The bourgeoisification of the Green-Line: The new Israeli middle-class and the Suburban Settlement

Abstract

This paper focuses on Kochav-Yair and Oranit, two localities that exemplify the Israeli Suburban Settlement phenomenon. With the first being developed by a selective group of families and the latter by a single private entrepreneur, yet both with the full support of the state, they represent the selective privatisation of the national settlement project during the 1980s. Examining the geopolitical, social and economic interests that accompanied their development, this paper illustrates how both projects incorporated the upper-middle-class bourgeoisie in the national territorial effort along the border with the occupied West-Bank (the Green-Line). Analysing the planning and construction process of both case studies, as well as their spatial characteristics, this paper explains how the upwardly middle-class and its contractors were granted substantial planning rights. Consequently, enabling them to influence the production of space while promoting a new local suburban typology that is based on better living standards, private family life and a distinctive isolated community. Therefore, this paper illustrates the Suburban Settlement typology as an outcome of the bourgeoisification of the Green-Line, which domesticated the former frontier area and enabled its inclusion in the greater national consensus.

The metropolitanization of Israel's settlement policy: The colonization of the West Bank as a strategy of spatial restructuring

“…The same shift took place in Israel in the same period (Schwake, 2020c(Schwake, , 2020b. Since the mid-1970s, Israeli planners abandoned the principle of population dispersal in support of an approach that emphasized the concentration of economic activities in a limited number of core areas, and the provision of the infrastructures needed to lay the ground for market-oriented development.…”

“…; see e.g. Schwake, 2020b, Schwake, 2021c; each contributed to strengthen the consensus around ISP and make it relatively non-controversial (Allegra, 2013;. Many of these groups were not interested in the ideological value of colonization and looked at the settlements in purely financial-logistic terms, or as gated safe spaces, which protect and preserve a community of peers (Allegra, 2017;Yiftachel, 2003).…”

Living in the Digital Periphery—Old People in Rural Israel Talk About Information Technology

“…The structural changes in the rural regions are accented by the "rurbanization", "Neo-rural", or "rural gentrification" phenomena (Schwake 2020a(Schwake , 2020b(Schwake , 2021. These terms refer to the migration of middle-class city residents to rural regions, often changing the rural landscape into clusters of suburban developments (Scott et al 2019).…”

“…The villagers in the northern periphery underwent another considerable shift: During the 1990s Israel's spatial policy, pivoted from the traditional Zionist policy of population dispersal, to one that is based on urban growth poles. The idea was that the rural residents will rely on the metropolitan area for services and employment, instead of having economically unsustainable local services and workplaces (Benedek 2016;Benedek and Cristea 2014;Hershkowitz 2010;Schwake 2020a). This was supported by a new type of settlement-the community settlement (following the model of the settlements in the occupied territories), which relies on the city for services and employment.…”

“…This was supported by a new type of settlement-the community settlement (following the model of the settlements in the occupied territories), which relies on the city for services and employment. The community settlements were the answer to two problems: They enabled the intensification of the Jewish presence in a region with a large Arab population, and they satisfied part of the demand of middle-class young families, for a nonagricultural neo-rural lifestyle (Allegra 2013;Rosen and Razin 2008;Schwake 2020a;Troen 2000;Yiftachel 2019).…”