URBAN REGIMES AND NEIGHBORHOOD MOBILIZATION AGAINST URBAN REDEVELOPMENT: The Case of an Arab‐Jewish Neighborhood in Israel

ABSTRACT: This study deals with the effects of an urban bureaucratic regime on urban development and neighborhood mobilization. It examines the sociospatial transformations in an Arab‐Jewish neighborhood in a major city in Israel. During the period of 1948–1990, the neighborhood experienced population turnover, planned deterioration and decline, and subsequent renewal and gentrification. The paper deals with the factors which shaped those policies and processes. the author argues that the political economy of Israel contributed to the emergence of a bureaucratic urban regime which effectively drove off all private entrepreneurial involvement in the area's development process. It is also shown that the inherent features of the bureaucratic regime facilitated community mobilization opposing development plans and made the governing agencies vulnerable to citizens' protests and court rulings.