Marginal Populations and Urban Identity in Time of Emergency: The Case of the 1936 Refugees in Tel Aviv

Planning allocations and the stubborn north–south divide in Tel Aviv–Jaffa

“…Until 1948, these neighborhoods received limited municipal services from either Tel Aviv or Jaffa. In addition, with the growing national tensions, 4 the stigma toward communities living on "the other side of the railroad" 5 grew, and they were repeatedly mentioned in Tel Aviv's municipal publications as "unmodern" and even as a threat to the well-planned "European" city (Golan, 2010;Marom, 2009;Razi, 2009). Planners in both Tel Aviv and Jaffa then suggested full clearance and re-use for industry of residential areas along the border and the railroad belt.…”

“…6 In line with Stone's model, we thus see that the neighborhoods along the southern border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa were considered to be a "hopeless cause" for normative residential development even back then (Stone, 1993, p. 11). A busy central bus station was planned and opened in the blue collar neighborhood of Neve Sha'anan, and while industry was lining up along the main roads, it further isolated southern residents from the urban bourgeoisie (Carmon, 1997;Golan, 2010;Gonen, 1969;Marom, 2009;Razi, 2009). Yet, the poorer south grew in the postindependence years.…”

“…These two reasons thus determined Tel Aviv's first main land acquisitions and settlement to the north. Over the next decades, as major waves of Jewish immigration from Europe propelled a massive process of urbanization in Tel Aviv, the city council issued several plans assigning the development of spacious residential areas with modernistic zoning codes to the north and commerce or industry along the railroad and to its south, near Jaffa (Golan, 2010;Gonen, 1969;Hatuka & Kallus, 2006;Margalit, 2009;Marom, 2009Marom, , 2013. By authorizing the northern plans, the British government approved the widening of the municipal border to incorporate Arab villages then located north and northeast of Tel Aviv (LeVine, 1998, 2007Margalit, 2013).…”

‘There are Really Two Cities Here’: Fragmented Urban Citizenship In Tel Aviv

“…Enhanced migration throughout the 1930s pushed many destitute newcomers further beyond the southern and eastern borders, where residential units--mostly small apartments, crowded shacks or family row houses-lay in close proximity with light industry. By the early 1940s, following regional plans in both cities, the border areas witnessed intensified construction of high-density resi den tial projects alongside the emergence of a major industrial strip (Gonen, 1972;Schnell, 2009), which further isolated southern communities from the urban core's more affluent concentrations (Carmon, 1997;Marom, 2009;Razi, 2009;Golan, 2010). It is against this background that the growth of HaTikva and Shapira, the residential neighborhoods that currently host the majority of asylum seekers, took place.…”

“… Mizrahim comprised only 22% of the total population of Tel Aviv (Golan, ), while their share in southern neighborhoods is estimated to have exceeded 50%. …”