In an article entitled Transition Towns or Bright Green Cities?, Alex Steffen of Worldchanging.com takes a critical look at the popular Transition Towns movement, which attempts to prepare communities for the challenges they face due to peak oil and climate change.

But what I found fascinating, and indeed inspiring, about his piece were his thoughts on transforming local politics.

What Steffen proposes is a new way of looking at civic engagement, minus the standard cynicism and defeatism. “Cynicism is obedience,” he writes, while public processes are too often crafted to sap the will of the public to engage. Such processes, he says, which attempt to deter citizen participation with the promise of boredom, should be viewed with “deep distrust.”

Below, excerpts from Steffen’s piece. Well worth reading:

What can any of us do in the face of planetary catastrophe?

Staring into the ecological abyss, it’s easy to feel small and unimportant. Edward Abbey wrote truly, “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” But it’s often hard to see how any actions we might actually take, as individuals, will have any meaningful effect, whatsoever: leaving aside the pablum about small steps and each doing our part, we all know in our hearts that taking out the recycling will not do much to slow the melting of Greenland…

What we need is a movement of local efforts aimed at changing things that matter at scales that matter, based on the politics of optimism. The first step in those efforts is to stop seeing the systems we depend on as out of our control. They aren’t, and that we’re so convinced they are is a testament to the dedication of the powers that be to shoo us away from interfering in their profits.

Cynicism, boredom and fear are their tools. They reinforce, at every opportunity, the idea that government is broken, that civic engagement is for dupes, that real rebellion involves shutting up, making money and spending it. They craft public process to sap the will of the public to engage: as Richard White writes, bureaucracies use boredom the way a skunk uses smell. They make an effort to keep us in a state of constant economic and social anxiety undermining our willingness to connect with and trust each other. Whether these tools are used consciously or unconsciously is completely beside the point — you can apply whatever degree or lack of conspiracy theory you like: the effects are observable, and well-documented.

The great secret here is that we are more powerful than any of us usually admits. While it is true that organized greed beats unorganized democracy every time, it’s also true that organized, educated, passionate democracy is the most powerful political force ever seen, and we live amidst an exploding proliferation of tools for organizing our communities, sharing our knowledge and connecting our passions.

What is more, we live in a time where transparency and collaborative insight give ad hoc groups the capacity to understand the vast, complex systems we depend on, but which the powers that be have cloaked in layers of exclusionary expertise, regulation and jargon. We are not only capable of understanding the systems around us, but of imagining and inventing their replacements, and mobilizing the constituency to make that happen…

What would it take to design a movement that actually changed what needs to be changed? How can we design a networked movement that aims to forestall and undo catastrophe, by building bright green regions and sharing innovation?

Here are a few of the larger design challenges involved:

• Finding places where a system has been draped in complexity, and revealing it in clear, beautiful, interesting ways. How things work is of inherent interest to many people. How can we reveal the workings of the systems around them in ways that help them see the usefulness of change?

• Making public life exciting where boredom has dampened people’s enthusiasm, if not simply driven them completely out of civic involvement. How can we simultaneously reject needless process in favor of quick, transparent and measured decisions and enliven participation? Being part of democracy ought to feel exciting, and invigorating: we should view every part of it that’s boring with deep mistrust.

• Launching a counter-attack on pervasive cynicism and finding fresh ways to call it what it is: cynicism is obedience. The very origins of the word mean “like a dog.” Stripping cynicism of its rebelliousness, making it looks as entirely whipped an attitude as it is, is a huge step towards reclaiming the public realm. Indeed, I think we need to deploy our full battery of humorists, satirists and artists on looking at what part of us makes us so ready to accept the idea that all is sham and we’re beaten before we start.

• Reaching out to people have been made afraid of participation, and spreading enthusiasm and a delight in civic life. How can we make civic participation more welcoming, and jam the manufactured reactionary anger that conservatives use to gum up our public processes (through tea-bagging and astroturfing)?

• Reclaiming the media sphere by supporting local journalism that actually reveals, informs and educates. How can we develop means to support reporting, writing, filmmaking and public discussion that advances our understanding of what to do, leaving behind the tired debates of the last generation?

• Reinventing or replacing the kinds of civic institutions — the university departments, think tanks, research labs, planning agencies — that democracies need to make informed decisions, in the wake of 40 years of work by the right wing to either destroy these institutions or overwhelm them with new, better-funded ideologically-conservative versions.

• Diffusing innovation through our local businesses and industry groups. Unsustainable business is bad business, even in the fairly short run: sound economic strategy in times like ours is to get in the business of replacing the broken systems around us. How do we build local business cultures that support transformation as the opportunity it is?

• Above all else, reimagining the future. Since we can’t build what we can’t imagine, and visions of the future dominate our ability to understand the present, how can we embrace future-making tools to redefine the possible in our communities? Because the powers that be have one gigantic weakness: they offer us no future, none at all, and every time we shift the debate to be about where we’re going, we win.

We don’t yet know how to do all this, but we can iterate our way into it through experimentation, exploration and innovation, consciously practicing ally etiquette to link efforts across a spectrum of systems into a collaborative whole. Indeed, since the whole thing starts with vision, simply sharing our visions for what this looks like is a huge step in the right direction.

We don’t need to wait for some mythical cultural awakening, either. There are more than enough of us, already. In most cities around the world, a fraction of one percent of the citizens getting energized and turning out — using new tools to learn together, coordinate strategy and exert public pressure — would feel like a tsunami of democracy and creative engagement.

And hidden allies can be found everywhere. Public life is full of people who want to see change, but need political cover. Change agents await activation in our government agencies, businesses, schools, political parties and media. If we can begin to engage the systems in which they’ve been quietly laboring at the systems level, we can expect unseen helpers in unexpected places.

It’s time to make ourselves into the people who can do what’s needed. To fight the powers that be, we need to see ourselves as the powers that will be, building the future we want.

Scenes from a new film on post-Katrina New Orleans, which chronicles the city’s troubled attempts to deal with its destruction, while planning its reconstruction.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina dealt the city of New Orleans a near-fatal blow from which it has yet to recover. With entire neighborhoods underwater, communities suddenly finding themselves in exile and city services and infrastructure in disarray, the prospects for reconstruction looked bleak. Hundreds lost their lives in the disaster, while economic damaged was estimated to be over $100 billion.

Over four years later, a battle still rages in New Orleans over where, what and how to rebuild.

Producer and director Luisa Dantas has been following the reconstruction process on the ground in New Orleans since 2006. Working alongside local social justice and grassroots organizations, Dantas has pieced together a narrative about post-Katrina reality called “Land of Opportunity.”

From the website: “A feature-length film and multi-platform project, LAND OF OPPORTUNITY follows a diverse group of people in the early years of post-catastrophe New Orleans as they struggle with the most American of pursuits: seizing opportunity in the wake of tragedy. We get to know local and displaced residents, urban planners, immigrant laborers, and activists, as they try to build a better future for themselves and their families while restoring the “water-proof soul” of America.”

Land of Opportunity is scheduled to be released in 2010.

Check out the trailer:

More clips:

Sectioned Off from JoLu on Vimeo.

Out of Site from JoLu on Vimeo.

Deep Sixed from JoLu on Vimeo.

St. Joe (experimental short) from JoLu on Vimeo.

Jerusalem’s architectural heritage is in much better hands since new mayor Nir Barkat took the helm a year ago. Plans to destroy historic streets have been cancelled, and developers who demolish landmark buildings can now expect to be punished. Yet some parts of the Holy City are still threatened.

