Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper's analysis is fundamentally parochial. By treating Israel as a siloed case study without substantive comparison or integration with a broader body of international research on neoliberal urban renewal, it fails to establish its theoretical significance and undermines its own claims about the universality of neoliberal processes. More specific observations here:

The justification for using Israel as a case study is weak and descriptive rather than analytical. It does not clearly articulate what makes Israel a critical or paradigmatic case for testing the theory of neoliberal urban renewal. 

The introduction and methodology frame the research solely within the Israeli context, with only passing, generic references to Western countries. It makes no attempt to position Israel within a defined typology of neoliberal urban regimes (e.g., compared to the financialized model of the USA, Chilean market driven housing development, the state-led but market-driven model of South Korea, or the authoritarian neoliberalism of Turkey). This omission suggests the author has not engaged with the critical comparative urban studies literature that seeks to differentiate and theorize variegated forms of neoliberalism.

Because the paper lacks an international lens, its central findings are rendered ambiguous. Is the neoliberal permeation it describes a universal feature of contemporary urban renewal, or is it specific to the unique political-economy of Israel? For instance, the finding that only 40-50% of original residents return is presented as a shocking revelation. However, similar or even more extreme rates of displacement are well-documented in gentrification studies in America and Western Europe. By not citing this, the paper presents a known global phenomenon as a new discovery, severely undermining its originality.

The discussion misses the opportunity to use contrasting international examples to sharpen its analysis. For example:

Chile: The paper could have contrasted Israel's demolition-reconstruction model with Chile's post-disaster recovery strategies in proposing alternative, socially-oriented models, highlighting different forms of neoliberal crisis and resistance.

Turkey: The massive, state-led, but profit-driven urban transformation projects in Istanbul under TOKI present a powerful parallel. 

South Korea: The Jangyu (speculative redevelopment) system in Seoul, which also relies on resident consent thresholds and has led to massive profiteering and social conflict, is a near-direct parallel. Ignoring this vast body of literature is a major oversight.

The theoretical section on neoliberalism (1.2) relies on classic, broad-stroke texts (Harvey, 2005). It fails to engage with the last 15 years of critical urban literature that has moved beyond this monolithic view to analyze the actually existing and variegated nature of neoliberalism in different geographical contexts. This results in a theoretical framework that is outdated and insufficiently nuanced to support a contemporary case study.

The paper notes a shift in Israeli scholarly discourse towards emphasizing financial benefits but does not ask if this is a local or global trend. This shift mirrors a broader, global financialization of housing discourse prevalent in studies of US, Latin America, UK, and German housing markets. By not connecting this local observation to a global scholarly and political-economic trend, the analysis remains shallow and descriptive.

The research question asks about the positions of other actors... legislators, planners, and scholars. However, the methodology analyzes documents (laws, guidelines, articles), not the actors themselves. The paper commits the fallacy of equating institutional documents with the beliefs and positions of individuals, a complex relationship that remains entirely untheorized and unexamined.

The discussion section is a summary, not a synthesis. It simply restates the findings from legislation, guidelines, and scholars in sequence without deeply interrogating the relationships and tensions between them. It fails to build a novel theoretical model or offer a nuanced explanation for how these three domains interact to produce the observed outcome, missing the opportunity for a genuine contribution.

The identified shift in tone among scholars in the 2020s is arguably one of the most important findings, yet it is merely described, not analyzed. The paper offers no exploration of the causeswhether intellectual, political, or economic or this shift. This lack of critical interrogation renders the observation a mere anecdote rather than a robust scholarly insight, leaving a gaping hole in the argument.

