 Tel Aviv's tax base had been shrinking for many years, as a result of its preceding long term population decline, and this meant there was little money available at the time to invest in the city's deteriorating infrastructure and housing.In 1998, Tel Aviv was on the “verge of bankruptcy”.Economic difficulties would then be compounded by a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings in the city from the mid 1990s, to the end of the Second Intifada, as well as the Dot-com bubble, which affected the city's rapidly growing hi-tech sector.