Shtar Galim: Reclaiming the Commons Against Aggressive Development

Project Story

Shtar Galim (The Wave Currency) is pioneering a novel model of urban economic defense and ecological restoration in Bat Galim, Haifa. By weaving together regenerative urban agriculture with a community-backed, compost-based local currency network, we are building a protective shield for our neighborhood before historic low-rises are lost to luxury, high-rise development. The capital raised during this campaign will fund the creation of a 0.25-acre high-yield market garden. This garden acts as a physical anchor for our local currency, establishing a self-sustaining financial loop that lowers the cost of living, supports local businesses, and empowers working-class residents to stay in their neighborhood.

This market garden is the crucial foundation for our next phase of expansion, where we will transform our 25 and counting, existing composting hubs into decentralized, food-producing spaces. This transition will re-engage neighbors in working together and collectively managing their shared patches of land, deepening the community's connection to the soil. By visibly increasing local land value and neighborhood well-being, our long-term plan is to involve local homeowners, inviting them to accept Shtar Galim as partial rent payment in exchange for the tangible real estate value and environmental improvement we generate.

Our Mission

We believe that true climate resilience is inseparable from economic sovereignty. Our mission is to keep wealth, resources, and decision-making power in the hands of the community that built and currently live in Bat Galim. What started as a grassroots effort in our local community garden has evolved into a neighborhood-wide network. By introducing a land-backed, compost-based local currency, Shtar Galim, we aim to prove that neighborhood economies can resist displacement, restore damaged urban soil, and build systemic resilience from the ground up. We are establishing a scalable blueprint for community-led urban defense.

Background & Problem Statement

Bat Galim is a historic, working-class coastal neighborhood in Haifa, currently on the precipice of a massive structural shift. While the towering luxury skyscrapers planned for our coastline have not yet been built, the neighborhood is in a critical, high-stakes transition: hundreds of older, low-rise residential buildings are actively slated for demolition.

This impending wave of high-density redevelopment threatens to permanently sever the social fabric of our neighborhood. Skyrocketing real estate speculation is already driving up rents, forcing out multi-generational families and independent shopkeepers. Once the concrete is poured, these developments will accelerate coastal erosion, eliminate local green spaces, and intensify the urban heat island effect. We have a narrow, vital window of opportunity to build a community-led defense network before the physical demolition begins and our heritage is erased.

Solution

We are intervening before the demolition crews arrive by integrating ecological stewardship with local economic design. Our primary tool is the Shtar Galim compost-backed local currency network. As a vital step to generate and anchor tangible value for this currency, we are establishing a 0.25-acre community-managed market garden, designed using regenerative urban agriculture and bio-intensive farming methods.

Our local currency, Shtar Galim, is entirely compost-backed, directly tying its economic value to the ecological restoration of our neighborhood. For every 1Kg of organic waste a resident diverts and processes at our composting hubs, they receive 1 Shtar Galim coin. This elegant mining mechanism ensures that every unit of currency in circulation is physically backed by a unit of soil-restoring organic matter, directly connecting financial value to the physical health of our land.

We link Shtar Galim to our physical land assets to build a closed-loop micro-economy. The market garden sells premium organic vegetables to neighborhood restaurants. These businesses gladly accept Shtar Galim from local residents because they can use those very same coins to purchase fresh produce from our garden. This cycle gives independent businesses a strong financial incentive to stay in the neighborhood, offer discounts to currency users, and stabilize the local cost of living.

Opportunity

This project creates a living laboratory for community ownership and alternative economics. Situated right within the neighborhood, the market garden is highly accessible, serving as an educational, therapeutic, and health hub for local schools, conscious travelers, and academic researchers interested in urban resilience.

To ensure absolute excellence, the garden will be designed and overseen by professional, high-end market gardeners, guaranteeing peak agricultural standards and commercial viability. The site will be actively managed and grown by local high schoolers participating in a tailored educational program, fostering the next generation of environmental leaders. Furthermore, in close collaboration with a local mental health institution, the garden will serve as a restorative therapeutic healing space. This multi-layered approach will proves that community-led social integration, hands-on youth education, and mental health support can thrive together without compromising on professional-grade quality and high agricultural yields at any step of the way. While also providing additional income streams.

How We Regenerate

Our approach treats urban renewal as an ecological and social process. Our physical and financial interventions focus on:

• The Market Garden Site: Rebuilding depleted urban soil, installing efficient irrigation, and planting our 0.25-acre pilot plot with bio-intensive, high-yield crops from indigenous species/varieties.
• The Restaurant Loop Network: Onboarding local food businesses into the Shtar Galim network, creating direct-to-restaurant supply chains that bypass expensive corporate distributors.
• Composting Hub Upgrades: Upgrading our first 5 of 25 existing community composting hubs (such as "Hub Tzanchnim" and "Hub Pinat Gan") into food-producing gardens. By partnering with local property owners, we will co-fund these green spaces, using the increased land value to negotiate rent discounts for tenants who pay in Shtar Galim. Tracking Impact

To prove the viability of this model to larger institutional donors, we will measure both ecological health and economic circulation using rigorous methodologies:

• Ecological Metrics: Total kilograms of organic waste recycled, total kilograms of mulch and tree trimmings recycled locally, total diversion of organic matter from burial in municipal landfills (measured in Kg), total acres of urban green spaces regenerated, and the number of local indigenous plant species successfully returned to active food production.
• Economic Metrics: The velocity and transaction volume of Shtar Galim coins, the number of active business partners, the average discount percentage enjoyed by residents.
• Social Metrics: Number of educational workshop participants, number of neighborhood fairs, volunteer hours contributed, and qualitative metrics tracking changes in community trust, neighborhood pride, and financial security.

Our Experience

Shtar Galim emerged directly from the Bat Galim Community Garden, which has been a trusted neighborhood fixture for several years. Our team brings deep-rooted experience organizing large-scale volunteer events, neighborhood markets, community gardening initiatives, and environmental education programs.

Over the past two years, our volunteer network successfully designed, built, and managed 25 active neighborhood composting hubs. This community-led infrastructure has already diverted more than 6,300kg of organic waste from municipal landfills, recycling it into nutrient-rich compost for local soil restoration. Using this compost, we have successfully upgraded 2 of these composting hubs into the next stage of development, integrating high-yield, raised-bed vegetable production and establishing a local heritage seed-saving program. Additionally, we have fostered strong community adoption of our financial model: more than 30 micro-businesses and 6 medium-sized local enterprises—including neighborhood cafés, a local bar, a home appliance shop, and a popular falafel stand—already actively accept Shtar Galim from more than 250 neighborhood residents. Our core team consists of urban agriculturalists, community organizers, and ecological educators deeply committed to Haifa's socio-ecological resilience.

Our Partnerships

Our grassroots work is validated and supported by key local stakeholders. We have secured formal commitments from local restaurants prepared to pilot the Shtar Galim currency loop. We coordinate closely with the Bat Galim Neighborhood Committee (Forum Bat Galim) to ensure our work directly serves long-term community planning goals. Furthermore, we are collaborating with the local municipality to reproduce this model to other neighborhoods in Haifa, and we are working closely with the Social Justice Clinic at the University of Haifa to assist us in preparing legal precedents for the local currency and municipal and legal relations. These partnerships ensure that our model is both technically sound and deeply trusted by the people who call Bat Galim home.