Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the urban geography of Israel. It analyzes the fundamentals and processes of the development of both old and new towns in the country on the background of Jewish settlement trends since the end of the last century. The book considers the main processes that have characterized urban settlement in Israel and the factors that have determined the present pattern of urban settlement. It shows the patterns of town development in the context of the urban nodes of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, in the metropolitan and conurbation areas, in the ancient towns and those that grew out of the agricultural Moshavot, and in the desert town of Beer Sheva. The book describes the new towns in the country as a drastic change in the overall urban process of Israel.