Urban Life in Israel

About 91 percent of Israelis live in urban areas. Many modern towns and cities, blending the old and the new, are built on sites known since antiquity, among them Jerusalem, Safed, Beersheba, Tiberias and Acre (Akko). Others such as Rehovot, Hadera, Petah Tikvah and Rishon Lezion began as agricultural villages in the pre-state era and gradually evolved into major population centers. Development towns such as Carmiel and Kiryat Gat were built in the early years of the state to accommodate the rapid population growth generated by mass immigration, as well as to help distribute the population throughout the country and to promote a closely interlocked rural and urban economy by drawing industry and services to previously unpopulated areas.