ABSTRACT
Between 1990 and 1996, Israel's settlement pattern experienced significant growth resulting from the rapid absorption of more than 700,000 new immigrants. By the end of 1995, Israel's population had reached 5.6 million inhabitants-a 5% annual growth during the years 1990 and 1991, 2.7% in 1992, and over 10% total growth in the first half of the decade. In view of the government policy favoring widespread population dispersal, this mass immigration was perceived as a unique chance to bolster the relative demographic weakness of Israel's frontier areas. Be'er Sheva is a major urban center in the Negev with seven surrounding development town. The region as a whole will gradually become less dependent on the external influences of the metropolitan center of the country, and will function as Israel's fourth metropolitan region, after Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.
