scholarships to students who are willing to live in run-down southern neighborhoods, like Neve Sha’anan.

Regarding another of the commission’s recommendations – that developers be granted increased building rights in exchange for agreeing to build affordable rental units – the municipality will have to develop new legal tools before anything like this can be implemented.

Two pilot projects were also announced: one containing 100 apartments on a 4 dunam city-owned plot in the southern Shapira neighborhood, and another containing around 50 units near Kikar Hamedina in the northern part of the city.

Eligibility criteria for the program have not yet been determined, but will likely require at least 3 years previous residency in the city, and possibly also completion of compulsory army service.

The commission’s report also recommended setting up a forum to address the unique housing situation faced by the Arab community in Jaffa, as well as finding specific planning solutions for that community. That forum has already begun to meet, while a number of other organizations are working on a plan to set up a community development corporation (CDC) in Jaffa.

The plan offers no solutions for the city’s low-income residents, claiming they are the responsibility of the state’s housing agencies.

The commission which formulated the plan was set up in late 2007, after a sharp rise in rents across the city led to public pressure for the municipality to step in with some form of regulation. The issue featured prominently in the run-up to the November 2008 local elections. In May 2009, the city announced that the commission had officially finished its work.

The long delay between that announcement and the formal approval of the plan led many to suspect that the city was dragging its feet, or as Prof. Noah Efron of Ir Lekulanu (City for All), the largest municipal opposition party, told me last year: “Nobody within the municipality wants to advance it, so it’s simply not being advanced.”

The decision to approve the plan this week was made by a controversial municipal entity called va’adat hahanhala (“the executive committee”). One of the most powerful bodies in the municipality, the committee is staffed by the mayor and members of his coalition, along with senior municipality officials. City council members who are not part of the mayor’s coalition, as well as the press and the public, are not allowed access to the committee’s meetings.

Following its approval, the plan will be implemented by a municipal committee headed by city council member Arnon Giladi. The principles contained in the plan will also be integrated into Tel Aviv’s new Urban Master Plan, which is currently being formulated.

Coverage of the 2010 Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Conference.

Israel’s Solar Industry Trying to Regain its Edge TreeHugger.com, Feb. 17: Half a century ago, Israel was a world leader in renewable energy. Today, after years of dragging its feet, the industry is trying to regain its former glory.

Israel, Egypt Considering Joint Solar Energy Project in Sinai GreenProphet.com, Feb. 18: According to the plan, Israel would supply the technology, with Egypt supplying the land required for the project.

Spearheading an Energy Revolution TreeHugger.com, Feb. 21: How a remote and sparely populated region is positioning itself on the forefront of Israel’s resurgent green wave.

Solar-Powered Camels and More From Israel Renewable Energy Conference (slideshow) TreeHugger.com, Feb. 23

Will Solar Panels Cover Israel’s Last Open Spaces? GreenProphet.com, Feb. 23: A conflict may be brewing between an emerging renewable energy industry and environmentalists over land preservation in Israel. The heart of the controversy has to do with where to put the massive solar installations that are expected to be built in the arid Negev and Arava regions in the south of the country.

Can Israel’s Wind Power Sector Compete with Solar? GreenProphet.com, Feb. 28: In Israel, renewable energy has become almost synonymous with solar energy in its various forms. But what about that other renewable resource – the wind?

A meeting of the Tel Aviv city council fails to inspire.

A sparsely attended city council meeting. A dull public process bodes ill for any city.

The first thing you notice about a city council meeting in Tel Aviv is the theatrics. The exaggerated security arrangements, the grandstanding of council members, the roped-off area reserved for municipal workers (though few bother to attend.) There are speeches and votes, and sometimes (quite often actually) one of the councilors yells something out of turn. The mayor even gets a bit worked up from time to time.

But once you get past that, it dawns on you that not much is really going on here. Everyone seems to be merely going through the motions. Both in the audience and on the council, there’s a constant hum of chatter, as if no one is really paying attention. It’s hard to escape the impression that the real nuts and bolts of municipal politics, if they indeed exist in this city, are not happening here.

No real debate occurs in city council meetings. There is a coalition and an opposition, and a dialog of the deaf between them. The coalition, loyal to the mayor, always gets its motions passed. The opposition, ardent and vocal though it may be, is too weak to vote anything down.

Opposition motions are almost never passed, sometimes rejected, and often simply removed (by vote) from the council’s agenda or transfered to internal municipal committees (where their fate is unclear). Whenever someone from the opposition begins speaking, the mayor gets up and wanders out of the room.

Other times the council’s legal advisor, whose seat is raised slightly above those of the council members, patiently explains that the council has no “legal authority” to address certain issues. When this happens, it makes no difference what the motion was, because the discussion turns to questions of authority and jurisdiction. Watching a political body argue with itself about whether or not it has the authority to deal with an issue can only be described as pathetic.

No epic urban policy dilemmas are fleshed out in this forum. There are no probing, soul-searching policy discussions of, say, public transportation, affordable housing or budgetary issues. All of those motions are quickly transfered to the internal committees, where they can be discussed beyond the gaze of the public, and in a forum where the opposition is all but powerless to exert any influence.

In any case, it’s clear to all that the real decision-making is happening elsewhere.

Perhaps most inexcusable is the way the council treats its citizens. The people of Tel Aviv, whose interests the mayor and council members ostensibly are there to represent, are treated like a nuisance. Prohibited from sitting in the front rows, not allowed to take an active part in the meetings, kept in the dark regarding the context of many of the discussions, the concerned citizen could be forgiven for thinking that he is an unwanted guest in his city’s parliament.

Perhaps this is the reason why so few bother to come observe these meetings. This week, the number of people in the audience was barely greater than the number of politicians sitting on the council. Most of those who do bother to show up are hardcore political activists, urban bloggers and democracy watchdogs. But, if you ask them, even they will give you a cynical answer about what brings them there. “The whole thing’s a farce,” one of them told me.

It wasn’t always like this. Just over a year ago, in the wake of the last municipal elections, the city council meetings were bursting with energy. Young people came out to heckle for newly formed parties, and suddenly it seemed as if the specter of accountability would spur the city’s politicians into action. Local politics, for a moment, was not only interesting, but even cool.

For whatever reason, formal politics in Tel Aviv has lost its sparkle. The energy is gone, along with the promise of better urban policy. The powers that be are free to promote their agenda, without feeling like they owe anyone any answers. Perhaps for them, a dull civic sphere is an accomplishment. But for the people of the city, it bodes only ill.