By Peggy Cidor, via The Jerusalem Post

During Hol Hamoed Succot, a resident of Motza found out that the municipality had approved the demolition of Steinberg House, the first house built in the village by its founders, which served as a winery. Itzik Shweky, the head of the Jerusalem district of the Council for Preservation of Heritage Sites, was the first person to be alerted by a neighbor. Shweky, though already used to this kind of emergency situation, was astonished this time. From that moment on, he became totally engaged in a race against the clock to save the historic building.

“That’s how it works here. Most of my time, I run to put out fires. It is Sisyphean and tough and despite all the improvements we see at the municipality, it’s still not enough. Preservation is still not to be taken for granted in Jerusalem,” says Shweky.

Almost a year after the election of Mayor Nir Barkat, most people involved in preservation issues agree that things are improving. After years of indifference shown by former mayors Ehud Olmert and Uri Lupolianski, a situation that resulted in many cases of demolition of architectural and historical treasures, a serious attempt at making a list of historic buildings is being made.

Architect and urban historian David Kroyanker once said that not everything should and could be protected and preserved, adding that urban processes must be allowed to run their natural course.

“The major question is what should be preserved and in what way. Do we have to preserve completely, preventing a natural process of urban growth? Or should we allow some partial preservation with adequate supplements?” asks Shweky.

In principle, the issue shouldn’t be too complicated. Experts should define what has to be preserved and how, and the authorities – like the municipality – should see that structures slated for preservation should not be harmed. “In principle,” says Shweky snidely. “In fact,” he elaborates, “it’s a daily struggle, and we don’t always succeed.”

Less than two months ago, an ad-hoc group of residents in the German Colony managed, with the support of the local neighborhood administration, to obtain the support of the mayor and his deputies to annul the plan to shut down the Smadar Theater and sell the plot to build a high-rise. More recently, another group of residents tried – and so far have succeeded – to prevent the closure of the Jerusalem Pool in the German Colony to turn it into a parking lot.

Residents, especially the middle and upper-middle classes, are well aware of their rights and of the possibility of opposing construction plans that do not fit the character of their neighborhood. At the municipality as well, the number of the environment- and preservation-minded is getting larger.

Since the last elections and the appointment of former head of the local branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel Naomi Tsur as deputy mayor, things are moving in the right direction. Three new committees relevant to environment and preservation issues have been formed: the Environment Committee, the Preservation Committee and the Urban Planning Committee. All three are headed by Tsur, who also created and headed the Coalition for a Sustainable Jerusalem for more than a decade.

Currently, any plan to build, renovate or add an extension to an existing building must pass through the Construction and Preservation committees, which check whether the building in question appears on one of several lists of sites slated for preservation. If it does, the committees must decide to what extent the building must be preserved. In some cases the landmark cannot be altered at all, in others the façade must be maintained and in still others, extensions may be added. The main concern is the compilation of a comprehensive list of historic buildings – as the current lists are incomplete – and the definitions of the parameters of the changes that will be permitted.

The new master plan for the city includes specific attention to preservation issues. The identification of the “historic city” in the different neighborhoods of Jerusalem, through a detailed program of localization of historic buildings and even of special trees, is in the process of registration and preservation. Although the plan is stuck at the moment at the Interior Ministry, which doesn’t like some of its aspects, preservation nonetheless has clearly become a major concern within the various authorities of the city.

“So basically, the whole issue is in good hands,” says Shweky. “But there is still so much to do. Things take so much time, while law-breakers keep on destroying our heritage. And also, it must be stated, not all the decisions of these committees match what we have in mind regarding new projects and construction in the city.”

The Knesset passed a bill in 1994 to create a statutory committee on the city council whose task would be to submit its professional recommendations for a preservation list to the district planning committee. The law adds that in cases of debates that are originally submitted at the district committee (and not handed over after a first debate at the local planning committee), an expert in the matter of preservation must be present. “This expert doesn’t have the right to vote, but his presence and his impact are quite meaningful, and he is part of the professional team of the committee,” says Tsur.

In the 1970s and ’80s, the municipality of Jerusalem created a list of buildings slated for preservation. A list compiled in 1984 contains 110 structures of historical, architectural and artistic value – among them the Schocken Library close to the Prime Minister’s Residence, and the main post office on Jaffa Road. Later, in 1989, others such as Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Yemin Moshe (including the old Sephardi synagogue), the Schneller Compound, the Anglican school on Rehov Hanevi’im and the Morasha neighborhood (Musrara) were added.

Between 1998 and 2002, a team of experts from the municipality and from the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies, under the direction of the city engineer, discussed the details of the list and all the additional structures included since. Still, according to Shweky, there are too many neighborhoods, such as Rehavia, Romema and Makor Baruch, that are not yet included nor preserved.

Besides all these, the situation in the Old City is alarming. According to the National Council for Preservation, despite the fact that it is a world heritage site, many places are not protected.

Upon taking office Barkat, who has been deeply involved with activities of the SPNI and residents for preservation issues, split the local planning committee in two: one for construction and one for preservation and construction.

“In the former city council, we often witnessed the absurd situation in which the head of the preservation committee, deputy mayor Yehoshua Pollack, approved a preservation plan and then rejected it the following day as head of the planning committee. This does not happen anymore, and this is not a trivial issue at all,” says Tsur.

Tsur and Shweky agree that the most important goal is to compile a comprehensive list of the buildings to be preserved. “The same law that required an expert as a consultant to the district committee also requires a detailed list of those buildings,” explains Tsur. “Not only the building but the different categories – what to preserve, what degree of preservation. There are cases in which you cannot touch a stone; in other cases, you can keep only the façade, while in others you may just add stories but keep the original building as is. This is a huge task to be undertaken. Our most optimistic estimation is that it will take about two years before such a list is ready to be used.”

Shweky points to Steinberg House in Motza as a good example of the situation. “A developer buys some property and submits a plan, according to the law, to construct a new building, and nobody discovered that he couldn’t just do what he wanted there, as it is a landmark building. Also because in this specific case, there was some misunderstanding. Motza became part of the planning and construction committee of Jerusalem some 10 years ago, thus the contractor presented a plan that shouldn’t have been accepted even at the first stage. But in this case, it was only due to a neighbor’s alertness that we found out before it was too late!”

As another example, Shweky cites Kikar Zion. A new Hamashbir store, which was approved following a long struggle between the developer and environmental groups, will be constructed in the building that was formerly occupied by the Underground club and other landmark businesses.

“The plan was to erect a new building there for Hamashbir. As a result, the whole façade of the Nahalat Shiva area has been destroyed. So what I would say is that the new Preservation Committee is a good step, but it is not radical enough in its concerns, such as other historic buildings.”

The struggle over preserving and determining the extent of extensions to the house at Rehov Emek Refaim 48, for example, is four years old, continues Shweky. It has been determined that this structure, which was used by British officers during the Mandate and afterwards as a kindergarten, will maintain its facade and have several stories added. “The risk of its being demolished is still not over. As long as we don’t have a definitive list, we’re in trouble.”

For Naomi Tsur, things look slightly different, perhaps because she is now seeing things from a different perspective than when she headed the local branch of the SPNI and the Coalition for a Sustainable Jerusalem.

“We have already completed the first phase of the compilation
for the list of buildings for preservation,” she says. “But even without this list ready, look what happened with the Schocken Library building [on Rehov Balfour, designed by renowned architect Erich Mendelsohn]: The developer who bought this historic building had to fight to preserve it, even after he purchased it and began the work on it. It was the environment committee which I head that permitted him to keep a part of the structure and to save this part for public use. Ultimately, it will be 80 percent of the building, preserved and restored, that will serve a public purpose. We still don’t know exactly as what – a library, a Mendelsohn memorial room, a little cafeteria with changing exhibitions on architecture. A wide range of projects are planned here, and the developer had to build his villas behind it to make his profit – that was our work.”

