After the first video from the YouTube channel "A City to Live In" brought up the urban potential inherent in the Hadar neighborhood and the basic question - what is Haifa's city center? - the second video comes and deepens the analysis: What actually destroyed Haifa as an urban city - and what can be done to bring it back to life?
The creator, Ilya Kogan, who grew up in Haifa and owns one of the most influential YouTube channels in Israel in the field of urbanism, points to three central factors that have led to Haifa's ongoing decline as a living city:
1. Competing complexes for the downtown area – Instead of investing in the heart of the city, commercial centers, shopping malls, and employment areas were built on the outskirts. These drew life – and transportation – out, leaving the city center bleeding.
2. Bypass roads – planning that favors rapid traffic flow over pleasant and inviting public space, has created disconnected neighborhoods and turned the city into a network of interchanges and highways – rather than streets.
3. Demolition of good old urban infrastructure – Instead of preserving and renewing the city center, the historic sidewalks and streets – neighborhoods were separated and demolished to make way for more highways. The result: separation of neighborhoods, destruction of the urban fabric and the dying of the city.
The video is not just about criticism – but also about solutions. Ilya offers a new way of thinking about the city: not through more grandiose plans, but through reconnecting neighborhoods, strengthening the street, encouraging walking, and most importantly: investing in the heart of the city and not on its outskirts. Like the first video, this episode is already generating interest among professionals, residents, and local activists. It is filmed at street level, full of insights – and most importantly, with a deep concern for Haifa and what it can be.
Haifa has been off the tourism map for many years.
Haifa is a city of transition to tourist sites.
Tourists in the city don't spend more than an hour at the Baha'i Gardens, and rightly so.
This is the only place I'm willing to accept them.
In my opinion, Haifa is a city of both overt and covert crime.
In my opinion, the mayor is mainly promoting the Arab public in the city and the needy Arab public that immigrates to the city from all the villages in the north. The same public that is also responsible for the increase in crime in the city.
The same goes for encouraging business, especially among Arab businessmen,
The same goes for culture, with his choices in bringing in artists who hate Israel and boycotting artists who are loyal to the state.
Even the communal arrangement that for many years gave a piece of humanity on the holiday to the city's needy was canceled.
I believe that if the municipal opposition does not wake up and continue with this policy, the city will become the largest Arab city in need in Israel in the coming years.
To complete the picture, I would like to point out that in 2015 and 2016 I submitted a detailed road plan, which includes in part a detailed construction plan and in part a principle construction plan for 6 neighborhoods in the Carmel Ridge, which include excellent accessibility, pedestrian access, 70 km of walking and cycling paths, with a moderate longitudinal gradient, within residential neighborhoods and connecting from neighborhood to neighborhood, including arranging walking and accessibility solutions, including excellent public transportation – and despite the ruling issued against the Haifa Municipality, despite the decision on contempt of court for not complying with the ruling, despite the decision of the District Committee from December 2017 – the Haifa Municipality and the planning authorities refuse to examine the plan and allow a discussion in the local committee plenary on the proposed plan – the discussion, the decision of the District Committee and the ruling, as well as the decision on contempt of court – they don’t move the strings, it’s not on their agenda, and it doesn’t serve their interests – so They don't implement decisions, they don't promote the city, they just bury us all here.
Dear Ilya, I saw the video – congratulations on the investment – indeed, Haifa is creating new neighborhoods, contrary to the planning guidelines of the Ministry of Transport and Road Safety and the Ministry of Construction and Housing, without walkability, without reasonable accessibility, without bicycle, skateboard, and scooter paths on reasonable road gradients. They are creating neighborhoods dependent on the use of private vehicles with very poor accessibility to public transportation – this is a fatal blow to the city and its residents, a cry for generations. In addition, roads approved in previous master plans are being canceled in Haifa – and things are being conducted with abject irresponsibility and a desire to benefit those who need it and harm everyone else (this is also called a fear of conflict of interest, suspicion of bribery and other slanderous nonsense) – there is no desire to correct the distortion and thus the ship (the city of Haifa) is heading towards a total collapse of the road system and infrastructure – and this is very important, as soon as the cry of infrastructure collapse, after the cancellation of necessary roads, and the regulation of inappropriate planning, reaches Jerusalem, then the government purse, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transportation will open, huge budgets will be poured in for a life-saving program, and all the financial managers and supervisors, and everyone who benefits along the way will get rich from the pouring in of billions – normal solutions, after the demolition of the basic infrastructure and the destruction of the city, will no longer help, but who cares anyway, those who pull the strings (the same ones who manage the chaos, the planning failures and, according to the suspicion, the The bribe fund) will get rich, and that's what's important.
The values you are trying to promote while romanticizing the "good life in an exemplary city" do not belong to the current era.
