The city-region and the challenge of its representation: The hierarchical network of newly built neighborhoods in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This paper addresses the challenge of conceptualizing and analyzing contemporary city-regions, arguing that the definitions of the city-region are influenced by the methods used to explore it and that in most cases, regions are not either/or but rather are complex juxtapositions of (sometimes) conflicting concepts. In exploring this argument, the paper presents the contemporary tension between the concepts of “hierarchical” and “network,” with the latter often being viewed as the organizing logic of contemporary city-regionalism. Using the case of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, the paper focuses on the development of new neighborhoods in the city-region, constructed from the 1990s onwards, and the effect of this development on the region as a whole. Although a socio-spatial analysis of this development reveals that the design of new neighborhoods follows a similar prototype that might reinforce the idea of an urban network, the geographical spread of new neighborhoods throughout the region reveals a hierarchical structure that preserves existing economic and political distinctions between the core and periphery. The questions addressed in this paper extend beyond the case of Tel Aviv and can be considered in the context of the “regional question” and the ongoing search for its contemporary representation.