Igal Charney

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Haifa

This paper makes the case for the connection between making land-use regulatory changes and the process of destruction and redevelopment. Under the capitalist imperative, buildings that do not fulfil the full potential for profit are likely to be demolished (or refurbished) but demolition and new development are not shaped exclusively by the immuta...

For many decades, permissible building heights have been kept relatively low and largely unchanged in cities, which have been home to renowned historic and architectural assets. Recently, attempts to introduce modifications into long-established height limitations have triggered diverse responses among policy-makers, planners and residents of such...

These interventions in urban geopolitics recognise that it is timely to develop a research agenda that reinforces, broadens and regenerates this field, bridging the disciplines of political geography, urban studies, planning and architecture in renewed ways.

This paper critically questions the state's hostile takeover of planning regulation followed by experimentation initiated by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has been seeking to subordinate the planning apparatus to market calculus and to short-term political ends. To substantiate this argument, I have examined a large corpus of do...

This paper explores how planning, politics and architecture work together to socially produce new vertical cityscapes. Our contention is that the inception and development of high-rises are interlocked into the narrations of cities, reflecting cultural values and social cleavages, political interests and planning agendas, symbolic connotations and...

This study analyzes metropolitan dynamics in a small country with an "island state" context of closed boundaries, using commuting data and mobile phone tracking data. We examine whether the Israeli context encourages the formation of a monocentric "metropolitan state," characterized by increasing links between localities throughout the country and...

Among downtowns of North American metropolitan regions, two have performed especially well in terms of the presence of employment, residential development and diversity of land uses over the last decades: those of Toronto and Chicago. This paper concentrates on the factors responsible for their success. It reviews the history of the two downtowns s...

This paper examines the production of contested and mundane spaces in Jerusalem. So far, scholarship has focused primarily on the turbulent ethnonational relations in Jerusalem, while paying less attention to struggles over issues of growth and development that do not touch directly upon Israeli-Palestinian controversies. In this paper we consider...

Now in the early 21st century after several decades of population shrinkage, kibbutzim are experiencing renewed growth. In-migration to kibbutzim reflects the re-appreciation of rural living, a phenomenon sought by counterurbanites and gentrifiers alike. Drawing on two regions (exurban and peripheral) in northern Israel, we examined the case of mig...

This article explores the transformation of a world-famous supertall skyscraper in Lower Manhattan. Due to unique circumstances and wide exposure via the media, the case of the Freedom Tower/One World Trade Center makes possible looking at the intricacies that remain largely out of the public eye in less-publicised projects. Dictated by powerful re...

This paper considers how municipal entrepreneurialism takes advantage of gaps between state-level planning regulation and local planning capacities. Tensions between local and upper tier regulatory apparatuses are common in Israel, a state characterized by a top-down statutory planning system, where major planning and development issues are subject...

This paper examines the attempts made by the renewing kibbutzim to maintain their way of life as much as possible through the adjustment of their gating mechanisms. In this type of a rural gated community, sorting procedures and admittance criteria of nonmembers are the most notable elements. Background material and interviews with informants at ei...

This article provides an overview of the real estate development industry and evaluates its connection to urban planning. It reviews principal approaches used to study the real estate industry and explains the concept of development rhythms that encapsulate the unevenness of development over time. The article explains that the real estate developme...

This publication is an authoritative volume on planning, a long-established professional social science discipline in the United States and throughout the world. Edited by professors at two planning institutes in the United States, it collects together over forty-five noted field experts to discuss three key questions: Why plan? How and what do we...

Despite the growing recognition that metropolitan real estate markets are segmented spatially and that property development is still profoundly local, research has taken little notice of agents that actually initiate and propel the development process. Earlier studies that aimed at identifying metropolitan segmentation employed statistical techniqu...

After 2000 a handful of very tall buildings were approved in central London, a circumstance that challenged well-established planning practices in that part of the city. Their promotion by Ken Livingstone, the mayor, but opposition to them by conservation groups, seemed to signal a fierce campaign ahead; in fact, it was all over in an instant. This...

Palestinian suicide terrorism has been a key feature in the latest phase of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the past decade, and particularly since September 2000, there has been a substantial increase in the use of this type of warfare. Recent studies suggest that, contrary to common belief, suicide terrorism is highly rational and driven...

 In recent studies, arguments have been made attesting to the growing spatial dispersion of Canadian agglomerations. Using the patterns of office development, this article presents an analysis of suburban Toronto during the last two decades. The suburban domain, like the metropolitan region as a whole, is stratified into concentrated and dispersed...

By and large, the downtowns of Canada's largest cities have remained important business nodes within their metropolitan regions, even though they have experienced some dimensions of decline. This fact can be ascribed to political, economic and social factors. The focus of this paper is on the property dimension: the structure of property ownership...

Suburban city centres and office parks are among the prominent forms of suburban development in the Toronto region. Suburban city centres combine civic and business functions whereas office parks were designed to accommodate business requirements. Drawing on the largest suburban municipality in the Toronto region, the City of Mississauga, this pape...

After the collapse of the towers on the World Trade Center site doubts have been raised regarding the future of skyscrapers. Some observers suggested that this event marks the end of the skyscraper as an urban landmark while others argued that it will have only a short-term effect. Based on the examination of the projects proposed and approved sinc...

Among agents that reflect and shape urban space, prominent property developers are powerful players. This paper examines the spatial practices of Canada's largest office development firms. These firms constantly explore new frontiers for investment, but at the same time well-established nodes are rigorously maintained and protected. Larger urban ar...

Transnational property investment has increased dramatically during the last few decades. This process has been traced by literature focusing on capital-rich countries (e.g. the United States, Canada, Japan) and on major world cities. More recently, in tandem with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the geographical horizons of foreign investors have...

Office-building cycles have been subject to extensive research during the past decade. Researchers have contemplated various aspects of the most recent cycle (1980s to early 1990s), yet the multiple spatial dimensions have received only modest consideration. Taking a longer perspective than the typical building cycle, the author considers the exten...

This article analyzes capital switching practices in the real estate development sector. The leading practitioners in Canada, the Canadian-based real estate companies, are the subject of this inquiry. The tradability and divisibility of real estate properties enhance the growing similarity between real estate properties and other financial assets....

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2000. Includes bibliographical references.