God, Globalization, and Geopolitics: On West Jerusalem's Gated Communities

In: Environment and planning. A, Volume 44, Issue 11, p. 2705-2720

Abstract

Over the last two decades West Jerusalem's city centre has undergone wide-scale privatization of space which is expressed, for instance, in the extensive construction of gated-community housing compounds. This is a global process which can be seen in many cities where neoliberal policies are implemented, resulting in the expansion of the elite's private capital on the one hand and the weakening of the welfare state as part of globalization processes on the other. However, this explanation is not sufficient when analyzing the privatization of space in West Jerusalem's city centre, which is spatially and politically part of the ongoing Israeli—Arab conflict. In other words, my argument is that the case of West Jerusalem illustrates a combination both of local ethnosecurity discourses and of global neoliberal urban policies which do not contradict each other, but rather are complementary.