Regarding the residents’ activism, Tsur says that it resulted in a “blessed change in the policy.”

“As for the current campaign against the closure of the Jerusalem Pool [in the German Colony], the question is: Will it be like the Smadar campaign? I don’t know, because in this case, as in others too, we need to see the whole picture. For instance, is it the right place for a public swimming pool in the city in that particular neighborhood? I’m talking from a general point of view, not from the place where residents of that neighborhood stand. We have to decide, from a comprehensive perspective, if this is what is needed. There are various suggestions offered in the neighborhood, such as a swimming pool, a parking lot, perhaps something else. We have to listen carefully to all the voices and then decide for the benefit of the majority and the city’s needs.”

DR. ELAN Ezrachi, a longtime resident of Rehavia and chairman of its neighborhood administration, which includes the German Colony, says he is not against normal urban development. “Not every building is to be preserved, and not every building that should be preserved must be preserved in the same way. We have to make room for a normal urban growing process of natural development. We’re talking about human beings living here, and the situation has certainly improved since Naomi Tsur has been at the municipality.”

However, a group of residents has raised an alternative voice to the committees of the city council and has a far more radical attitude, claiming that this administration, and the former one even more so, has acted against the needs of the city in terms of preservation and restoration. The group, called Extinguished Houses, accuses the municipality of caving in to the real-estate tycoons instead of preserving the city’s architectural heritage. On its Web site, it presents a list of buildings, especially in Rehavia and the German Colony, with pictures of what stood there before and after reconstruction or restoration work.

“Not every building preserved is beautiful, just as not every new modern building, designed according to the architectural environment, is ugly; it’s just not true,” argues Ezrachi, who believes that “Even a very historical environment should be allowed to live normally.”

PLANS AND decisions regarding preservation and construction are presented to the two committees and tested from both angles – environmental and public needs. The vision of the mayor, shared by a large number of his deputies and his constituency, is also based on his ability to bring the decisions to the city council – in other words, it needs the support of the coalition. The problem, say some officials at Kikar Safra, is that not all the members of the coalition see things the same way. “The interests are different, sometimes even opposed,” says one official.

The process of compiling a list of buildings for preservation – out of the four or even five lists that already exist but still have not been approved by the city council – is not just a matter of putting addresses in a row but of finding the means to convince all those involved to accept that the list will be based on professional and objective lines. This might turn out to be a very tough mission to accomplish.

At least one thing has been achieved recently: a tender for a committee to work on the complete list. “What we expect from this is to clarify the terms of reference of the definitive list of buildings for preservation,” explains Tsur, “including all the various terms and qualifications, what kind of preservation for each structure. The fact that this important tender is going public despite the difficulties, including a working conflict between the municipality and its employees committee, is in my eyes a real achievement.”

According to Shweky and the members of Extinguished Houses, the problem is that while historic buildings are being demolished, facts are being created in regard to additional construction on houses slated for preservation.

DURING HOL Hamoed Succot, a developer blatantly flouted the law and sent a bulldozer to demolish a building on Rehov Yisa Bracha in the Bukharan Quarter classified for preservation, arguing that the owners feared a crumbling of the whole structure, endangering the children who played in the area.

The case is considered highly sensitive at the municipality, since until the above-mentioned event, this building, designated to become a yeshiva, was undergoing a preservation and renovation process. As a result, municipal legal adviser Yossi Havilio decided to take the developer to court. According to Tsur, who holds the environment portfolio, the law in such a case requires the offending party to restore the building to its former state. If this is not possible, the municipality has the power to stop any construction plan on the site and turn it into an open space for the community. All parties involved agree that this event should – and apparently will – serve as an example for the future. At Kikar Safra, the anger is so marked that this action is rumored to have set a precedent.

“There will be an attitude of ‘before the Bukharan destruction’ and ‘after the Bukharan destruction,’” Ophir May, head of the construction permits department at the municipality, told his colleagues – meaning that from now on, the handling of such cases will be severe.

However, the real problem might be even greater. What happened recently to the magnificent century-old house in the Bukharan Quarter – it was totally demolished by the contractor – didn’t happen because the proper procedure was not followed. The old house was known to all parties as a building slated for preservation. In fact, the architect hired by the new owners, who want to transform it into a yeshiva, was an expert in preservation and prepared a professional plan of dismantling and reconstructing the external parts (each stone was numbered and planned to be separated and then replaced). But taking advantage of the three-day strike of the municipality – no inspectors came to observe at the construction site – they sent a bulldozer to tear down the building, claiming that it was “becoming dangerous and feared it would crumble.”

At the municipality, the reactions were so intense that May, the head of the inspection department, issued a letter to the relevant employees declaring that “This case will become a test case from now on” and said that the reaction will be “spectacular and will serve as an example.” The plot has been turned into a public space for the next 25 years; the heavy tools of the developer have been confiscated; and a fine of NIS 250,000 has been imposed on the head of the yeshiva.

But for Tsur, the picture is much broader. “Take the Rehov Hanevi’im project, for example. What we’re working on there is a huge change in the situation. We are all – I, the city engineer Shlomo Eshkol, the staff – working according to the mayor’s vision in order to save the whole area. Let’s not forget that at least a quarter of the buildings slated for preservation are situated on this street!”

The Rehov Hanevi’im plan – a substantial change from the former administration that planned to transform it into a four-lane street – is in fact becoming a kind of test case of preservation and restoration.

“Until now, the main interest was traffic and transportation,” explains Tsur. “Well, no more. From now on, the people’s best interest, the preservation, the need to respect our heritage and historic structures and the special character of the city are what really matter, and the whole plan regarding this particular street is directed toward these values and not the needs of vehicles,” she says.

“The thing is that the project cannot even start before the light rail on Jaffa Road becomes operational. So it’s all intertwined. But it is clear that we have a holistic view, and thanks to it we are creating the first planned public domain in the city that will save all the buildings for preservation and will allow a genuine encounter along the whole street, from its eastern to its western end – an upgrade for the merchants, the residents, the tourists – for everyone,” says Tsur.

In his office situated on the second floor of the Sergei Building at the corner of Heleni Hamalka and Monbaz streets, Itzik Shweky keeps files of hundreds of newspaper articles on the topic of preservation, as well as a huge archive of pictures of demolished and threatened historic buildings. Despite all the failures, like the one in the Bukharan Quarter, Shweky believes that things are improving. But he says that laws and enforcements are crucial, but not enough. For him, there is no doubt that serious involvement of the public, who care about their historical heritage and will be ready to stand up for its preservation, is the only way to combat the real-estate sharks and the failure of the establishment.

“All these struggles are not for us, they are for the future, for the sake of our children and grandchildren. We have to understand that people come from all over the country and the world to see Jerusalem’s beautiful architecture and historic buildings,” he says. “They don’t come here all that way to look at modern, functional buildings. We have to learn to cherish, preserve and save our heritage, for the future generations.”

By all accounts, Jerusalem’s new mayor has brought dramatic change to the municipality over the past year, which has “been transformed from a shtetl-like institution into an efficient, no-nonsense, hi-tech style administration.”

Peggy Cidor, a veteran observer of the local political scene in Jerusalem, published an interview that she conducted with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat this week. Obviously impressed by Barkat’s accomplishments over the past year, and by the stark contrast between the new mayor and his predecessor, Cidor writes that the municipality under Barkat “has undergone a dramatic change and has been transformed from a shtetl-like institution into an efficient, no-nonsense, hi-tech style administration.”

