Is Jerusalem Really in Last Place? What Lies Behind the City's Average Quality of Life Indicators

Title: Is Jerusalem Really in Last Place? What Lies Behind the City’s Average Quality of Life Indicators

Description:

This document challenges the claim that a single, comprehensive urban index can capture the true quality of life in Jerusalem. The Central Bureau of Statistics publishes an annual comparative index examining quality of life across Israel’s 18 largest cities, summarizing results from 56 individual indicators spanning employment, housing, education, health, welfare, and trust in institutions. The most recent index generated headlines portraying Jerusalem as having the lowest quality of life among Israel’s major cities.

While a comprehensive, citywide perspective on quality of life is valuable, we argue that Jerusalem’s unique demographic composition calls for disaggregating CBS data by population group. Doing so produces a more accurate picture when comparing Jerusalem to other, largely homogeneous cities — because the social, cultural, and economic characteristics of different population groups substantially shape many of the indicators the CBS examines, and therefore the city’s overall index as well.

With a population of over a million residents, Jerusalem is home to the largest Haredi and Arab populations in Israel: Haredi residents make up approximately 28% of the city’s population and Arab residents approximately 40%, compared to roughly 14% and 21%, respectively, nationwide.[1] Across many of the indicators in the CBS index, the citywide average reflects not merely the condition of the city itself, but largely the specific mix of populations living there and each group’s relative share of the total. As a result, a single overall urban index can obscure substantial differences between groups and lead to a partial — or even misleading — interpretation of the data.

With this in mind, the document distinguishes between two types of indicators: the first mainly reflect the city’s functioning and the quality of the services it provides — such as transportation, healthcare, and cleanliness — and are therefore appropriate to examine at the citywide level. The second type are indicators strongly shaped by population characteristics, such as employment, income, education, and trust.

For each of these indicators, we compared Jerusalem’s population groups — non-Haredi Jews, Haredi Jews, and Arabs — to their respective national counterparts, allowing for comparisons between groups with similar characteristics. Alongside this quantitative analysis, the document draws on findings from Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research studies and in-depth interviews with experts, which help interpret the findings within their local context.

Taken together, the document offers what we believe is a more complex and balanced picture of Jerusalem than the one reflected in news headlines. On functionality-driven indicators, Jerusalem does face real challenges — falling below the national average in areas like green space and housing density. At the same time, the city outperforms the national average in public transportation satisfaction, trust in the healthcare system, and cleanliness.

This sectoral breakdown makes it possible to identify the distinct challenges facing each population group, to distinguish between issues rooted in population characteristics versus those reflecting the city’s own functioning, and to shape more precise and effective public policy. In doing so, the document also illuminates blind spots in how Jerusalem’s quality of life is understood, and points toward new directions for future research and action.

Key Findings

Across shared characteristics, Jerusalem is more densely populated than the national average, its residents report lower satisfaction with parks and green space, and its employment rate is lower. At the same time, Jerusalemites benefit from high-quality municipal services in several areas: satisfaction with public transportation is high, trust in the healthcare system is strong, the city leads nationally in drinking water quality, and most residents report satisfaction with cleanliness. On a personal level, more than 90% report high satisfaction with work, life, and personal resilience.

For non-Haredi Jews, Jerusalem offers something hard to find in other large Israeli cities: community. This population reports high social capital, strong interpersonal trust, high rates of volunteering, and optimism about the future — likely a product of the city’s abundance of civil society organizations and active neighborhood life. At the same time, non-Haredi Jewish residents report relatively high levels of loneliness — not necessarily a contradiction, but perhaps a reflection of how strongly community frameworks are woven into daily life in the city, reinforcing both interpersonal trust and civic involvement.

Haredi residents in Jerusalem tend to be more conservative, report higher satisfaction with their immediate living area, and face significant challenges in housing and employment. Their conservatism shows up in lower internet use and lower engagement with online government services, alongside lower trust in state institutions. On housing, they report higher monthly expenses and slightly higher density, along with lower satisfaction with parks and green space — yet still report higher satisfaction with their living area overall. Economically, despite lower employment rates and lower satisfaction with income, Haredi residents report higher satisfaction with their overall economic situation and greater optimism about the future. Notably, quality of life within Haredi society isn’t necessarily measured along the same lines as standard CBS indicators — many residents report high life and economic satisfaction rooted in religious values and a worldview of contentment, despite comparatively low economic indicators.

Arab residents of Jerusalem live, in both personal and communal consciousness, between two worlds — the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel — a dual reality that shapes their sense of belonging, trust, and quality of life. Compared to Arab citizens elsewhere in Israel, Arab residents of East Jerusalem face lower employment rates, higher long-term unemployment, fewer opportunities for advancement, and lower satisfaction with both their economic situation and life overall. There is also a marked weakness in community networks — reflected in low interpersonal trust, minimal reported volunteering or civic engagement, and higher rates of loneliness — alongside deep distrust of government and the legal system, signaling a broader sense of distance from state institutions. This reality stems partly from residents’ unique status: non-citizens situated between the Israeli and Palestinian systems, a position that complicates both a sense of belonging and the development of community networks. At the same time, compared to Arab citizens elsewhere in Israel, Arab residents of Jerusalem report higher satisfaction with public transportation, commute times, and cleanliness, along with greater trust in the healthcare system, better work-life balance, higher internet use, and lower reported experiences of discrimination.

In conclusion, quality of life in Jerusalem cannot be captured through a single citywide average. Behind that average lie distinct social realities that vary meaningfully across the city’s population groups. This document aims to illuminate both the challenges and the opportunities facing Jerusalem and its residents in a more coherent and complete way, grounded in CBS data.