Jerusalem has the highest population growth among Israel’s large cities.
By PEGGY CIDORThe western wall(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Forty-eight years after the end of the Six Day War – which reunified the Holy City, divided by the 1949 armistice agreements – Jerusalem is the largest city in the country.At the end of 2013, its population comprised 829,000 residents – with 522,000 (63%) identifying as Jews or others, and 307,000 (37%) Arabs. Of these, 509,000 were Jewish (61%), 295,000 Muslim (36%), 15,000 Christian (2%) and 10,000 were classified as without religion (1%).Jerusalem also had the highest population growth among Israel’s large cities, at 1.8% for 2013, compared to 1% in Tel Aviv and 0.4% in Haifa, but also had about the same rate as the country as a whole that year – which had a population growth of 1.9%. Yet it was lower than Israel’s general growth, which stood at 1.8% – while in Jerusalem, the Jewish growth was 1.4%.Among Jerusalem’s Arab population, the growth for 2013 was 2.5% – the lowest in many years (while for the country as a whole, the Arab population growth also dropped but to a lesser degree, standing at 2.2%).Jerusalem has the biggest and most complex education system in Israel, with 269,100 pupils (from preschool to high school), and no fewer than three distinct education systems: Arab – state and private; Hebrew – state secular and religious; and haredi – state and semi-private.The year 2014 ended with the completion of 2,469 new housing units, representing 5.5% of the housing units completed in the country (with Jerusalem’s population comprising 10% of the country’s population). This illustrates a trend of continuing growth in new construction in the city, beginning two years ago; the new housing units were in Nayot (12%), Romema (9%), the city center (6%), Gilo (6%) and Har Homa (5%). About 15% of the new construction still not completed at the end of 2014 was concentrated in Har Homa, with other neighborhoods including Baka (11%), Abu Tor (11%), Neveh Ya’acov (10%) and Romema (10%).And the prices? Between October and December 2014, the average cost of a standard 3.5- to four-room apartment was NIS 1,830,900, higher than the price for the same apartment elsewhere in the country (NIS 1,347,700) but lower than a similar unit in Tel Aviv (NIS 2,677,200). As for rentals, a standard 3.5- to four-room apartment was rented at NIS 4,526, higher than the country average (NIS 4,150) and Haifa (NIS 3,028), but lower than an equivalent unit in Tel Aviv (NIS 6,447).Happiness is slightly lower than average, with only 82% of Jerusalemites declaring they are happy or very happy to live here, compared to 83% of those in the country in general and in Haifa, and 87% of Tel Aviv residents. This may be because Jerusalemites feel they need more parks in the city: Only 37% of residents declared they were satisfied with the number of parks here, compared to 68% of Tel Aviv residents.Last but not least, of Jewish residents aged 20 and above, 34% defined themselves as haredi and 30% religious, while those defining themselves as secular or traditional came in at 36% – compared with 67% in the country as a whole and 86% in Tel Aviv.