Nir Barkat is an unusual character for an Israeli mayor. Neither a former general nor a local party hack, Barkat made millions during the years in which the hi-tech bubble blossomed. After the bubble burst, he focused his efforts on local politics. After losing one election, he spent five years patiently building a movement, until eventually he managed to win.

Cidor writes that, under Barkat, healthy food has replaced cookies and soft drinks in the municipality, and small talk has been replaced with a business-like punctuality. As Cidor writes:

“Barkat is a management freak. Besides a certain amount of disdain for political game-playing, he believes in order, accountability, results and facts on the ground. Show him surveys, planning, programs and graphs, and you make his day. His own world is based and designed on hi-tech models, and he is unbelievably serious and dedicated. Since he has become mayor, his daily working hours have extended up to 18 and sometimes more.

Functionality, efficiency, maximization of the means at his disposal are key words, and all the staff members surrounding him fit into this model: young, modern, serious, focused.”

All of this represents no small accomplishment, as Jerusalem is probably one of the most complicated cities in the world to govern (witness the haredi riots that have been going on all summer, or the complicated issue of Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem, an issue which even the Obama Administration has weighed in on).

Below is the interview, via jpost.com:

Cidor: You have been in the job for less than 10 months, but due to the changes you have introduced here, both on the physical and the content levels, this is a totally different municipality from the one you inherited.

Barkat: You’re right, it’s not only a change in the way things look or sound, it is first and foremost a totally different way of working. We deal with economic development, upgrading the education system and a lot of additional issues, but using a totally different approach, whether it is the transportation network, the cleaning, etc.[...] We prepare our plans for the coming year based on realistic goals. The local budget, the special development budget, the funding – everything is taken into consideration together at the beginning of the year.

There will no longer be situations in which the budgets for projects are only disclosed at the end of the year. Everyone will know right from the beginning of the year what he has or hasn’t been allocated and work accordingly. We are completely changing the whole organization. The work will be done in total synchronization with all the parameters and the changing factors: budgets, plans, programming.

This is indeed very impressive. But is it really a different municipality?

Yes, absolutely. No more business under the table, no more opacity – transparency for me is not just a word. Look at what is happening among the city committees: their debates are open to the public, they work, they meet regularly, they reach conclusions, decisions, there is a professional follow-up – it’s working. Take for example the city’s board. In the past, this very important committee used to meet barely twice a year. Now we meet twice a month. We decide on an agenda for the next city council. Issues that are important to board members are always brought up at city council meetings. I’ll give you more: Since I am in charge, even members of the coalition can submit a motion. Once this was only for the opposition benches, with almost no effect. This is not just a cosmetic change, I would call it a dramatic change.

Okay, so you’ve changed the rules of the game; people work seriously and the ‘Persian bazaar’ atmosphere we saw in the past is gone. But beyond that, what does that change bring in?

It makes a lot of difference. The whole system – all the municipality employees and the directors – react positively and move forward. They accept and agree with all the changes and reforms we have brought in. I feel very satisfied, very encouraged to see that we are reaching the real things. It’s tachles [the bottom line] now – no more talking.

Please give me an example.

This administration now deals with promoting projects and plans rather than political intrigues as occurred in the past.

But isn’t some political drama the soul of a city council?

Here and there, yes, we can still see some examples. But most of the time, I and the members of the city council are very busy promoting this city and its residents’ interests and not wasting our time on political intrigues. And in my eyes, that is a blessing.

This is a very hi-tech-based model, very matter of fact, very focused. By doing so, have you perhaps convinced your coalition members to walk in your footsteps for the benefit of the city as you conceive it? But what happens to the large administration you have here? Could it be that soon, perhaps even now, a part of this professional apparatus will become superfluous?

No, I don’t think so. What we are doing now is contracting the municipality system from 35 different departments into seven administrations, to work more in focus. Take the new plan of partitioning the different neighborhoods [announced last week]. It is connected only to the physical aspects of the city and has one major aim: to bring some accountability into the system. Once this new apparatus is in place, there will be officer in charge of the quarter. It’s built on a command structure.

So whatever goes wrong in a certain neighborhood, from now on the residents will have one person to whom to present their grievances? One officer in charge who will be accountable for the failures and the results?

Absolutely. This commander in charge of the quarter will work with the municipal employees, based on the nature of the issue raised. I’m talking about the physical branches, all those who until now worked only under their own bosses. From now on, they will have to answer to the person in charge of the neighborhood, who himself is responsible to the residents. This person will receive daily all the complaints presented to the 106 station for this specific neighborhood, and he will be responsible to find answers and solutions to the issues presented by the residents. This includes the self-administered neighborhood directors as well. The bottom line is that from now on, residents will have an address for all their complaints.

Are you sure this new formula won’t lead to mass firing?

I will not go into that for the moment. My method is different. First, I want to define what has to be done, to synchronize all the factors involved in achieving our goal. Once that is achieved, we will look into it. And if indeed some part of the system turns out to be superfluous, we will work out ways, either by retraining or relocating. But in any case, I believe it will be only minimal. I do not believe in revolutions, I am a man of evolution. I’d rather make use of upgrading than massive firing. Upgrading and efficiency – that’s my way.

This week the government took you by surprise with its recent announcement of a project to offer support to students from the periphery who will study in colleges. How come you were not aware of this?

I am aware that for a long period, both the Knesset and the various governments got used to not caring too much about the city. [This is] first and foremost because nobody here barked or bit when the city’s interests were not taken into consideration. I intend to be on guard, together with the city council members.

But you have a good relationship with this government; that shouldn’t have happened to you.

Yes, I agree. But it still needs to be translated into action. I believe it is our duty and our task to see that words of engagement are translated into acts and deeds for the benefit of the city. I will tell the government this: If you don’t like what we do here, tell us. But if you think we’re doing well, support us. Jerusalem has to regain the status it deserves.

Let’s talk about education. Now that you have abolished the quotas and the registration areas, what’s your next step?

That’s already behind us. This year we are launching the Computer for Every Teacher project in cooperation with the public and philanthropic organizations. About 1,000 laptops will be given to 1,000 teachers in the city – and that’s only a beginning. We will add the same number every year until all the city’s teachers have laptops, thus upgrading the whole education system in the city. I find it unacceptable that while any factory today wouldn’t dare not be computerized, we accept that it’s not the case in our schools, the most important factory in our life. I am working on a very aggressive plan to improve our matriculation results; this is urgent. We will introduce new indices and measurements of our achievements. All this is done through the private-public partnership I have promoted since my campaign.

What about the creation of branches of the special semi-private schools in the poorer neighborhoods?

Absolutely. We’re working on it right now.

Will we see results by next year?

It depends. I guess we will have some first cases. These things take time.

The parents’ association complains that you override them, that your fight with their president, Eti Binyamin, takes its toll and causes embarrassment.

I have a very good relationship with the parents, with the staff in schools. I am available to all; I don’t need any go-between. I have created the education council, which works well, and [the parents'] association is invited through its representatives to all the meetings. I don’t see a problem here. I listen to the parents of Jerusalem.

What are you doing to improve the education situation in the Arab sector?

There is no question that there is too large a gap between the western and eastern sectors of the city. By the way, it is no better in the haredi sector as far as learning conditions are concerned, due to the lack of classrooms as a result of the birthrate. It is my duty to present this issue to the government. I always raise this issue at my meetings with the education minister. I push it forward, and I will not cave in. But let’s not forget that building classrooms is a government’s responsibility.

Silwan residents complain that the Jewish residents there make their lives miserable, and the municipality doesn’t give them any support.

