There’s a time when everything changes. Some people have been talking about the JBlogosphere having changed, and depending when you started blogging depends on which change you see as the most significant and gloomy (or happy). I’ve been blogging a lot longer than most people realize (I used to write under a different name, and don’t waste your time trying to figure it out) so none of the recent changes seem too major to me, just part of the process of maturation and mainstreaming.

If you’ve driven around the various settlements lately you’ll see that the Jblogosphere isn’t alone – and that the golden age of the settlements seems to have come and gone (depending on when you first “settled”).

Once upon a time, settlements were bedroom communities with houses and lawns.

Nowadays you’re lucky if you can find even a mere 2 family attached house, as townhouse rows, and more often, apartment complexes are becoming the latest fad.

Personally I find it upsetting that one moves to the suburbs only to find that your village is slowly (or quickly) turning into another Har Homa - where the population density is in reality far higher than anything Gaza even pretends to claim.

Some people see this as an outgrowth of the restriction on expansion being placed on the settlements. No more room to move outward, so instead we’ll go upward.

But there is another possibility.

Settlements are not just building up, they are growing up.

No longer are we sleepy bedroom communities, where everyone knows their neighbor, and everything else that goes along with that small town atmosphere.

No, settlements are in, and the contractors and municipalities see that.

When an area isn’t in demand, then houses with lawns are built to attract people to the location, but when demand is high, well that it is time to maximize what you have and build buildings and stuff in as many people as you can (and take out as many dollars as you can get).

The golden age of the settlements is passing. Settlements, big and small, understand and feel the great demand for housing that has been going on as of late, and the response is apartment complexes.

The small towns are turning into big towns, and the big towns are turning into small cities.

So yes, it’s a shame that the Israeli dream of concrete jungles and utter lack of city planning are taking over what was once rural suburbs and satellite communities. On the other hand, the settlements are now coming into their own and reaching the maturity that established communities take as they reach the next stage of their growth pattern.

So while the changes are less than ideal for those who were looking for a nice life close to, but not in the city, on the other hand, it is a wonderful sign that the settlement enterprise really is succeeding, mainstreaming, and further entrenching itself despite the actions of the government and other subversive fifth columnists.

Change Happens.