Public vs private enterprise?

Part 3 - Israel has a tradition of public-driven enterprise. A 20 year-old country with a population of 3m and GDP of Guilford decided to build world-class fighter-jets. And it did. Even before Israel the country was founded the leadership decided to build world class universities. And it did. All through public-led projects.

For many years private enterprise was frowned upon. The Kibbutz took this ideology to an extreme. Even children were considered a group activity. For those of you with their minds wondering off piste, I am not talking about the first steps in the process procreation. Rather, 9-months later. The moment babies were born they were taken from their parents to the children's quarters and taken care of by whoever was on shift at the time.

Like most extreme behaviours, it generated a major counteraction. About 30 years ago Israelis started taking care of Number 1. Themselves.

The positive side of this reaction was an emergence of entirely new industries, e.g. Hi Tech, Medical Devices, Solar Energy, and the privatisation of older ones, e.g. private security experts (aka mercenaries). This resulted in GDP per capita growing from stone-age to mid-EU levels. The negative side was that most people started neglecting the community and environment in which they lived. Nowhere is this more evident than in central Tel-Aviv.

You see, centre Tel-Aviv is an architecturally wondrous place with the largest concentration of Bauhaus buildings in the world. Property prices are as high as Hampstead and the properties are refurbished to palatial standards. From the inside that is. Staircases, communal areas and "gardens" are reminiscent of Mumbai slums. Anyone considering investing in regenerating the communal areas is considered a "frier", a sucker, someone who is being taken advantage of. Not many insults are considered more offensive by Israelis. As a result, Tel-Aviv is at the same time one of the most exciting cities and one of the most run down. Efforts by the authorities to force change have failed.

And still, I can feel a change. In our visit we saw many newly refurbished buildings where the developers invested a lot in the shared spaces. Surely, they do so since this drives up property values. The nice thing is, however, that once enough properties meet these standards, others must follow. And now that the tide has started turning, the local authority is driving regulation that will enforce the maintenance of the communal areas. Gradually I can imagine Tel-Aviv living up to its great potential. This time, through a compromise between private and public enterprise. And in Israel, any sort of compromise should be cherished.

PS August 8th: 655km down. 345km to go.