Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tel Aviv's skyline as aircraft fl y overhead during festivities marking Israel's sixtieth Independence Day, May
2008. (Getty Images / Image Bank.)
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center, and Suzanne Dalal Center
for dance and theater.
Tel Aviv's business life has gone through a transformation. Small, old-fashioned stores along
Herzl and Allenby Streets have given way to air-conditioned shopping malls (
kanyonim
). Al-
though the outdoor markets and small grocery stores face competition from large supermar-
kets, the replacement of local family businesses by big chain stores has been far less extensive
than in North America. With the waning of the Arab boycott, large Western retail and food
outlets have moved into Israel, but loyalty to traditional brands and businesses remains strong.
Despite the presence of cars and commuters, Tel Aviv is still a largely pedestrian city. From
the 1930s to the 1960s, Dizengoff Street, with its fashionable cafes, was the place to stroll, but
the city has become decentralized. Sheinkin Street has become the main focus for bohemian
life, yet it also has the greatest concentration of the city's religious population. The city's dis-
tricts include the Greenwich Village - type Neve Tzedek district and the Yemenite Quarter, as
well as poorer neighborhoods like HaTikva to the east, the south Tel Aviv area, and the run-
down area near the Old Central Bus Station, which is frequented by foreign workers. To the
north is the wealthy neighborhood of Ramat Aviv; to its east are the middle-class suburbs of
Ramat Gan and Giva'tayim; a bit farther away are Petah Tikva and the largely Orthodox Bnei
Brak; and to the south is Holon.
Tel Aviv sees itself as a hedonistic Mediterranean city and promotes itself as the Big Orange
and the City That Never Sleeps. In political terms, Tel Aviv has historically been split almost
evenly between supporters of the Labor and the Likud parties.
