Tel Aviv suffers from an image problem, but not the sort you might expect. Visitors from abroad are often surprised by the charms of this city. But the stereotypically confident Israelis seem to have an inferiority complex, imagining that Tel Aviv doesn’t measure up to cities in Europe or elsewhere in the developed world. To a guy coming from a beautiful-but-gray northern European city (the sort of place many Israelis favorably compare to Tel Aviv), I have to say Tel Aviv is an invigorating change. In this biodiversity walk I’ll try to explain why, with a special emphasis on the green allure of Tel Aviv.
A good starting point to understanding the Tel Aviv difference is history. It is not an ancient city, founded only in 1909. Unlike other Mediterranean cities such as Rome, Athens or Barcelona, it is more reminiscent of an east Asian boom town but with the climate of southern California. It is defined not by layers of organic growth over centuries, nor by stunning historical architecture, but by its cafes, bars, restaurants, beaches, and 24-hour lifestyle.
A good starting point to understanding the Tel Aviv difference is history. It is not an ancient city, founded only in 1909. Unlike other Mediterranean cities such as Rome, Athens or Barcelona, it is more reminiscent of an east Asian boom town but with the climate of southern California. It is defined not by layers of organic growth over centuries, nor by stunning historical architecture, but by its cafes, bars, restaurants, beaches, and 24-hour lifestyle.
A corner cafe in the old heart of Tel Aviv - along a tree-studded street. Old Tel Aviv, in the south, could be part of a developing world city (it wouldn’t be out of place in Mexico or Brazil) and exhibits much of what Jane Jacobs loved about the old Greenwich Village in NYC – a very living mix of small businesses, light industry and housing, crowded together into small, exuberant blocks. I think this is the face of Tel Aviv that Israelis feel self conscious about. One day they will realize that this is the very real heart of the city, and it is even now starting to gain attention as a trendy area in which to live and a transformation is under way…including tree planting.
“New” Tel Aviv, in the north and surrounding suburbs, shows how far Israel has come in the last decades. It is as clean and shiny as the best of Europe or East Asia. And thanks to a combination of good planning and year-round sunshine, it is a green city that’s becoming greener as it grows. Tel Aviv may just be one of the nicer places to live in the world and because of its climate and progressive orientation, it is also one of the more exciting green urban centers. (This last week, however, could make one reconsider the climate as a strong point of Tel Aviv... my friend Marlene and I were schvitzing the whole week during an intense heat wave).
Marlene and her family live in Tel Baruch Tzafon, a neighborhood in the northern part of Tel Aviv. This is my base here. It’s an upper-middle class area and the biodiversity walk starts here giving a view of the environs these Tel Aviv residents experience daily.
Marlene and her family live in Tel Baruch Tzafon, a neighborhood in the northern part of Tel Aviv. This is my base here. It’s an upper-middle class area and the biodiversity walk starts here giving a view of the environs these Tel Aviv residents experience daily.
The above pictures start with a view out of the window of Marlene’s apartment, onto Aharon Becker Street. This area was built in 2001, and from the window you can see only a small portion of the green space that has been incorporated into the urban plan. There’s a green median, planted with many drought-tolerant bushes and plants, and rather lush vegetation lines the front of all the buildings. I imagine that as the years pass, this new development will have a beautiful canopy of shade trees covering the sidewalks and streets, significantly cooling the whole area during the hot summer. The pictures that follow this show the impressive range of green space that’s creatively brought into housing developments in Tel Aviv.
In every city I go to I try to find a unique characteristic of the green scene, and in Tel Aviv I think this has to be the green alleyways (I have no idea what the Israelis call them) that intersect every neighborhood I’ve visited. These walkways, which bar cars, act as shortcuts between streets tying neighborhoods together. They come in a variety of styles, but most seem to have wide swaths of bushes and trees on either side, and tend to be paved with bricks, creating a very inviting and intimate feeling. The types of vegetation vary, and many of the newer developments specialize in plants that don’t require a lot of water, although there is invariably the drip irrigation hosing that is omnipresent in Israel. I must say that I’ve been surprised to see some conventional lawn sprinklers in this country where water is so precious. Even the Israelis can’t resists a lush green carpet of grass. The following pictures are from several neighborhoods in the north of Tel Aviv, most highlighting these alleyways.
Tel Aviv, and Israel as a whole, is a destination that makes you feel at home and want to return. On my next visit I hope to visit more green projects, such as the old garbage dump in the east of Tel Aviv that is being transformed into a park. The city has a long way to go to be at the top of heap of green cities – for example it’s missing an easy-to-use and comprehensive public transportation system and a usable web of bike paths – but from what I see, it’s definitely moving in the right direction.
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