Israel can be increasingly regarded as a metropolitan state. Its non-metropolitan areas are shrinking if existing at all, and nearly all the country lies within the sphere of influence of four metropolitan areas. These metropolitan areas are highly unequal in economic dominance, as reflected in both temporary and permanent (migration) human mobility. The Tel Aviv metropolitan area predominates whereas the other metropolitan centers increasingly perform as secondary nodes in the broader Tel Aviv metropolitan region. Commuting and migration flows reflect core-periphery structures, increasingly gravitating towards the affluent Tel Aviv area. The outer rings of the secondary metropolitan centers are particularly affected, through being increasingly connected directly to the Tel Aviv area, bypassing their (secondary) metropolitan cores of Haifa, Jerusalem and Beer Sheva. Within the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, human mobility largely reflects a substantial process of suburbanization and deconcentration, although the metropolitan core does retain its economic and cultural strength, despite losing population and jobs to the outer ring of the metropolitan area. This chapter presents some evidence on metropolitan dynamics and human mobility in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and in one of the secondary metropolitan areas-Haifa. It emphasizes the place of the coastal zone in these dynamics, hence the other metropolitan areas-Jerusalem and Berr Sheva-are not included, lacking a Mediterranean coastline. The chapter indeed emphasizes the dominance of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, and of its metropolitan core city of Tel Aviv, despite the shrinking share of the city in terms of population and number of jobs. It thus emphasizes substantial suburbanization and spatial deconcentration processes that characterizes Israel, partly due to it rapid population growth compared to other developed countries.

The coastal zone attracts substantial development pressures, but paradoxically is not a prime location for retailing, entertainment, office, wholesale or manufacturing activities. In fact, the coastal zone offers inferior accessibility in comparison with inland locations that are adjacent to major transportation arteries. Israel's transportation network is not centered around the coastal zone–the major routes and intersections are inland. The market areas of coastline locations also suffer because much of the surrounding circle, based on the range of good or