Conquest Through Town Planning: The Case of Tel Aviv, 1921-48

The role of the discourses of town planning and development played an important role in the Zionist leadership's attempts to expand its urban territorial base, nowhere more obviously than in Tel Aviv. This article examines the land and town planning legislation introduced by the Mandate, how the rapidly growing Municipality of Tel Aviv used this legislation to annex lands from the surrounding Arab villages, and the local Palestinian population's understanding of and resistance to the Zionist-inspired urbanization of the region.

Mark LeVine is a dean's dissertation fellow at the Departmet of Middle Eastern Studies and the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University.