Ajami – Governance, Community, and Spatial Struggle

The project focuses on the Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa, a mixed district facing complex political, social, and economic challenges. The local Arab population, among the poorest in the country, struggles to preserve its right to live in the city on land that has become some of the most expensive in Israel. Ajami tells the story of people fighting to maintain their identity and their right to a home in the face of the forces of governance, economy, and politics.

It is a story of how the establishment uses gentrification as a tool for the silent displacement of Palestinian citizens. Ajami serves as a microcosm of the broader Israeli reality, where cultural encounters generate tensions between urban development and the preservation of local heritage and community.

The neighborhood becomes a stage where the struggle for one’s private home evolves into a broader public question: How can existing communities be preserved alongside development? Can cooperation between state authorities and citizens secure a shared future? And if not, is it possible to design an architecture of resistance that protects residents and preserves what already exists?

This book seeks to illuminate the complexity of Ajami through the voices and stories of its residents and to propose a vision for social transformation through architecture and urban planning that acknowledges the importance of equality and belonging for all of the city’s inhabitants.