3.1.2021 | Meirav Arlosoroff | HAARETZ

By 2065 Israel is slated to be the second-most crowded nation on earth. Can it continue to grow like Nigeria while maintaining a standard of living like the Netherlands?​

In 2017, the National Strategic Housing Plan was approved. This was a major leap forward in planning, as for the first time, Israel tried to assess what its housing needs would be in the coming decades and set targets for the number of apartments to be planned and built. The targets were ambitious: 2.6 million apartments planned and 1.5 million apartments built by 2040, to meet the need to house Israel’s growing population, forecasted to reach 13.2 million by then, or four million more than today.

 

Israel’s population is growing at the dizzying pace of two percent a year, four times the average of just 0.5 percent in other developed countries. This has many ramifications, one being the need to build a huge number of apartments to house all the Israelis who are going to be born in the coming years. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, by 2050 Israel’s population will hit 15.7 million, a 75-percent increase over the current population; and by 2065, will be up to 20 million, more than twice as much as now.

 

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