The paper's central thesis—that a neoliberal perspective has swept aside all actors is an overgeneralization. It fails to convincingly demonstrate this permeation. For instance, the planning guidelines (3.2) explicitly argue against the logic of high-rises for the vulnerable. The author dismisses this as inaction rather than engaging with it as a potent counter-example that complicates the neoliberal hegemony narrative.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. This paper is a discussion paper based on the state of art review. Therefore, the title should reflect this.
2. The title of the paper states that “Legislators, Planners, and Scholars” are involved in this study. How are they involved? Are they interviewed? The Section - 2 does not clarify this.
3. Abstract Section did not state the precise and clear aim, objectives, adopted methodology.
4. ‘Vulnerable’ and ‘disadvantaged’ population need to be demystified in the context of this manuscript. Why are the population called ‘Vulnerable’ and ‘Disadvantaged’?
5. Line 154 states, “To address the research question, Israel is used as a case study.” There are so many cities in Israel including capital Jerusalem. The entire Israeli all cities are not used as case study but only few cities.
6. The Materials and Methods Section read like a literature review or case study section. There is no clear methodological process explained in this section. Methodology Section (2) requires a methodological framework to illustrate the methodological process with different phases, methods, their connections to execute this study and to achieve the aim. Briefly explain different methods, how is the data collected from the literature, refined, and validated?
7. Discussion and Conclusion Sections are written as a review of the literature. The statements are all referenced in these sections. However, these two sections ideally be stating the research outcomes and contributions from the researcher/author. What is authors contribution to the knowledge?
8. English language used in this paper require review and improvement. Sentence making and grammatical errors are observed in this paper. Sometimes, the sentences are too long. A professional native English speaker must edit and check the entire paper.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English language used in this paper require review and improvement. Sentence making and grammatical errors are observed in this paper. Sometimes, the sentences are too long. A professional native English speaker must edit and check the entire paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript under review is a well-written, conceptually stimulating, and politically engaged essay that addresses a pressing concern in urban studies: the progressive dismantling of the right to housing under the guise of urban renewal in the neoliberal era. Through a dense yet accessible exploration of Israeli housing legislation and planning practices, the author makes a compelling argument for the centrality of housing as a social right and the erosion of this right through the increasing dominance of legalistic and technocratic rationalities. Drawing upon a critical urban theory tradition, the author positions herself explicitly within a scholarly lineage that seeks to reclaim normative and political space for housing justice.

The paper’s strengths are many. It offers a historically grounded narrative of the evolution of Israeli urban renewal legislation, moving from slum clearance and public responsibility to entrepreneurial urbanism and state-supported marketisation. It places planning professionals and legal actors at the heart of the analytical framework, showing how the logics of dispossession are embedded not only in market structures, but in institutional procedures and norms. The use of terms such as “sovereignty of law” and “renewal” as ideological operators is theoretically effective and resonates with similar critiques in other neoliberal contexts. The paper is also notable for its insistence on connecting planning practice to legislative evolution and to broader social movements contesting housing injustice.

However, despite these strengths, the manuscript remains more diagnostic than explanatory. While it insightfully demonstrates what is happening and why it is unjust, it does not yet sufficiently explain how these shifts occur through governance modes, policy instruments, or institutional transformations. The paper would benefit greatly from extending its explanatory ambition, not by diluting its critical perspective, but by embedding the critique in a deeper engagement with urban governance theory and housing policy research.

More specifically, in terms of comparative urbanism, the paper would benefit from broader engagement with typological work on collaborative housing, especially to further highlight what is lost in the shift from public-led renewal to market-driven schemes. Griffith, Jepma, and Savini (2024), for example, offer a sophisticated typology of collaborative housing in Europe, emphasising the interplay of values, institutions, and spatial arrangements. Their framework could be used not to dilute the critique, but to demonstrate viable alternatives to the Israeli trajectory. Likewise, the political struggles for housing decommodification explored by Barenstein et al. (2022) in the contexts of Uruguay and Switzerland provide powerful evidence that housing can be governed otherwise. These references would also help bring into sharper relief the structural choices at stake in the Israeli context.

