Street patterns and spatial integration of Israeli cities

This paper examines the spatial integration of twenty-four cities representing the major city types, found in Israeli, classified according to their establishment and development circumstances. An initial analysis has indicated that while cities belonging to the same type have similar street patterns, they are simultaneously distinguished by the continuity and shape of those networks, the results of different topographical conditions and built-area growth. In this research, several questions were examined: To what extent do different city types exhibit common characteristics of spatial integration (syntactic parameters)? How do spatial partitions and street network shapes affect spatial integration? What characterizes the spatial configuration of Israeli cities as the selected case? The measurement and analysis of spatial integration were conducted using a space syntax methodology. Obtained results indicated that cities belonging to the same city type tended to exhibit similar local levels of spatial integration, affected primarily by street patterns. In contrast, significant differences appeared on the global level, which were related to different levels of discontinuity and partitions in the street network as well as to the entire street network's form. A comparison of the spatial integration (syntactic) values obtained in this research with those obtained for cities in other parts of the world revealed that in general, Israeli cities were similar to U.K. and European cities although characterized by relatively small gaps between Local and Global spatial integration values. We conclude that these small gaps are consequences of the Israeli city's particular development history.