Poverty and exclusion in Tel Aviv: the other side of the world's most expensive city

Paul Dewar Tel Aviv, 16 Mar Tel Aviv is the most expensive city in the world, home to impressive skyscrapers, Mediterranean beaches and an insatiable entrepreneurial ecosystem, and is also home to poor minorities who resist the high cost of living and the development of luxury. Loose wires, dead rats, people sleeping on the street and garbage, a lot of garbage, seeing, sniffing and even eating.The opposite side of Tel Aviv, a few meters south of the financial center of the frenzied city, was recently voted the most expensive in the world by The Economist magazine. These are two neighborhoods, Shapira and Nevé Shaanan, a microcosm of language, religion and survival stories where former Israeli residents mixed with African migrant workers and asylum seekers. It's about living in Tel Aviv and not dying. “The Israelis in the rest of the city do not step on this area, and they have no idea what is happening here if they are stunned when they do so,” said Efe Ami Giz, a tourist guide living in the neighborhood. Survived during the epidemic for Israelis walking through the Tel Aviv backyard. Efe Kobi Aharami, who lives in Shapira, said: “In the Rottchild in the north, everything is beautiful, organized, first-class, and from Rotschild to the south there is another Tel Aviv.” He says in front of a store that sells everything from plants to used kitchen utensils. One of the typical arteries of the city, crowded with electric skateboards and co-working spaces, the Rotschild Boulevard differs from Mesilat Yesharim Street, which has the only bike path in the neighborhood that is disturbed by shops in Aharami, several downed dwellings that function as shops during the day, and potholes. On the same street is the laundry room Idris Adam, one of the approximately 30,000 asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan living in Israel, most of whom are locked up in small apartments in the south of Tel Aviv. According to figures published by the Haaretz newspaper, this group, together with a large and diverse group of migrant workers, occupies two thirds of the population of Nevé Shaanan and a large part of Shapira, an area that offers affordable rent and proximity. their job. Adam, a native of Sudan, said, “I think life here is good and I am part of the community and family, but with increasing prices and rent increases every year, it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain business.” I explain that. This price increase, which was unanimously complained among dozens of residents, told by Efe, is partly due to the growing upscale. Through the migration of young artists and students from the more expensive neighborhood of Shapira, and in Nevé Shaanan, the property was purchased as a huge real estate. The developers decided to re-evaluate it. According to Nathan Marom, a professor at Reichman University, who has been studying the evolution of Tel Aviv urban ecosystems for many years, this process is due to the increasingly high cost of living in cities and will trigger an inevitable departure to poor areas where people with fewer resources outskirts or other cities. “It's a shame because Tel Aviv will lose many of the characteristics that make it a cosmopolitan city.” He warns. “We will maintain some, such as the presence of multinational corporations and tourism, but we will lose other important factors, such as being the home of migrant workers, which will still be necessary for more unstable jobs,” he explains. One of the newcomers is Israeli artist Yahel Idán, who could no longer afford 5,000 shekels (1,400 euros) a month, and he says he is worried that the high-tech boom will eventually turn Tel Aviv into a city only for the rich. pd/lfp/alf (Photo) (Video)