Research Projects

PEC Lab research projects focus on three interrelated topics:

Just and Sustainable Cities

The engagement of justice and sustainability in urban regeneration and development projects has become one of the major challenges of cities in the 21st century. PEC Lab's main project is on promoting Planning and Environmental Justice in research, teaching and public activities. Researches on this topic focus on developing theoretical approaches, methodologies and analytical tools that promote principles of  justie and sustainability in the city. This includes the following researches:

• Global Partnerships in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv-Jaffa – Orli Ronen 
• Spatial Activism in the city: Perspectives of Body, Identity, and Memory  – Chen Misgav
• Promoting Spatial Justice: Considering Terms of Empowerment – Rinat Butbul
  
• The Potential of The Transition Town model in Israel - Yoav Egozi
  

Working with Communities

The rapid capitalist growth in cities and the growing involvement of the private sector in urban regeneration and development projects presents a challenge as to how to secure individuals and communities rights and interests especially those of the poor and the disadvantaged. In PEC Lab's researches we develop theories and new methodologies of working with communities in urban regeneration projects of complex and multiple systems and actors. This includes the following researches:

• The Politics of Community Gardening in Israel: a Comparative Study of Two Cities – Efrat Eisenberg
• Urban Change and ‘Socializing’ Space In Contemporary China: Immigration, Urban Planning, and The State – Dror Kochan
  
• Planned Spaces and Daily Spaces in the City of Rahat in the Negev – Omer Golan-Joel
  
• Community Gardening in the Tel-Aviv – Jaffa Metropolis – How Women Improve Their Environment – Keren Yabetz
• Theory, Mythology and Practice in The Jaffa Gimel Project: Residents Participation in Urban Regeneration, Jaffa – Inbal Terem 

Conflicts on Memory and Belonging

Massive urban regeneration projects bring wealth and advancement to today's cities with the heavy price of the massive destruction of old and historical areas and buildings in the city that dramatically changes city centers as well as residential areas. In PEC Lab we focus our research on analyzing conflicts and protests resulting from such regeneration projects with the aim to understand  the role of memory and belonging - personal and collective – in these events. This includes the following researches:

• Constructing a sense of Belonging at the Margins of Globalization: Palestinian Women Citizens of Israel in Tel-Aviv-Jaffa – Hana Hamdan
• In the Shadow of the Wall and Separation: Daily Life Narratives in East Jerusalem – Oren Shlomo
• Sense of Place and Belonging in Times of Emergency: Food Practices of Haifa Residents During the Austerity Period – Goor Somer

Past Research Projects

• Re-examining the Urban Digital Divide in Tel Aviv – Jaffa – Nicholas Black. Resrach completed in 2009.
  
• Urban Planning Policies, Ethnic Identity and 'Sense of Place: Hatiqva neighborhood, Tel Aviv - Tamir Arviv. Research completed in 2009.
  
• Gay communities in Tel Aviv – Jaffa and Jerusalem: The construction of urban citizenship as a spatial negotiation process – Itay Manor. Research completed in 2007.
  
• Gender & Planning in Florentine neighborhood in Tel Aviv – Jaffa – Adi Magar. Research completed in 2007.