Development of the Jewish Urban Settlement in Israel in View of the Theory of the Innovation Diffusion

Abstract

Abstract Presentation of the current state and development tendencies of Jewish urban settlement in Israel against the innovation diffusion theory. Analysis of the growth tempo of the number of cities in Israel allows to claim that urban Jewish settlement network develops in accordance with the innovation diffusion model. Assuming that the theory fits the urban settlement development pattern on the surveyed territories, the directions taken by the impulses sent by innovation sources have been determined based on the corridor settlement development theory. The hypothesis has been verified against the factors influencing spatial development directions of the Jewish urban settlement using a dynamic (synchronic-comparative) diffusion process simulation model, built with the Monte Carlo method. The conducted analyses and procedures verifying the model distribution of Jewish settlement in Israeli cities in 1948, 1967 and 1992 allowed to conclude that the highest stochastic concordance between the model accounting for the innovation diffusion theory elements, and the real distribution of Jewish settlement cities holds for 1948 and 1967. According to the diffusion innovation theory, these years correspond to the colonisation stage. The model diversifies from reality for late 1967, when network densification process was coming to an end and city competition stage was starting. Despite statistical validity of the hypotheses, the results show that besides the analysed factors influencing the development of Jewish urban settlement, other variables, not accounted for in the model, are also significantly influential.