I cannot react to something I haven’t seen for myself. There’s only one thing I am ready to admit: The neighborhood urgently needs upgrading, and that is something I am planning to take care of pretty soon – a large plan of upgrading in various locations in east Jerusalem, and it doesn’t matter if there are Jewish residents or Arabs. I agree: Arab residents need and deserve a serious upgrading of all municipal services in their neighborhoods. I expect them to support the efforts we are going to invest there, including the taxes for the infrastructures that they will have to pay, like any residents in any city, such as for roads and sidewalks, like in every other part of the city, according to the law. I see this as a win-win situation. We will invest there, their conditions will improve, and it will serve to promote tourism to this region.

How are you going to finance this program?

With both public and private funding: municipal taxes, government budgets and private donations that I intend to bring in.

How would you assess your relationship with haredi society today?

I think the haredim understand today that this violence, this breaking of the law is not serving their interests. And I know, as everybody knows, that these agitators are barely five percent of the haredi community, which drags down the other 95% who are law-abiding residents. I think they understand now that I am not caving in to the violence, and very soon they will have to realize that having a dialogue is much more effective than all their attempts to impose their laws on us.

After almost a year in the job, what have you learned that you didn’t know before? What has surprised you?

First, the positive aspect. I was pleasantly surprised by the willingness of the employees, especially at the high-ranking and political levels, to accept a change, to join me in the new programs and methods I introduced. Once they understand what I have in mind, what my vision is, it works very quickly and that surprised me. I didn’t expect that.

Can you mention any failures?

I still haven’t been able to to decipher the code of the government’s involvement with the city and its needs. I am planning to reach that soon, and I’ll see that it changes. Also let’s not forget that in the past while, there wasn’t really a government here. There was no address for the city, no one to talk to.

And how will you achieve this?

I am creating a special forum, a link between the city and the government. We’re working now on the programs for the coming year, at the Knesset, at the government. I have no doubt it will work. It hasn’t been so for the moment, as I was deep into the election process. I was not aware enough, but this will change very soon.

So you finally discovered what former mayors have known – that Jerusalem is not really at the top of the government’s agenda.

Yes, and I will definitely have to work on that. I don’t blame them, I just say that I understand that it needs a lot of work to bring Jerusalem back to the status it deserves. It is not to be taken for granted, not only in declarations but in facts on the ground. We’re still not there, but I am confident we will reach that position.

Any promising news for next year? Are you planning additional support for culture in the city?

Hasn’t it been great this summer? All these events, these festivals? Have we ever seen such a thing here before?

Indeed, but what about next year?

And it’s not over. There’s more to come before the end of this summer! As for next year – yes, definitely: I am planning a major increase in the culture budget – at least double, from NIS 20 millions to NIS 40m. And on top of that, I am still trying to get back from the government the whole sum of [Jerusalem's special budgetary allocation]. They are still negotiating, but I will not give in until we obtain the original sum promised [about NIS 250m.]. This is Jerusalem, they will have to understand.

A email from green jobs advocate Van Jones, who resigned this month from the White House, to his friends and supporters.

Van Jones has been a leading advocate for green-collar jobs. In recent years, he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green for All, and he is the author of The Green Collar Economy. Much of his work has focused on bringing the benefits of the green economy to the inner city.

In March 2009 he was appointed by President Obama to the White House Council on Environmental Quality as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. He resigned from this position in early September, after a smear campaign waged by Fox News’ Glenn Beck portrayed him as a “radical communist.” The following is an email he sent out this week:

Dear Friends:

My family and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support that we have received over the past week or so. I resigned from the White House on Sept. 6, and I have remained silent since then–in keeping with my promise not to be a distraction during a key moment in the Obama Presidency.

Over the past several days, however, many people have been asking how they can help and what they can do.

The main thing is this: please do everything you can to support both President Obama and the green jobs movement. Winning real change is ultimately the best response to these kinds of smear campaigns.

I ask everyone to:

1. Support President Obama’s efforts to fix our nation’s health care, energy and education systems. His victory last fall did not represent the “finish line” in the fight to renew America; his election was just the “starting line.” This autumn, it is time to make history again–with victories on health care and clean energy.

2. Sign up to support groups that are working for green jobs.

As others seek to vilify or marginalize the movement for a clean energy economy, the leading groups deserve increased support. This is the year to ensure that the clean energy transformation creates good job opportunities for everyone in America.

3. Spread the green jobs gospel. The ideas and ideals of the green jobs movement are grounded in fundamental American values–innovation, entrepreneurship, and equal opportunity. My true thoughts can be found in my book: The Green Collar Economy. Check it out from the library–or order a copy and share it with a friend. See for yourself why clean energy and green jobs are good for our country.

4. Stay connected and speak up for me via your favorite blogs (e.g., Huffington Post, Grist, Jack & Jill, etc.), on message boards and all of your favorite social networking platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Supporters have set up a couple of them, to help you stay engaged, including: I Stand With Van Jones and I Love Van Jones.

In due course, I will be offering my perspective on what has happened–including correcting the record about false charges. In the meantime, I must get my family affairs in order and sort through numerous offers and options.

I want to be clear that I have nothing but love and admiration for President Obama and the entire administration. White House staffers are there to serve and support the President, not the other way around. At this critical moment in history, I could not in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. The White House needs all its hands on deck, fighting for the future.

Of course, some supporters actually think I will be more effective on the “outside.” Maybe so. But those ideas always remind me of that old canard about Winston Churchill. After he lost a hard-fought election, a friend told him: “Winston, this really is just a blessing in disguise.” Churchill quipped: “Damned good disguise.” I can certainly relate to that sentiment right now.

Nonetheless, we must keep moving forward. Let’s continue our work to make an America as good as its promise. These are historic times. And we have a lot more history to make.

Sincerely,

Van Jones

Via The Huffington Post. Read reactions to Van Jones’ resignation: here and here in The Nation, and here in The Huffington Post.

Environmental justice organization Bustan and the people of Bedouin village Qasr Al-Sir are working together to create a model sustainable village in Israel’s Negev desert.

Qasr Al-Sir: on the verge of momentus change.

After a volunteer accidentally burned down its office, Bustan, an environmental justice organization based in Israel’s Negev desert, decided it was time to make some changes. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Bustan Director Ra’ed Al-Mickawi. With the help of a strategic planning consultant, the organization embarked upon an intensive soul-searching process. “We had to figure out what our role was in the community,” says Al-Mickawi.

To that end, Ra’ed Al-Mickawi conducted a series of interviews with people connected to Bustan’s work, in order to get a sense of the organization’s impact. He concluded that, while Bustan had been making headway, it needed to better focus its efforts. “The choice was between concentrating on one specific field, like agriculture or Permaculture,” he says, “or choosing one model village and working on a variety of projects there.”

Bustan chose the second option, and began looking for a community that might be interested in building such a model. The search led the organization to the Bedouin village of Qasr Al-Sir, an informal settlement in the process of being formally recognized by the state. With participatory democratic structures already in place and a population eager for change, it seemed like a natural fit. And, as the village was no longer considered an informal settlement, building there did not carry the risk of demolition by the authorities.

Today, Bustan and Qasr Al-Sir are planning to create a new model for Bedouin settlement in Israel, one that sets a new standard for sustainability while empowering the community to shape its own future. Their first major project will be the construction of a large community center, built using a combination of traditional and modern green methods. Construction is scheduled to begin later this month.

Kids playing in Qasr Al-Sir.

Qasr Al-Sir today still looks like an informal settlement. Located in a windswept basin, the village lacks basic services such as electricity, sewage, paved roads and water. However, the first signs of new development are already beginning to appear. A new complex of schools was built a couple of years ago, and other public buildings are also going up.

