Introduction

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Work began immediately, despite the war. Together with some dozens of architects and engineers, we prepared a working programme for town and regional planning, and submitted it to the Knesset's Committee for Internal Affairs. I wanted to get together a staff of one hundred planners, architects, engineers and socio-economists. We thought hard to make the Committee understand our aim of planning of new towns and regions creatively in the entire country.

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Our team was full of dash, imagination and enthusiasm. There was a fighting mood, we were determined to overcome vested interests , local ambitions and short-range emergency targets. Our spirits soared even higher when, in the spring of 1949, a new Government was formed, and the importance of national planning was acknowledged by attaching our department to the Prime Minister's office. From there we could work with the high authority of David Ben-Gurion behind us.

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We tried very hard to gain the support of public opinion for our national planning, using various channels, such as press conferences, articles and lectures. The high point of this information drive was a town-planning exhibition in the Tel Aviv Museum - the first exhibition ever held there which was not devoted to the arts. We presented panels showing the principles of the National Plan, some regional plans, including communication networks, agricultural and industrial areas, distribution of population, National Parks and open spaces, and the general layout of new towns spread all over the country.

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Ben-Gurion, when asked how he liked the exhibition, said: "Those are the most beautiful colours I have seen in my life," referring to the English watercolours of the new town plans. (I noted more proof of the importance of presenting ideas by visual means.) The Minister of Finance, Eliezer Kaplan, a very able economist, was our most severe critic. He said bluntly: "Even if you were the world's best architects, it is not your job but the Government's to decide on the location, size and ultimate goals of the new towns." I replied: "These are only proposals - it is up to you, the Government, to study them, to consider them and then to make the decisions." He laughed, and said: "You know very well that the Government will never have the time and patience, especially with the war going on, to concentrate on these matters. Once the plans are drawn, the development, if any, will follow your suggestions." He was right.

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