Rishon LeZion and its districts - cities inside of a city?: März 2008

Rishon LeZion

Rishon LeZion is a city on Israel's central coastal plain, south of Tel Aviv. It is part of the Gush Dan Greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area and is Israel's fourth largest city with a population of 222,300 in 2006. Rishon LeZion was founded in 1882 by Russian immigrants and was the second Jewish settlement to be formed in Israel after Petah Tikva. Today the city acts partly as a commuter town for Tel Aviv, but does have its own industries as well. The mayor of Rishon LeZion is Meir Nitzan.

The districts

Rishon LeZion's can be divided into four main quarters.

The Old City area is located around Herzl Street, Jabotinsky Street, and Rothschild street, near the Midrahov (pedestrian mall) and the old Gan-HaMoshava (The City Park). This area is made up of the Remez (Givaat Levinson), Rishonim (Gan Nahum), Abrahmovich, Katzanelson (Shikun Poalim), Shikun Mapam and Shivat Zion), Nahalat Yehuda, Benot Hayil, Neve Hillel, Neve Elyahu and Neve Yam neighborhoods.

The Eastern Resident (Shikuney HaMizrah) is located in the eastern part of Rishon and includes the Shikuney HaMizrah, HaRambam, Mishor HaNof, Revivim (Shikun Sela), Kidmat Rishon and Ha-Shomer neighbourhoods.

North Mabat is the Old Industrial Zone which is officially called "Mis'har, Biluy, Taasia" (commerce, entertainment and industry) and was originally full of light industry and glass factories. Today it is the center of motor garages, large food stores and has a vivid night life in a pedestrian mall filled with bars and cafes. The North Mabat is located in the northern part of Rishon, near HaMaccabim road (the road called "Kvish Beit-Dagan" by the locals).

Finally, Rishon Ma'arav (The New West) was built in the 1980s and mostly populated in the 1990s. It is a block of new neighborhoods, inter-connected with modern, wide roads. The New West is the modern part of Rishon and has many parks and community centers. It is considered to be very aesthetic and prestigious and in less than a decade it was filled with more than 100,000 residents, doubling Rishon's population. Current neighbourhoods here include Ne'ot Shikma, Kiryat Ganim, Kiryat Rishon, Ne'ot Ashalim, Kiryat Hatanei Pras Nobel, Neve Dkalim and Neve Hof (Pueblo Español). There are also two new industrial zones in this area called Ovest and Mabat.

1st Decision: Analysis and Comparison

Rishon Ma'arav

The area of Rishon Ma'arav was designed by geographers in the early 90s. In order to prevent the transfer of empty areas in North Rishon to the municipality of Bat Yam.

The main goal of the Rishon municipality was the prevention of nuisances that the area had carried for many years (garbage, crime, industries...), and the transformation of this area at South of Tel Aviv from a negative immigration towards a positive immigration.

A precedent in planning and implementation was created: The local authorities worked jointly with contractors for all the areas and programs of the new neighbourhoods. Officially, the municipality thought that citizens would get a better service if provided by private suppliers, even for the infrastructure. Contractors were not allowed to sell or rent housing units until all the infrastructure of the neighborhood was fully functionning (parks, schools, commerces...).

Rishon Ma'arav is composed of two main typologies: new neighbourhoods and requalification of industrial areas. The new neighbourhoods are composed of quite uniform medium rise apartment buildings and towers, and small villas. Neighbourhoods get their identity mainly from the design of public gardens and the setting of the buildings.

However, there are some invariants in the planning of all the new areas of Rishon Ma'arav: The apartment buildings include several typologies of dwelling units, in order to ensure the renewal and mixity of the neighbourhoods for the years to come. Another variant is the complete parcellar difference between the commercial areas and the housing buildings (separation that we strongly notice on the site, see pictures).

A huge effort was made on transportation: Cars park on the edges of the neighbourhoods, leaving the inner areas completely pedestrian (in order to strenghten kids' security). Shortcuts inside of the neighbourhoods are banned. Public transportation is very strong, with special road lines for busses, and a planned light railway. Pedestrians and bikes have huge sidewalks separated of the traffic area. All this infrastructure takes a lot of space and the streets between neighbourhoods tend to look like highways.

Together with all the new constructions came the redesign of industrial areas. Side by side with the industries were created shopping malls (which provides employment, and brings people to the area), and entertainment centers, such as clubs, bar and so on. This mixity of uses keeeps places from being deserted at night (and thus is supposed to reduce the crime ratio in these areas), and provides 24-7 tax income to the municipality.

