Neighbors for Joint Development in the Galilee

Neighbors for Joint Development in the Galilee ("Neighbors") is a non-profit organization established in 2002 and made up of professional architects, urban and regional planners, engineers, environmentalists and mediators, Arabs and Jews, who have joined together to create a different planning reality in the region in which we live, the Galilee. This region in Northern Israel is characterized by open green spaces as well as large Arab and Jewish populations living in separate towns and villages with large socio-economic gaps between them. The present planning model is one that views the Galilee as a series of segregated areas for Arabs and Jews, ignoring both the reality of day-to day contact between the two populations, but more importantly, the great potential for increased economic and cultural cooperation in the future. Increased cooperation does not imply erasing cultural and other differences between communities, but rather, as the name "Neighbors" suggests, giving expression to the common elements and interests of the various populations living here, while respecting the particular qualities of each of them. The model that we are developing is one that views the region as one planning entity populated by many different ethnic and cultural groups, living in equality and mutual respect. This model will promote centers that serve all of the populations, thus providing a more efficient use of the land that will maximize open green spaces. Thus we fuse our environmental concern for the land together with our social concern for the well-being of the communities living on it and the relations between them.