Not every city has to be the next Tel Aviv

For 20 years, Israeli governments of every stripe have promised to turn every city into a tech city. They announce programs, scatter grants, cut ribbons, and the gap between the center and the rest of the country only widens. The problem is not the intentions. It is the question itself. Everyone asks where the offices will sit. The real question is who has a door in.

Those who say that tech is Israel’s growth engine are right. But a growth engine does not mean the offices have to sit in every city. According to the US Census Bureau, about 1.6 million workers commute into Manhattan every day, nearly doubling its daytime population. Nobody expects every town around New York to build a Wall Street of its own, and not every city in Israel has to match the density of Tel Aviv. That is fine.

I learned this on the ground, from close familiarity with the road Sderot has traveled since October 7: security and infrastructure first, so that residents would come home with hope and a sense of a better future. Today Sderot is continuing to grow, and the municipality has set a goal of doubling its population. That road yields a few lessons.

Lesson one: education, culture, and community come first. A young family does not move to a city only for a tax break. It moves for a great kindergarten, an excellent school, enrichment programs, and housing at prices below those of the high-demand areas in the center of the country. That is why the investments include a Rimon music school whose students are active in the community and the school system, bilingual kindergartens growing this year from four to seven, a technology campus of Sapir Academic College, and a relocation program for tech families. These are the reasons families choose a city.

Lesson two: fewer projects, faster execution. A city that tries to do everything at once does nothing. You choose a small number of anchor projects, set real milestones and real timelines, and finish them. Around them, the broader foundation is built: new neighborhoods under umbrella housing agreements, urban renewal, transportation, and education. One delivered project creates the trust that carries the next.

Lesson three: the city is the locomotive and economic anchor of its entire region. Sderot is not alone: Netivot is surrounded by the communities of Sdot Negev and faces the same challenges, and in the north, Karmiel has grappled for years with the question of its own expansion alongside the communities of Misgav. The city concentrates the economy, employment, and culture, while the kibbutzim and moshavim offer a quality of life that many families choose. Both are right, and that is exactly why the tension has to be managed, not denied: good planning creates neighborhoods of more moderate density along the seam with the rural space and protects that space as an asset. But the bottom line is clear: in a growing country, cities must grow.

And the most important lesson of all: if we want tech to be relevant to every Israeli, the way in runs through education, higher education, mentorship programs, tax incentives, and open doors, so that technology enters every community in its own way, not as a copy of Tel Aviv. In Sderot, the anchor principle applies to employment as well: the Sapir campus and an employment district next to the train station serve the entire region, and transportation to the major job centers completes the rest. That is how you let the next generation dream big and see possibilities that were not there before. A city needs to know what it is, and just as important, what it is not.

What happened in Sderot is not a local miracle. It is a method: a clear vision, early investment in education and culture, a small number of anchor projects, fast execution, and local government that receives real authority, not just responsibility. A government that wants to strengthen Israel’s south and north needs to give mayors planning authority and multi-year budgets, measure them on delivery, and get out of the way.

What is true for Sderot is true for any city in Israel willing to pick a few things, execute them fast, and keep its word.