URBAN-RURAL BOUNDARY CONFLICTS - THE RESHAPING OF ISRAELS RURAL MAP

This study examines boundary conflicts between urban and rural local a uthorities in Israel. It focuses on three basic questions: what are th e reasons for urban-rural boundary conflicts?; do these reasons vary a cross time and space?; and, what are the underlying structural causes that shape these variations? The study is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of boundary conflicts involving Israeli rural reg ional councils between the 1960s and the early 1990s. It demonstrates that macro-societal structural processes are at the root of urban-rura l boundary conflicts. Mounting pressures on regional councils have ari sen from political, economic and ideological processes which have shak en the foundations of the councils and produced unprecedented pressure s on their territory. Processes of counter-urbanization have played a substantial role, but have been deeply intertwined in a political-ideo logical context. These processes may either lead to: (1) further fragm entation and contraction of areas managed by rural local government; ( 2) transformation of rural local governments into entities of a new ty pe; or (3) formation of new forms of urban-rural regional co-operation .