The city is a complex organism, changing in accordance with social, economic and technological tendencies. In an era of rapid changes and frequent crises, adaptability is essential in order to maintain the city relevance. Throughout the history, urban planning has proven itself as an adaptive mechanism. However, early 20th century modern planning models created an ‘anti-adaptive’ urbanism. The Israeli planning system adopted this planning and building framework and we can now find numerous Anti-Adaptive neighborhoods in Israel.

By the end of the 20th century, a social and environmental planning discourse have emerged and hence, new models have developed (New-Urbanism, Eco-Urbanism etc.), compatible to the idea of adaptive and flexible way of planning and building neighborhoods. Although the new models are now well recognized and widespread, the practice of the neighborhood planning worldwide and specifically in Israel is geared toward producing Anti-Adaptive neighborhoods and has difficulties to resynchronize.

The study examines the barriers preventing the implementation of adaptive urban planning in Israel, and the reasons for the persistence of the modern pattern (defined in this study as Anti-Adaptive planning), despite the policymaker’s recognition of its ineffectiveness.