Ra’ed sees great potential in the field of green building. The new community center, he says, will be built by a handful of young people from the village, who have already attended workshops on green building methods. In the future, he hopes the villagers, who will all be rebuilding their homes as part of the redevelopment project, will chose to do so using sustainable materials and methods.

In order to help make that happen, he plans to set up a committee, comprised of a green architect, a social worker and an engineer, to advise residents during the rebuilding process. Green building, he says, will also be an economic solution for the villagers, providing at once a more affordable option for their own homes, as well as new employment opportunities for local youth.

Bustan hopes to leverage the construction of the community center in order to develop a series of additional projects, including attracting solar energy companies to the village and setting up an indigenous tree nursery, run as a women’s cooperative.

The people I met in Qasr Al-Sir, whom seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the changes planned for their village, said they hoped the process would help revitalize their society by restoring the place of the village’s elders and women, bringing back lost values and traditions and providing a positive horizon for the village’s young people.

Asked about the dramatic changes in store, Atiya, who lives next to the future site of the green community center, grinned. “I would be happy living out in the desert, but my children can’t tell the difference between a horse and a donkey. I’m looking forward to the future here. I think everything that’s happening here is for the best.”

Bustan, which defines itself as a Bedouin-Jewish Israeli organization, will hold workshops, tours and conferences as the project progresses to share the lessons of their work and spread the word about ecological initiatives in the Negev. Construction of the community center is expected to last between 3-4 months.

Originally posted at TreeHugger.com. Photos by Daniel Cherrin.

Last summer the Tel Aviv Municipality announced a plan to build hundreds of affordable housing units. One year and a global financial crisis later, rents in the city continue to rise, while the plan remains on paper.

In August of 2008, the Tel Aviv Municipality announced with much fanfare that it had a “revolutionary plan” to build hundreds of affordable apartments for young people in the city. Based on the recommendations of a panel of experts, the municipality had drawn up a detailed plan of action to avoid becoming a city inhabited exclusively by the rich. Noting that no other municipality in Israel had yet attempted such a project, Tel Aviv proclaimed its intention to take up the challenge and become the first Israeli city to implement such a program.

One year and a global financial crisis later, apartment prices in the city continue their inexorable climb. Mayor Ron Huldai, who announced the plan just months before the local election, was re-elected, and the plan to build affordable housing vanished from the headlines.

Meanwhile young people, faced with rent hikes at the end of their leases, have increasingly decided to move out of the city center, to run-down neighborhoods near Jaffa or to neighboring cities. Those who stubbornly insist on staying put have crowded into smaller, more dilapidated apartments. Others have come up with creative ways to save money. Today, for example, a significant number of rental apartments in the city no longer have a common room. In many cases, the living room has been converted into an extra bedroom in order to cut costs.

What happened? Does the city really intend to come to the aid of young renters, or was it all merely a good way to drum up votes before an election? Does the municipality have the will and resources to pull off such a move? Is it even realistic to think that an entity such as the Tel Aviv Municipality can control something as unruly as the city’s housing market?

As with so many other things when it comes to the way this city is run, the answers are not at all clear.

*****

In May of 2009, a press release put out by the municipality announced that the Municipal Commission for Affordable Housing, the panel of experts that put together the plan, had completed its work. The Commission, composed of external consultants from various disciplines alongside officials from the municipality, had come up with a list of recommendations that sketched out approximately what an affordable housing program in Tel Aviv would look like. Now it was up to the political echelon to decide what to do with those recommendations, which aspects to approve and how to proceed with the initiative.

To date, the commission’s work is still awaiting approval. Despite the city’s promise back in May that the plan would be presented to the mayor and deputy mayors “in the coming weeks,” that has yet to happen. The commission’s full report, which contains details on the various policy tools under discussion, has not been released to the public.

Dr. Emily Silverman, a researcher from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies, headed the team of professional advisors to the Municipal Commission for Affordable Housing.

“Our main recommendation was that new residential projects built in the center and north of the city include affordable units for rent,” she says. “In exchange for these units, developers would be given extra building rights.”

Silverman continues: “Another recommendation was to push forward building plans in the south of the city and in Jaffa which have already been approved, but have yet to be built due to various regulatory obstacles. Pushing forward those plans would significantly increase the supply of housing.” Indeed, according to press releases put out by the municipality last August, two such projects, slated to contain some 1,650 new apartments, were to be pushed forward immediately.

In addition, a range of other policy tools were proposed, and the commission even suggested specific plots of land for pilot projects.

As to why the commission’s recommendations have yet to be approved, Silverman blames the delay on opposition to the plan among senior figures in the municipality.

The municipality, for its part, appears to be keeping its cards close to its chest for the moment. In response to an inquiry regarding the delay in approving the plan, the Tel Aviv Municipality told Metro:  “The subject of affordable housing is a strategic issue of great significance. Therefore it is important that the approach be allowed to mature in order to reach an operative state. The same goes for the full publication [of the commission’s recommendations].”

*****

The concept of affordable housing is not really new in Israel. From the early days of the state, government policy aimed to make decent, affordable housing accessible to the majority of the population. The Housing Ministry, which wielded tremendous power and influence, once built entire cities from scratch and provided housing for millions of new immigrants.

Over the years, however, as Israel’s centralized, socialist economy gave way to a privatized, capitalist one, the state effectively withdrew from the housing market and the Housing Ministry lost much of its power and resources. The government ceased building public housing apartments for low-income populations, and instead began selling off publicly-owned apartments. In cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where changes in the rental market threatened to make housing out of reach even for middle-income people, pressure began to grow for local governments to intervene.

Israeli municipalities, however, strapped for cash and constrained by antiquated legal structures (the law setting out the powers of local authorities in Israel is a leftover from the British Mandate), were hardly in a position to respond. The demand for a new sort of affordable urban housing grew out of this situation, led by young people struggling to remain in their urban neighborhoods and academics who pointed out that many cities around the world, including London, New York and Paris, had successfully implemented programs to regulate rents and build affordable housing units. In both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the issue played a key role in the elections for mayor in late 2008.

Initially, officials inside the Tel Aviv Municipality approached the idea with trepidation. Mayor Ron Huldai was quoted more than once criticizing the idea in the media.

Dr. Emily Silverman, who later came to chair the Commission, recalls that the project, ironically, grew out of an attempt by the municipality to justify not taking action. It was back in 2007, Silverman recalls, that calls from local politicians calling on the city to explore the issue of affordable housing were growing louder. In response, City Engineer Chezi Berkowitz asked the municipal planning team to draw up a professional opinion explaining why the municipality did not have the capability to create such a project, based on two previous assessments of the issue written by economists.

However, when members of the planning team consulted with Silverman, a known expert on the subject, she managed to convince them that it was possible. The planners in turn convinced the City Engineer, and thus the idea for the commission was born.

*****

Another irony is this: even if the plan is eventually approved and implemented, it probably won’t lower rents across the board. A certain number of people, it’s unclear how many, would be eligible for cheaper apartments, but the steps that the municipality is currently considering are not expected to have a significant impact on the greater housing market.

Gil Gan-Mor is a human rights lawyer at The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and a leading advocate of housing rights and affordable housing. ACRI is part of the Coalition for the Advancement of Affordable Housing in Israel, which also includes The Association for Distributive Justice, Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights, and research institutes from Tel Aviv University, the University of Haifa and the Technion. The coalition has started a Hebrew-language blog as a platform for public discussion on the issue and is working on passing an affordable housing law in the Knesset.

Gan-Mor says he supports the move to create affordable housing in Tel Aviv, but believes that the city’s plan in its current form leaves much to be desired.

