Jerusalem is not just another city that illustrates the conflict between interests of professional planners and competing political perspectives. It is the Holy City, with a history of some 3,000 years. Moreover, numerous layers of historical remains have importance for intense and competitive religious and national interests. Israelis claim it as the capital of their country, and Palestinians want it--or part of it--as the capital of their not yet created state.Jerusalem is also a place where more than 700,000 people live, and the center of a metropolitan area with more than twice that number. Along with religious and national interests, there are the customary conflicts between what various groups--property developers, politicians, professional planners, neighborhood residents, and environmental activists--want to do with the land. Politics and Planning in the Holy City describes and analyzes the tensions between politics and planning.The authors tackle the economic, social, and political contexts that shape conflicts. Such problems include deciding what should be called Jerusalem and difficulties surrounding the construction of a defense barrier to protect Israelis from Palestinian terrorists--in the framework of a multicultural city where 30 to 40 percent of its residents are Palestinians. There is dissent over locating rail lines to the city, as some interests want them here, there, or nowhere, and over building a light rail line within a city already crowded and beset with conflicting interests. The creation of a football stadium is another venue for conflict, as many religious Jews view sports as a threat to their way of life.Issues include locating a site for housing new immigrants, as few Jerusalemites want large numbers of newcomers in their neighborhoods, and deciding which sites merit preservation in a city with many deserving candidates, but severely limited resources. This volume will attract urban specialists as well as those concerned with larger p

The Global City & the Holy City explores the local embodied knowledge of women and men of different national, cultural and ethnic identities and age groups, living in London and Jerusalem. Their narratives focus on the three main concepts of Comfort, Belonging and Commitment to the various spaces in which they live. By deconstructing the meanings of these three notions and analyzing their expression in cognitive temporal maps, The Global City & The Holy City examines the practicalities of incorporating this kind of local embodied knowledge into the professional planning and management of cities in the age of globalization.

Shaping Jerusalem: Spatial planning, politics and the conflict focuses on a hidden facet of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the relentless reshaping of the Holy City by the Israeli authorities through urban policies, spatial plans, infrastructural and architectural projects, land use and building regulations. From a political point of view, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may appear to be at an impasse; however, it is precisely by looking at the city’s physical space that one can perceive that a war of cement and stone is under way. Many books have been written on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem; some of them have focused on the urban fabric; Shaping Jerusalem uniquely discusses the role of Israeli spatial actions within the conflict. It argues that Israel’s main political objective – control over the whole city – is ordinarily and silently pursued through physical devices which permanently modify the territory and the urban fabric. Relying on strong empirical evidence and data through the analysis of statistical data, official policies, urban projects, and laws, author Francesco Chiodelli substantiates the political discussion with facts and figures about the current territorial situation of the city, and about the Israeli policies implemented in the city in the past six decades.

This balanced and comprehensive text explores Israeli government and politics from both institutional and behavioral perspectives. After briefly discussing Israel’s history and the early development of the state, Gregory Mahler then examines the social, religious, economic, cultural, and military contexts within which Israeli politics takes place. He makes special note of Israel’s geopolitical situation of sharing borders with, and being proximate to, several hostile Arab nations. The book explains the operation of political institutions and behavior in Israeli domestic politics, including the constitutional system and ideology, parliamentary government, the prime minister and the Knesset, political parties and interest groups, the electoral process and voting behavior, and the machinery of government. Mahler also considers Israel’s foreign policy setting and apparatus, the Palestinians and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the particularly sensitive questions of Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement movement, and the Middle East peace process overall. This clear and concise text provides an invaluable starting point for all readers needing a cogent introduction to Israel today.

-- Michael C. Hudson, Georgetown University