Removing or covering of the garbage was also a priority, it is still undergoing in certain areas.
For the future, a recreation area is planned along the coastline. Rishon Ma'arav is considered as a planning success, and led to similar settlements in Ashdod.

ALON NEWMAN, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 2002

Rishon the Old city area

The city was founded in 1882 along with the city of Petah Tikva, and it is considered the first Zionist settlement in Israel. That is why the city is named Rishon Le-Tzion, with the fact that the literally meaning of the name is ‘first to Zion’.

The main street in the city is Hertzel street. A walk along the long street is exposing the city through all its true nature. The street is a mixture of old and new, starting with the old Carmel winery and closing with the recent shops.

In the old city of Rishon there are a lot of sites which contains historical characters. Most of these sites are located along the The Midrahov, or around its area. The sites are placed a walking distance from each other.

Among these sites there is the Gan-HaMoshava, or the Gan Ha-Nadiv, park. The park is located in the center of the old city, along Hrtzel street, and has been renewed recently. It contains an avenue of tall palm trees, lawns playground for children and a little pond.

2nd Decision: Definition determination

First criterium: The historical town term

Outgoing from the preindustrial townscape of Europe, thus, the historical town term resulted for the medieval town. Lent in the Middle Ages municipalities with suitable prerequisites of the town titles, which concluded awarding certain municipal rights, e.g. the market right, the right to autonomy, the liberty of the town citizens, "urban air makes free", the right to taxation, jurisdiction, the removal of the body characteristic, the right to levy customs, and the right to enclose and defend.

The sharp separation between town and surrounding countryside was clarified by the municipal law referred to last and the enclosure (usually as city wall) is considered as one of the three spatial criteria, after which a municipality is in the today's statistical sense a town in the historical sense.

The three criteria for the classification of a settlement related to outward features under the term "town" in the historical sense are:

There is a wall around the town, with which the entireness and the co-operation of the community as well as their defense are stressed against external effects.
It exists a road cross or a market place as intersection of commerce and culture, as well as orientation of the town around a focal point.
The town is quartered.

LICHTENBERGER ELIZABETH, 1991

Second criterium: The statistical town term

By means of the statistical town term rural settlements are to be distinguished from towns. In addition on the statistical congress 1860 in London the declaration/agreement was made that all municipalities apply also over 2.000 inhabitants from now on as towns. This provision is basically still today valid, but is this classification due to substantial growth of the population of world, as well as regional and national differences only limits usable, to classify if not even as old-fashioned.

While e.g. in Iceland settlements are called of 20 humans towns, the term town applies only with a total population of 50.000 in Japan. In Israel settlements are declared as a town up from a polulation of 20.000. This is an enormous span.

Because of containing only numbers of inhabitants, not any statements about municipal functions or acquisition structure, this statistical town term is only very limited usable, in order to distinguish a rural settlement from a town. If it concerns thus the town term in geography, sociological and economic criteria should be considered additionally.

Third criterium: The geographical town term

In Geography it isn't possible to giva an unique, generally valid definition of the term "town", which would contain all aspects with, but it can be limited to some substantial points of the teachings of HEINEBERG (2001) und LICHTENBERGER (1998).

The town in the geographical sense is a settlement with special functional, socialgeographical and physiognomical features. It is a continuing aggregation of humans and human dwellings, which cover a substantial area and are situated in the center of larger traffic routes:

high housing density
highly multistoried buildings
but: center-periphery gradient
high living and working place density
highly weighting of traffic
Towns are characterized by a special population structure. Above average particles of one-person households and small families with only one child are well-known as features of towns.

Fourth criterium: The social town term

The main focus of the social town term is the human in the town. Referring to the geografical town term it isn't possible to find an unique defintion. It speaks of a settlement, "in that the inhabitants don't know eachother any longer."

According to LOUIS HAMM the social town term is defined trough the existence of:

Anonymity and superficiality (amount of population)
absence of solidarity/constant competition (density of population)
segmentation of population (heterogeneity of population)

Today according to WALTER HAMM the definition can be declared by the sentence: "The town becomes a universal way of life, all social phenomena are at the same time also phenomena of the town."

In this case town can be seen as a social habitat composed of social spaces.

Fifth criterium: The economic town term

If you want to specify the town purely economically, MAX WEBER (2001) defines it as a settlement whose inhabitants lives predominantly on the yield of non-agricultural, for example commercial or trading industry.
A further feature that has to be mentioned is the presence of a certain versatility of the existing trades. The economical torn term covers "a settlement of humans, who are dependent for their own maintenance to products of other agricultural work":