Tel Aviv, Israel - a world city in evolution: urban development at a deadend of the global economy

Abstract

Tel Aviv was mentioned as a world city for the first time by Kellerman (1993) who empha-sized the existence of leading economic functions typical for the late 20th century city. This paper extends the notion of Tel Aviv as a world city in evolution, using up-to-date world city literature and indicators. Greater (metropolitan) Tel Aviv with 2.6 million population in 2000 (Tel Aviv City had 350000) has been Israel`s primate urban agglomeration since the 1920s. Since the 1990s it has evolved into a hard core of Israel`s post-industrial, globally orientated economy, and has displayed a post-modern physical ambience and social and cultural lifestyle. Tel Aviv evolved into a global city in spite of the fact that it is located at a frontier in its own region, the Mideast, and at the cul-de-sac site relative to the mainstream global economic centers with which it maintains most of its network links. In addition to common attributes of a world city one of the main assets of Tel Aviv is its high R&D inten-sive industry, acting as a growth pole for the local and national economies. Future research avenues are an in-depth analysis of Tel Aviv`s social inequalities and the linkage patterns that Tel Aviv maintains with other urban centers of world city caliber.