“The municipality could decide to set up a rent control mechanism that would allow landlords to raise rents incrementally, according to a set percentage every year,” says Gan-Mor. “Today, landlords take advantage of a lack of supply to hike rents substantially, and if a renter doesn’t agree to this, he simply has to look elsewhere.”

Dr. Emily Silverman admits that building a large number of affordable apartments for a specific group would probably not have a significant effect on the general rental market. “Affordable housing programs don’t usually result in a general lowering of prices, except for the target population,” she says.

However, she adds, speeding up construction of already-approved plans in order to increase supply (which was recommended by the commission) could theoretically lower rents across the city – it’s a matter of supply and demand. Silverman agrees that rent control mechanisms could also potentially benefit all of the city’s renters.

The problem, says Gan-Mor, is that regulatory tools, like rent control, which have been implemented successfully in many places in the world are not even being discussed – at least not according to the information that the municipality has made public. Says Gan-Mor: “The city’s method of releasing information through periodic press releases does not allow for a proper public discussion of the issue.”

He also notes that the municipality is considering making army service a condition for eligibility for affordable housing, a move which would effectively exclude the Arab community of Jaffa from the program.

Questions have also been raised regarding the project’s choice of target population. The commission’s mandate was to find affordable solutions for households with monthly incomes of between NIS 12,000-13,000. Last year, Dr. Emily Silverman described the target group to Metro as “moderate-income, socially-mobile young professionals.” For this population, the city would offer rents of around NIS 2,800.

However, as Gan-Mor points out, the plan provides no solutions for low-income residents of the city.

The municipality admits that this is the case, but argues that it does not have the resources to provide housing assistance to a low-income population. The Tel Aviv Municipality told Metro: “Public housing, everywhere in the world and in Israel as well, is the responsibility of the government, and not the responsibility of the local authority. The municipality does not have the capability to supply public housing like the government, without any means or appropriate tools. Therefore, the recommendations define the target population as an intermediate population, which is able to pay, but unable to afford to live in the city at market rates.”

To Gan-Mor, the city’s refusal to provide housing aid to low-income families is unacceptable. “The municipality’s plan states that it trusts the government to provide housing assistance for people in the lower income deciles,” he says. “The problem with this is that the State has scaled back its public housing programs in recent years. The waiting period for public housing in the center of the country can be over ten years, and rental subsidies provided by the government are way too low to cover rents in the Tel Aviv area. The inevitable result is that people with low incomes are forced to leave the city.”

*****

Not everyone, of course, is convinced of the merits of affordable housing. A number of conservative economists have publicly expressed their doubts about the plan. One of them is Dr. Yair Duchin, a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem who made headlines last month when he called the idea of providing affordable housing in Tel Aviv “idiotic.”

Though he admits that, from a social perspective, there may be a problem in Tel Aviv’s housing market, Duchin says he prefers to look at the larger picture. The country’s periphery, he says, is emptying out. “Youth from all over Israel, including graduates of universities in Haifa and Be’er Sheva, are streaming to Tel Aviv. Affordable housing will only serve to attract more of them.”

“Of course the mayor of Tel Aviv wants to attract a young, strong, productive population. That’s perfectly legitimate. But there are also national goals. I think that the country’s limited resources should not be invested in those who want to live in central Tel Aviv.”

As for Tel Aviv’s young residents, Duchin suggests that they move out of the city, to Bat Yam, Holon or Petach Tikvah. If enough people move out of central Tel Aviv, he says, perhaps market forces along will be enough to lower rents.

*****

For Prof. Noah Efron, a city council member from opposition party City for All (Ir Likulanu), it’s pretty clear why the plan is not going anywhere. “Nobody within the municipality wants to advance it, so it’s simply not being advanced,” he says.

While Efron thinks that the commission’s plan is insufficient, he admits that “it’s excellent for what it is,” and should be implemented right away. Noting that City for All has a much more extensive affordable housing plan of its own, Efron says he believes that the municipality’s plan has the potential to establish a number of important principles.

“The implementation of mixed housing, building for the rental market, dealing with apartment sizes – talking about these issues, even on a small scale, can begin to change the discussion about housing in the city and create important precedents, making it easier for the city’s planning committees to insist that developers build projects that are mixed, and not just for the rich or super-rich.”

To a limited extent, that has already begun to happen. Even without an official stamp on the commission’s plan, city planning committees have begun to use the momentum created by its work to require developers to integrate affordable housing units into new projects.

This is what happened, for example, in discussions regarding the former site of the city’s wholesale market. An enormous real estate project is planned for the 60-dunam site, which sits partially on city-owned land near Carlibach Street. When representatives from several local political parties insisted that the plan include an element of affordable housing, the developer agreed to add 60 small, affordable rental units.

“In the scheme of things,” says Efron, “it’s a drop in the bucket. But it’s also a sign that, if we continue to be vigilant in the municipal committees and bring enough public pressure to bear, we can begin this process, eventually making it into the norm. The municipality has publicly committed to doing this, now we have to push it to honor its commitments.”

This article was originally published in The Jerusalem Post’s “Metro” supplement on Sept. 11, 2009 (click here for a pdf of the original print version, here for the online version).

This month, Tel Aviv’s derelict Old Central Bus Station became history. The much-maligned New Central Bus Station may soon follow suit, while a New New Central Bus Station is still in the planning stages.

“I used to get off at the old bus station, and to me it was like another country…” goes the Tipex song (in free translation). Above: Tel Aviv’s Old Central Bus Station demolished. (Photo by Moran Beth Halachmi, via Flickr.)

It sometimes seems to me that there must be some kind of curse on all things transportation in Tel Aviv. The traffic jams are unbearable, the drivers obnoxious, the buses lousy and the bus station even lousier. And who even knows if the light rail/subway project will ever actually happen…

Recently, however, things have started to happen in Neveh Sha’anan, where the old and new bus stations lie on opposite sides of a busy pedestrian mall.

The old bus station, more or less abandoned (except for a couple of businesses and perhaps the occasional junkie) since the early 1990’s, was demolished last week. After the Egged bus company finally vacated the place, the city decided to redevelop it. The first new tenant will be the Minshar art school, which will build a brand new building on the site. Other educational institutions are expected to follow, and in the meantime the rest of the plot will be transformed into a temporary park.

Meanwhile, local newspapers have been abuzz lately with rumors that the New Central Bus Station, an almost universally detested structure credited with destroying the entire surrounding neighborhood, may soon be vacated as well. Billed as the world’s biggest bus station, the place has never functioned well, is almost impossible to navigate and much of its commercial space sits unused.

Bus companies Egged and Dan are reportedly fed up with the place, and are looking to transfer their activities elsewhere when their contracts with the station’s owners expire in a couple of years. The Ministry of Transportation and the Tel Aviv Municipality are said to support the move, according to local newspaper Ha’ir.

According to Ha’ir, a new transportation terminal is likely to be built at the Holon Interchange, south of the existing station. The current bus station, recently aquired by new owners, may be reincarnated as something different altogether, possibly a high-rise complex. Or, the new owners might be able to convince the bus companies to stay put. In either case, any change in the status quo is likely to take years to pan out.

But if a New New Central Bus Station is in the cards for Tel Aviv, let’s hope that this time they do it right.

Originally published at GreenProphet.com on August 9 2009.

After a difficult summer, intense public pressure convinced Israel’s government to partially suspend its anti-foreigner crackdown.

African asylum seekers participating in a “human chain” demonstration Saturday evening in Tel Aviv. Photo by Keren Manor, courtesy of Activestills.org.

July was not an easy month for African asylum seekers and migrant foreign workers living in Israel.

During the peak of the hot, humid Tel Aviv summer, foreigners living here were forced to hide from an aggressive manhunt conducted in broad daylight on the city streets. However, in response to an intense public backlash, the government has decided to back down on some of its anti-foreigner policies.