The historical and normative thrust of the paper could also be deepened by drawing on Barbot (2015), who shows how the history of property rights interacts with the Economics of Convention. This approach would allow for a more textured analysis of the legalistic turn in Israeli planning, not merely as an ideological drift, but as a codification of social conventions that marginalise collective claims. In the same direction, the recent reconceptualisation of housing tenure by Zhang (2023) in Housing Studies offers a promising path to question ownership models and their transformation under financialised and post-ownership regimes. Bringing these literatures into the fold would reinforce the author’s call to resist binary simplifications and make visible other possible institutional configurations.

I would encourage the author to engage with Patrick Le Galès’s work on metropolitan governance, particularly his 2013 account in Governing the Large Metropolis. Le Galès provides an analytical vocabulary for understanding how incomplete and fragmented governance arrangements become sites of selective coordination, policy innovation, and exclusion. The Israeli case, as presented here, is a paradigmatic illustration of governance discontinuity and layered instruments accumulation in housing regulation, and should be positioned as such. In a similar vein, the recent work by Findeisen and Le Galès (2025) on the politics of instrument accumulation in the French housing sector could be mobilised as a comparative referent, illuminating the incremental rationalisation and bureaucratisation of instruments in the name of renewal. Also, please do not use neoliberalism as a catchall concepts for markets, capitalism, welfare change, variety of property rights. This special issue on the current debate on neoliberalism in urban studies could help, if I may: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rtep20/4/2

Additionally, the paper would gain in analytical depth by incorporating literature on regulation by incentives, particularly in urban land and housing policies (you can check the special issue on institutional analysis and development on Transnational Corporations Review (2(2): you can find the relevant debate into this field, demonstrating how incentive-based regulation mediates between public aims and private interests. In the Israeli context, the increasing use of land value capture, density bonuses, and compensatory mechanisms for developers and tenants alike should be analytically framed as part of an incentive-based governance mode, rather than as technical neutrality.

Finally, I would encourage the author to present more clearly the paper’s positioning within the field. While the critical tone is well sustained, the contribution would benefit from a more assertive articulation of its original theoretical and empirical claims. The paper is not merely adding a national case study; it is advancing an argument that sits at the intersection of legal geography, planning theory, and housing rights scholarship. This positioning deserves to be foregrounded and reinforced throughout the paper. Similarly, the paper might be improved by reflecting briefly on the methodological orientation—whether interpretive, genealogical, or institutionalist—that guides the selection and analysis of legal texts and policy discourses.

To conclude, this is an excellent and ambitious paper that makes a valuable contribution to urban studies and housing theory. It calls for a re-politicisation of planning and law in the name of housing justice, and does so with eloquence and erudition. With greater attention to explanatory mechanisms, a more explicit engagement with governance theory, and a clearer statement of its scholarly positioning, the paper could become a key reference in debates on the future of housing rights in neoliberal cities.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for your responses and for addressing each of them. I accept the paper in its new form. 

Author Response

Comments 1: 

The literature review competently covers the topics of home and neoliberalism but does a poor job of synthesizing them to pinpoint a specific, uncontested research gap. It states that the "everyday mechanisms" receive little attention but does not convincingly show how this paper's analysis of documents rather than, say, ethnography of those mechanisms uniquely addresses that gap.

Response 1:

Thank you for your comments. A paragraph was added to Section 1.4, in which I explained why the study relies on content analysis of documents rather than interviewing their authors. For your convenience, I highlighted it in blue. The paragraph is located in lines 160–170.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

thank you for addressing the comments

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

ear Author,

I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the quality of your revised manuscript. The new version demonstrates remarkable clarity, conceptual precision, and analytical depth. Every point that had been raised has been addressed with great care, and the integration of additional literature and theoretical perspectives has considerably strengthened the argument. The manuscript now offers a coherent, well-structured narrative in which the explanatory logic is robust, the contextual framing is complete, and the contribution to urban studies and housing theory is unmistakable. It is a pleasure to read a text that has been revised with such intellectual generosity and methodological attention. In my view, the article is now fully ready for publication, and I look forward to seeing it appear online so that I may share it with my students and cite it in my own work.

With warm regards,

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.