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Dynamics and Potentials of Israel's Megalopolitan Processes

Department of Geography, Univerity of Haifa, Mount Carmel Haifa, 31905, Israel, B.Kipnis{at}geo.Haifa.ac.il

The notion of 'megalopolis' is used, following Gottmann, as a metaphor adopted from the ancient Greek city of Megalopolis situated at the heart of the Peloponnisos peninsula, to describe a linearly stretched system of urban agglomerations showing dense and intensified land uses and activities, and strong internal lineal socio-economic ties manifested by the movement of people, goods and information. Major urban agglomerations also act as junction nodes with other regional, national and international networks. A megalopolis is also perceived as an innovation-stimulating environment, and its metropolitan regions serve as the hard core of their region's post-industrial and post-modern activities and life-styles. Megalopolitan processes, defined along the Israeli coast in early 1980s, have gained momentum since the 1990s as a result of Israel' s entry into the post-industrial age and its expanding links with the global economy. It is assumed that if the emerging megalopolitan processes are successfully diffused into the coastal regions of neighbouring countries in peacetime, they might create, in the long run, an extended megalopolitan region along the east coast of the Mediterranean sea to evolve as the 'backbone' of a peaceful 'New' Middle East.

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