Tel Aviv-Yafo doesn’t stop. The city is steadily developing, growing, and changing: Besides a pleasant promenade along the sea, the city keeps opening more and more schools and kindergartens and hosts countless events and international festivals.
But all this abundance also causes quite a few problems and challenges: Housing prices are skyrocketing, parking becomes evermore problematic, and the streets seem to narrow to accommodate all users - pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and buses.Entire communities are pushed out of the city, and their unique culture disappears from its streets.
While UNESCO's declaration of the White City as a World Heritage Site did facilitate the preservation of architectural masterpieces and drew international attention to the status of Tel Aviv-Yafo, at the same time, it has also highlighted the increasingly negative influence of the accelerated process of gentrification.
It is now clearer than ever that we must preserve the historical and cultural heritage of the city - this elusive element that functions as an economic, social, cultural, and communal asset that is hard to restore once it has been lost. If we fail to promote their preservation, our communities, cultures and heritage will wither under the towers and asphalt.
The city must certainly continue to develop, provide solutions for existing and future demands, and face the challenges that will continue to multiply, but we must also find a way to reconcile the undisputed conflict between preservation and the requirement for further urban development (additional apartments, bicycle paths, parking spaces, and infrastructure).
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POTO: Achuzot HaChof
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