The model is an integral part of the Jerusalem Center for Planning in Historic Cities, housed in the Jerusalem municipality complex. "The aim of the Center is to understand urban problems and produce fitting solutions," says Ariel. "We focus on cities with historic significance. Historic cities the world over share similar problems of how to preserve and enhance the neighborhoods and buildings of historical-cultural interest, while adapting to the exigencies of modern living, like creating new residential areas, providing adequate transportation, etc."

One of the principal aims of the Center is to become a forum for local and international planners and designers, a place to meet and exchange ideas. Visitors have included groups of experts, individual professionals dealing with municipal problems and ministers of housing. In addition, the International Mayors' Conference, meeting each year in Jerusalem, schedules one of its sessions at the Center, viewing and discussing the model and its application to the participants' own local realities.

Concurrently with its professional uses, the model also functions as an educational tool. Creative workshops are meant to stimulate school youngsters as well as adults to study urbanization and to help them devise answers to imaginary and real problems in town planning. At the same time, they become sensitized to the aesthetic aspects of such development. This is particularly important given the great variety of cultural and religious backgrounds of Jerusalem's inhabitants.

Through this model, 3,000-year-old Jerusalem can serve as a living model for modern life in historic cities.