Q&A: The State's Environmental Future
The State's Environmental Future
Question
Hello,
I wanted to ask what you think about the state’s environmental future. Everywhere they keep building more and more and more buildings. In Tel Aviv they demolish buildings in order to build towers. There are traffic jams everywhere. There are barely any parks and green spaces. The streams in the north are constantly being polluted. And that’s the situation now. A quick Google search seems to show that by 2030 there will be 11 million people in Israel, which is about another 1.8 million from now, and it will only keep going up and up. So is the future of the state going to be endless dense buildings with traffic jams and hardly any parks and green spaces?
I understand that in theory it’s also possible to live in open areas, in moshavim and the like, but I (and millions of others) simply can’t manage not to live in the central region, for various reasons.
Thank you
Answer
I don’t know. But I think that right now the situation is still far from critical. Later on, the economic and environmental constraints will have an effect, and I assume the growth will moderate and maybe even stop. Maybe the government will legislate laws that won’t encourage childbirth, as they already tried to do in the past, and the Haredim will of course protest about antisemitism, but by then there won’t be any choice and no one will listen to them.
In any case, people like you, who can’t imagine not living in the central region, will be able to, both because transportation will improve and because the constraints will dictate it. If you really can’t to the point that you’re willing to die, then apparently you’ll be the last resident of the center (as a metaphor, of course).