The Mayor’s Vision for Jerusalem
Posted on: August 3, 2010

In the latest Jerusalem Issue Brief, published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat outlines his blueprint for Jersualem:

  • Jerusalem has a population of 800,000 people today, which will grow to a million people twenty years from now. The current population ratio is one-third Muslim, two-thirds Jewish, and two percent Christian. In the next twenty years, we anticipate a need for 50,000 apartments – one-third for the Arab population and two-thirds for the Jewish population.
     
  • The vision I have for the city is to return Jerusalem to the role it played two and three thousand years ago as a world center – a destination for pilgrims and believers throughout the world. I meet people on my travels who say in an apologetic way that they have not yet been to Jerusalem, that it is a place they would like to visit at least once in their lifetime.
     
  • Our vision is to develop Jerusalem so it can fulfill that role – to develop tourism, to be a cultural center, and to exploit the spiritual potential of the Holy City. My goal is to reach ten million tourists a year a decade from now.
     
  • I told the American administration that I hope nobody is actually expecting that a building freeze will happen in Jerusalem or that a freeze should be only for the Jewish population. This would be illegal in Israel and unconstitutional in most democratic countries around the world.
     
  • Jerusalem must stay united. There is not one example in the world of a divided city that ever worked. We have to upgrade the quality of life for all residents, and we must keep Jerusalem undivided.

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