An officer and a bourgeois: Israeli military personnel, suburbanization and selective privatization

Abstract

In the 1980s the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) initiated the construction of several suburban communities for the benefit of its personnel. These new settlements offered the opportunity of a better quality of life in a homogeneous and exclusive environment, all in a commuting distance from the main metropolises. The State subsidized the construction of these settlements to support the military, and in the hope that the prestigious image of the IDF would help in developing peripheral areas. Military officers could live their bourgeois dream while taking part in the greater national mission of urban development. Reut is an architype of such a suburban military settlement. It offered young officers the ability to obtain subsidized spacious houses in an exclusive community while forming a steppingstone in the later mass development of the area. Therefore, using selective privatization as a means to encourage the formation of a real estate market and to enable further development.