This study examines the under representation and exclusion of Arabs from planning and planning institutions in Israel. It reviews the internal and external barriers to the Arab population's involvement and to the Arab planners' degree of participation in planning processes. The study highlights the systematic institutional failure to fulfill its obligation to include a representation of Arabs in these institutions and its impact on the relationship between the state and the Arab public.

This volume of papers addresses national, district and metropolitan planning perspectives. Among them are the new generation of national and district planning issues and a return to comprehensive national planning. Some focus on a vision for long-term planning, Tel Aviv's empowerment and internalizing concepts of sustainable development as well as on combining between institutionalized operations and public and academic discourse. Others address dilemmas of metropolitan regeneration, strategies to strengthen Jerusalem and the late Professor Arie Shachar's unique contribution to urban geography, planning and mapping.

This publication focuses on the transformation in municipal planning arena in the last three decades, led by the growth in the number of players taking part in the process and the plethora of activities, interests and values. These changes, in a complex arena such as the city of Jerusalem, impact on the planning process and its output: the protraction of the process and an increasing disparity between planning and its implementation.

This study attempts to characterize the impact of scientists on shaping environmental policy in Israel and when, and in what way does the use of scientific rationale lead to maximizing the successful promotion of a desired policy? This is a particularly significant question in Israel, where the issue has not as yet gained wide public acknowledgement.

Urban creativity is currently the focus of theoretical and practical research and can contribute to the understanding of local government modus operandi and in particular to its effective management. The study focuses on Shoham and Holon, both defined by the Ministry of the Interior as successful municipalities. It examines the creativity of the municipality distinguishing between effective management, which emphasizes internal processes within the municipality, and democratic openness, which emphasizes the interaction between the municipality and the environment as well as increasing local capital resources.

This research examines how and why both Israelis and Palestinians cross borders into alien territory, and the way in which each of the groups confronts the "invasion" of its rival into its home territory.

Its main findings show that the more mutually inclusive territorial identity a place has the more positive an interactional pattern will occur in it, and vise-versa.