Development, Entrepreneurship, and Urban Space – The Case of “Sfat Midbar”

Mitzpe Ramon`s entrepreneurial economy began to develop in the 1980s following an agricultural-tourism project called "Sfat-Midbar". This project encouraged privileged Jewish-Ashkenazi population, from center Israel, to settle in the southern town for the purpose of establishing farms on lands leased by the state. Those newcomers developed a tourism and ecology-based economy that excludes veteran populations (Oriental Jews and Bedouins) living in the area. In this paper I will concentrates on Sfat-Midbar as an entrepreneurship project that transformed the urban space of Mitzpe-Ramon; It was part of a larger process of selection and exclusion. It enabled privilege populations an access to the town and its natural resources and by that it changes the urban space of the town. This process is signified by the transformation of Mitzpe-Ramon from a development-desert town to a gated community settlement.









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