Beirut

Cities 29 (2012) 64–73

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City profile

Beirut Nasser Yassin ⇑ Faculty of Health Scienes, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 14 April 2010 Received in revised form 17 November 2010 Accepted 2 February 2011 Available online 5 March 2011 Keywords: Beirut Transformation Global Local

a b s t r a c t Beirut gained prominence as a Levantine city and as Lebanon’s primate city in the mid-19th century. The growth of Beirut has been affected by the interplay of local and global forces and events. Such ‘glocal’ factors, including the changes in the global economic system through trade and capital flows, regional geopolitical events and wars, and the dynamics of the Lebanese political economy, contributed substantially to the city’s transformation. Since 1840, Beirut has passed through five phases of transformation with each phase being affected by specific ‘glocal’ dynamics while at the same time each phase produced specific spatial and social orders. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Beirut

Beirut’s geography and history

Introduction

Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, lies on a peninsula at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, with its cape extending over 9 km into the sea. The early human settlement or the old city sits between two hills: Ashrafieh, the highest at 95 meters above sea level to the north east, and Ras Beirut to the west. Historically, these two hills overlooked the old city and its coast. There is a challenge in defining Beirut’s current borders due to the lack of any official urban classifications in Lebanon. Municipal1 Beirut is clearly demarcated in a dual status of a governorate and a municipality (see Fig. 1). It has a surface area of 19.6 km2 and a population of some 400,000 (MoE, 2001). Greater Beirut, however, is an ambiguous, mundane term which describes Beirut and its surrounding suburbs. This was introduced in the official and media discourses in the 1960s. The borders of Greater Beirut are still not officially carved into a single administrative district; it stretches roughly from the Damour River to the south of the airport, Nahr al-Kalb River to the north, the hilly areas of Mount Lebanon (up to 250–300 m altitude) to the east, and the Mediterranean to the west. It is estimated to have a surface area of 67 km2 and a population of 1.7 million, which constitutes around 56% of the Lebanese population (MoE, 2001, MoSA, 1996, UN, 2004) (see Diagram 1). Beirut, as explored by recent excavations, was a Phoenician port city of less prominence than its neighbours Sidon and Byblos (Sader, 1998). The city’s pre-modern golden period was during Roman times, around the first century AD, when it was established

This profile of Beirut focuses upon the various phases of its growth; it argues that the city has passed through five phases of urban transformation. Each of these was influenced by the interplay between global, regional and local forces and events. From the mid-19th to the late 20th century, transformations occurring in the wider spatial, political, and economic contexts—such as the dramatic changes in the global economic system through trade and capital flows—influenced the growth of the city. Furthermore, regional geopolitics and economic developments—such as the emergence of the oil economies in the Gulf—played a pivotal role in promoting Beirut’s prominence as a regional centre. These exogenous factors—both global and regional—intermingled with local forces to favour Beirut’s ‘magnet’ role. Local factors, such as the adoption of laissez-faire economic policies, contributed substantially to the city’s transformation into a Middle Eastern financial and economic centre. Such a ‘global–local nexus’, as Smith (2002, p. 118) puts it, was pivotal in shaping the urbanisation of Beirut over the 150 year period, and in giving it a position of advantage that led to its evolution from a small Ottoman coastal town to Lebanon’s main urban centre and metropolitan status. The paper starts with an overview of the geography and history of Beirut; it then moves to expose the five phases that mark the growth of the city and concludes with a reflection on the current ‘urban’ issues that impinge on Beirut.

⇑ Tel.: +961 70624542. E-mail address: [email protected] 0264-2751/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2011.02.001

1 The exact terms used in official categorization are ‘administrative’ Beirut referring to municipal or central Beirut, versus ‘greater’ referring to municipal Beirut with its suburbs.

