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Jerusalem today is a very busy place. A modern light-rail system is under construction, running from points all over the Judean Hills down the middle of central Jerusalem's main thoroughfare, Jaffa Road. New construction is going on everywhere, bringing new industry, new highways, and, in the next few years, a whole new hotel scene along with the superb Jerusalem hotels now in existence.
Since 1967, a constant stream of new delights -- museums, festivals, concerts -- has turned an austere outpost in the Judean hills into a lively, Mediterranean city with cafes, pubs, and restaurants packed to the brim. The newly created pedestrian streets of the downtown center are flooded with strollers.
A walled city is always a small town at heart, and for the past century, even as Jerusalem expanded beyond its walls, it remained in spirit a small town: inward looking, personal, intensely involved in its local gossip and also with its thundering history. Now, for better or for worse, Jerusalem stands on the verge of becoming a true metropolis rather than the small city of exotic neighborhoods and religious communities the world has known since the 1920s.
What Jerusalem is turning out to be like in the 21st century is a point of international interest and concern. For 3,000 years, the earthly Jerusalem has always been a place that mirrored its extraordinary legend. Is this New Jerusalem able to maintain its mystique with a major highway system, so that visitors have to climb a pedestrian overpass in order to enter the Jaffa Gate? A new wave of 30 skyscrapers is planned for the previously low-rise center of West Jerusalem, and the city has already seen the arrival of such worldly establishments as Pizza Hut, and Toys "R" Us. At what point will Jerusalem begin to seem like anywhere else?
The city is at a crossroads politically, socially and physically. Will it ever in some way be a shared capital for Palestinians and Israelis? Will the religious Jewish community become the demographic and ruling majority in West Jerusalem and, if so, what will happen to the museums, parks and cultural institutions created by the city's secular community over the past 30 years? Should developers be allowed a free hand to Manhattanize Jerusalem?
Jerusalem has been a holy city for 3,000 years, far eclipsing the length of time that any other place has borne such a title. It is also a holy city for all three great religions of the Western world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Optimists believe that city planners and real estate developers will find a way to turn a mysterious walled holy city into a fast-paced holy megalopolis. For now, in many ways, the city walks a tightrope between its legend and the rapidly encroaching world of the 21st century.
