ABSTRACT
The industrial geography of Israel at the outset of the 1990s is a product of spatial processes that were initiated during the period of British rule, and of spatial policies implemented by the government to modify these processes thereafter. The foundations of modern industry in Israel were mostly laid down by Jewish immigrants during the 1920s and 1930s, and consolidated during the Second World War. These years witnessed the evolution of a new Jewish urban system which has basically endured and consolidated as the core of present-day Israeli urban structure. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, persistent efforts to modify this spatial structure, which has been constantly reinforced by spatial economic processes, have been made. These efforts have included the establishment of dozens of new non-metropolitan development towns and the adoption of an industrial dispersal policy. Therefore, in order to evaluate present issues and problems in the industrial geography of Israel, one should focus on the implementation of Israeli spatial industrialisation policy, which has been remarkably consistent for nearly forty years. This policy has served as a major means for population dispersion and has attempted to provide solutions to economic problems of Israel’s development towns. A comprehensive assessment of the spatial industrialisation policy should consider the interaction of economic shifts, political situations, changing planning perceptions, organisational dynamics, and the actions of pressure groups and entrepreneurs. Such an assessment, which begins with circumstances prevailing at the time when the policy was formulated, is indispensable for a correct evaluation of spatial trends and shortcomings of the policy during the post-1973 years of economic stagnation (see Part III).