As I wrote here last week, July saw the inauguration of a new Interior Ministry unit, called “Oz,” with a mandate to arrest and imprison “illegals” – meaning migrant workers without a valid visa, the children of these workers, Palestinians living illegally inside the Green Line and African asylum seekers living in the center of the country.

The latter are refugees from disaster zones such as Darfur, South Sudan and Eritrea who seek temporary asylum in Israel. An Interior Ministry policy dating back to early 2008 (which until July was only loosely enforced) prohibits them from living in Greater Tel Aviv.

Beginning July 1^st, Oz’s inspectors, accompanied by police, began descending daily on neighborhoods known to be populated by foreigners, arresting people wholesale. Refugees from Africa were also arrested, and ordered to leave Tel Aviv for the country’s periphery. Many of them did, leaving behind jobs, apartments and community.

The move, however, provoked a huge public outcry. Protests were organized, a media campaign was launched, and a handful of dedicated activists even took it upon themselves to conduct anti-expulsion patrols, keeping an eye on Oz’s movements and warning potential detainees and other activists ahead of raids.

(Barely a day went by last month when I didn’t receive a text message from these volunteers saying something along the lines of: “Arrests at the corner of X and Y Streets, please come help if you are in the area.”)

Adding to the public pressure against the expulsion from Tel Aviv, mayors and residents of the outlying towns that were forced to absorb the refugees often reacted to them with undisguised hostility. Meanwhile, the Tel Aviv Municipality, perhaps embarrassed by reports that it had pressured the government to expel the refugees, softened its stance on the issue.

The Jerusalem Municipality, for its part, publicly stated that Oz inspectors were not welcome in the Holy City.

Then, to the surprise and relief of many, Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced late last week that his ministry was suspending restrictions on refugees’ freedom of movement, and that they would be allowed to return to Tel Aviv. At the same time, he announced, the next phase of the operation, in which migrant worker families with young children would also become candidates for immediate expulsion, would be put off for at least three months.

In the meantime, the government will finally sit down and hammer out a coherent policy regarding non-citizen populations living in the country. And a new idea is now making the rounds: the construction of another wall, this time along Israel’s desert border with Egypt.

Yishai made the announcement on Tisha B’av, a somber Jewish fast day which commemorates a series of historical disasters (including more than a few expulsions) that befell the Jewish people. Yishai, a religious Jew, must have been aware of the irony.

The activist community, emboldened by the victory, vowed to keep up the pressure. Following the announcement, a demonstration was held demanding the release of several hundred African refugees still being held in prison for violating the new-defunct policy. On Saturday evening, thousands of Israelis, Africans and migrant workers formed a human chain around a south Tel Aviv park, calling for a law against expelling children from the country.

That same night, Oz hit the streets with a vengeance. Once again, activists reported violent arrests and inspectors breaking down doors in neighborhoods populated by foreign workers. While African refugees and families with children had won a reprieve, for now anyway, “illegal” migrant workers continued to be forcefully deported.

Meanwhile, for Africans seeking asylum in Israel, the daily struggle continues. Thus far, at least, there hasn’t been a mass return to Tel Aviv, and thousands now find themselves living outside of the center, with new landlords and new neighbors – but not necessarily with new jobs to pay the bills.

Originally published at Mondoweiss on August 3, 2009.

Photo by Oren Ziv, courtesy of Activestills.org.

This past weekend, a couple friends and I helped four Sudanese families move out of Tel Aviv. We rented a van (which of course broke down mid-move), loaded up their possessions along with some furniture donated by several kind people, and set off for Nazareth, Hadera and Ashdod – distant cities where they hope to set up new homes. The families, refugees from conflict zones in Darfur and South Sudan, were grateful to us for our help. Leaving Tel Aviv was not their choice – as of the beginning of July, they are no longer allowed to live and work in Israel’s largest urban area.

Refugees everywhere tend to concentrate themselves on the fringes of big cities. Here, too, most of African refugee community, which began arriving here after Egyptian police attacked and killed Sudanese refugees protesting in Cairo in late 2005, took up residence in Tel Aviv’s poorer southern neighborhoods.

A particularly large wave of refugees arrived in Tel Aviv during the winter of 2008. During that time, it became common to see people sleeping outside in public parks or cramped into overcrowded shelters. Noticing the obvious distress of these newcomers to our city, several friends and I set up a voluntary organization to provide them with food, English and Hebrew lessons, children’s activities and whatever other services we could muster on a shoestring budget and with the help of a handful of volunteers.

Around the same time, the Israeli government, which also caught wind of what was going on, decided to restrict African asylum seekers from living inside Greater Tel Aviv (illegally, according to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees). This policy still applies to the vast majority of the almost 20,000 refugees from Sudan, Eritrea and other countries currently living in Israel.

Apparently, the policy stemmed from a combination of NIMBY-ism on the part of the Tel Aviv Municipality, economic nationalism (“they are taking jobs from Israelis”) and the government’s fear that, if treated well, the refugees would tell all of their friends and family to come to Israel as well. The policy, called Hadera-Gedera after the two cities that delineate the edges of Metropolitan Tel Aviv, recalls (to my mind, anyway) the Pale of Settlement, Imperial Russia’s attempt to physically remove the Jews from the mainstream of Russian society.

While a small minority have been officially recognized as refugees, and thus granted ID cards and the right to work legally, the rest have been labeled by government officials as “refugee work immigrants” and “illegal infiltrators from enemy countries,” and told the leave the center of the country.

Until recently, the Hadera-Gedera policy was only loosely enforced. However, July 1st marked the inauguration of a new unit at the Population Administration, called “Oz,” charged with arresting and expelling all “illegal” foreign workers and asylum seekers. Whether the new unit’s appearance has anything to do with the rise of the nationalist far-right in Israel is unclear.

In any case, since then they have been conducting daily manhunts on the streets of Tel Aviv, targeting anyone with a foreign appearance. After they arrested hundreds of African refugees and ordered them to leave the city, the refugees got the message, and thus began the latest in a long series of displacements that this community has suffered.

The tragedy of it all is that the refugee community was finally beginning to find some stability and normalcy in Tel Aviv. Here, their kids studied in Israeli schools, they found jobs, free health clinics and aid organizations. How they will find jobs to pay their rents outside of the center of the country, where work is scarce, I do not know.

Needless to say, this is a community of sharp, resilient and warm people fleeing unimaginable circumstances. Many, many people in Tel Aviv reacted to their arrival with an outpouring of hospitality and generosity. There are more than a few people in Tel Aviv for whom the decision to expel them from the city represents the crossing of a red line – and it takes a lot for people to really take up such a cause in a country where every week seems to bring some new scandal or political upheaval.

The government, however, has hardened its heart toward these uninvited guests. Passed around like a human hot potato, the African community has not always been made to feel welcome. Almost every refugee that I have met spent the first several months of his or her stay in an Israeli prison, and, for most, the only official document they carry is still their “conditional release” from incarceration.

The government is promoting a new law which would criminalize the refugees, threatening them and those that assist them with long jail terms. According to the bill, my friends and I, by choosing to spend our weekend helping refugee families move, could find ourselves sentenced to 20 years in jail.

For the sake of comparison, Avraham Hirshson, Israel’s former Finance Minister who was found guilty of stealing millions from a workers’ federation, got only five and a half years in jail.

Like most Israelis, I come from a family that was forced to flee its home more than once. Almost everyone in this land, whether Jew or Palestinian, knows what it is like to be a refugee. If anyone should have compassion for these unfortunate people, it is us.

Originally published at Mondoweiss on July 26 2009.