British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Supplement - Page 98

TOWN PLANNING AND THE PROBLEM OF HOUSING.

Supplementing Volume II, Chapter XVIII, pages 781-816.

PRESENT HOUSING NEEDS.

(p. 786) (§ 17)

The acute shortage of housing accommodation in Palestine is due to four principal causes :-

(a) Natural increase of population; (b) Immigration;

(c) Dislocation of the local building industry between 1936 and 1939 due to the repercussions of the Abyssinian war and the local Arab-Jewish disturbances.

(d.) Legal restrictions placed upon building construction during the war in order to conserve resources for purposes of defence and the efficient prosecution of the war.

(p. 788)

. § 20)

It is estimated that in the year 1946 the housing needs of the Jewish community increased by approximately 7 ,400 room units as a result of expansion in the number of families owing to natural increase within the country, and by D,500 room units as 11 result of immigration. The total estimated expansion in Jewish housing requirements in the year 1946 was, therefore, 16,900 room units. The total expansion in the housing requirements of the Jewish community since the end of 1935 thus amounted to just under 140,000 room units.

(p. 791)

The following table shows the expansion in residential building during 1046 and during the period JQ36-1046 :

(T. 3)

BUILDING ACTIVITY IN URBAN AREAS OF PALESTINE DURING 1936-19'16.

Number of rooms constructed

Town

Total 1946

1936-1946

Total

Jewish I Non-Jewish

Jerusalem 4,250 22,992 18,795 9,197
Jaffa 9,621 10.895 2,179 8,716
Tel Aviv 7,944 31,591 91,591 -
Haifa 4,920 29,898 20,929 8,96~
Other j 9,207 97,869 16,098 21,771
Total 29,942 1 199,245 84,592 48,659

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