It's like trying to explain that it's better to build new buildings without elevators because taking the stairs is good because people meet while moving and even improve their physical fitness...
I do not rule out connecting stairs between street levels, even if they are at the expense of private areas that are expropriated for the public good, but in my understanding their use will be minimal in any case.
From my investigation, the correct and appropriate solution to prevent the use of private vehicles consists of two main elements:
1. Comprehensive and efficient public transportation infrastructure.
2. Low parking standards, and in some places even a ban on parking.
I would love to hear your response.
142 deaths in road accidents by April 18.
134 fatal accidents compared to 118 in 2024.
18% increase in the number of fatal accidents.
15% increase in the number of deaths in road accidents.
2024 The number of deaths rose from 361 to 439.
This year, at this rate, there could be 500 deaths.
Every car ride became a roulette of life.
This is the very heavy price that all private car lovers pay and will continue to pay. This goes beyond the loss of GNP in traffic jams and working hours, damage from road accidents, and the enormous costs of maintaining more and more roads and interchanges.
But the price for the public is going to be much heavier on the pocket as well. Insurance costs will increase every year with the increase in accidents and thefts. The price of traveling in endless traffic jams will be lost hours with the family, driving will bring anger, stress and anxiety that will increase violence on the road and we are already seeing all the damage. And there are still people who think that "because of the topography" or some other excuse, it is impossible to create excellent public transportation that will make people give up traveling by car. This self-deception must be uprooted and the only way is to simply add more and more public transportation in priority over private cars at public transportation stations throughout the city that will transfer the public to fast and comfortable buses to save time in traffic jams. And along with that, another Carmelite tram line 2 on the Carmel Ridge and another Carmelite tram through the Wadiyot, line 3 from Neve Sha'anan to Horev and from there to Matam. There is no other choice.
The solution is a high-speed train to Tel Aviv.
Ilya. Well done for analyzing the situation in the city of Haifa. In this context, I have a comment: an electric train comes with poles and electrical cables, which is a visual nuisance, a safety hazard, and electromagnetic radiation that will keep people, businesses, and homes away from the train route. Another point: Haifa residents chose a city dependent on cars, and for that reason they ousted Einat Kalish from the mayorship, whose agenda is similar to yours, for example, connecting the neighborhoods to the sea to revitalize Hadar. She also made plans for, for example, the restoration and revitalization of Talpiot Market and the planning of escalators between the lower city and the Carmel. It seems to me that if most residents agree with the analysis and there is a mayor who will work in that direction, then Haifa will return to its status as a city.
Dear Ilya.
Where do you get your insights from? Where did you learn about urban development? Why do you assume that what is good for you is good for the rest of the population in Haifa?
A mother with a baby in a stroller and another toddler next to her will not choose the stairs as a walking route. An adult with difficulty walking will not choose the stairs. Stairs were a solution when they called for a private car, and residents dreamed of how to buy enough eggs and chicken and where there would be funding for education.
Haifa, built on slopes, doesn't have a single square meter. And that's fine. The city is developing at a reasonable pace and public transportation is reasonable. If they opened highways from every branch of Carmel to the east and west, they would burst the neighborhood bubble. And it will happen.
Your comparison to flat cities is incorrect in my opinion. Meanwhile, as an adult Haifa resident, I love Haifa and enjoy living there.
What good will all the solutions that the city center and the neighborhoods are involved in? Isn't it like renovating a complete apartment in a dilapidated building?
A couple interested in starting a family will probably look for a similar population, not business sidewalks and streets.
Amazing, amazing. It's a shame that the city leaders didn't learn from the basic thing this guy explains, and essentially destroyed the beautiful city.
Crazy property taxes are causing businesses to close one after another, and these are at the top? We need to fund all the workers, some of whom are free eaters.
The main selling point – tourists don’t come because there are no hotels on the beach like in Tel Aviv and any normal tourist spot.
All. So true as a former Tel Aviv resident
I identify with every word.
Missing the point or not calling the child by name
Crime and failure to deal with crime
This is the main reason for the weakening of the city.
It's unpleasant and scary to walk around there at night.
City-wide car races that do nothing
And a promenade that's not really a promenade befitting the third largest city in the country
Everything else described here is really inaccurate.
See the old neighborhoods of Tel Aviv
From huge donations by quality young people
Young people are fleeing Haifa and the municipality is doing nothing to keep them.
Another genius. Grew up in Haifa…with a Soviet mind…what is its pleasure? Do you know Haifa where we were born?
Haifa is a city of animal killers, a cursed city.
👏👏👏👏
I hope the new mayor does something...but he's more interested in how to make money with the stores.
Preservation of buildings, heritage sites, do not destroy the old, build a new one next to each house, the story of the character of the buildings from the beginning of the century. Today, stone houses are no longer built.