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Fig. 1. Municipal and Greater Beirut.

on the ruins of a Hellenistic town as a port in which to settle war veterans. Berytus, as it was called by the Romans, prospered and became a Christian town in the 4th century AD until an earthquake flattened it in 551 AD (Davie, 1987; Hanssen, 1998). Little is known about Beirut in the early Islamic and Arab period that started ca. 667 AD except that it was a port used by Moawiya, the first

Umayyad Caliph to invade Cyprus. It probably stayed a small Christian–Muslim town during that period. The Crusaders took control of the city around 1110 AD and fortified it with walls and a seafront castle, a typical measure in medieval cities. The city was re-controlled by the Muslim Memluks in 1291 AD but never gained any prominence during the reign of the latter

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Beirut

00 20

90

80 19

19

70 19

60 19

50 19

20

Lebanon

19

18

96

Population (000)

Growth of Beirut and Lebanon Population 1896-2005

4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0

Year Diagram 1. Population growth in Beirut and Lebanon. Sources: Chehabe-Ed-Dine, 1953; Churchill, 1954; Fawaz, 1983; Khuri, 1975; Sarkis & Khalaf, 1993; Nasr, 1985a, 1985b; UN, 2004.

(1291–1516). But it was during the Memluk period that Sunni Muslims became established as the main community in Beirut and other coastal towns. The Memluks’ strategy was to empower and install trusted communities—such as the Sunnis—to defend coastal areas from possible Crusader or other invasions. With the takeover by the Ottomans in 1516, Beirut grew very slowly until the 1840s, when it had a population of less than 10,000. Compared to other east Mediterranean and Ottoman cities, such as Acre, Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, Beirut was of little economic significance and pulled little political weight. A small town with a small natural port, it was no different from most coastal Mediterranean settlements. Beirut’s growth The subsequent growth of Beirut as an urban centre was a result of the ‘magnet’ role that the city played after the 1840s. Since the second half of the 19th century, most of Lebanon’s economic and cultural activities have taken place in Beirut, and the city now boasts the country’s main port, its only international airport, houses the government and administration, and is the main cultural and educational centre. Beirut attracted various waves of newcomers, such as rural migrants from peripheral areas of Lebanon, Christian refugees from Turkey and other Ottoman areas, and Arab political refugees. The city passed through five phases of urban growth. Each of these phases was marked by a unique interplay of local, regional and global forces which has in turn led to distinctive urban dynamics in the contexts of demography, economy, society and indeed urban space. Phase 1: 1850–1920: the growth of cosmopolitan Beirut as a gateway to the Levant Up to mid 19th century, Beirut was a typical Ottoman Levantine coastal town. Similar to other towns in the region, the distinction between the workplace and residence was blurred, and Beirutis used to work and live in some proximity. The population of the town was predominantly Muslim, with a small Christian minority. In 1846, Muslims constituted around 9000 of the 16,400 inhabitants (Fawaz, 1983). The old city was not divided into sectarian quarters or ha¯ra¯t as typically seen in the morphology of the classic Islamic city. Instead, divisions were mostly work-related. Most of the inhabitants were petty traders, labourers, and farmers, not untypical of Ottoman coastal towns. As of the mid 19th century, the city started to change as a consequence of the attempts made by the Ottoman Sultanate to modernise and to introduce administrative reform. Eclipsed by its slow pace of modernisation compared to other European powers, the

Sublime Porte of the Sultanate initiated a series of reform policies in the capital Istanbul and in its backyard provinces (Hanssen, 2005). These reforms came as the Ottoman Empire was facing external threats from the West as well as from fear of internal disintegration. These reforms became known as the Tanzimat policies and were formulated in an attempt to save the vulnerable Sultanate. They aimed, among other goals, at changing the government structure within the Empire by giving the provinces greater say in running their affairs and by providing some freedom to the Empire’s minorities. Beirut benefited from these reforms. The city’s first municipal authority was installed in 1868 under the mandate of the Ottoman governor (Vali or Wali). Subsequently, major projects were implemented to improve the city’s infrastructure and landscape—a new quay was built in 1887, new roads were constructed and public squares were opened. By the beginning of the 20th century, Beirut had an electricity generation company, a privately-run water company, a tramway and a postal system (Saliba, 2000; Zachs, 2005). Significantly, the Tanzimat reforms pushed the Empire’s connection with the world economy. Levantine cities reacted to these changes by opening up to Europe, particularly through maritime trade. It was an era when trade across the Mediterranean was proliferating due to the introduction of steamboats. With these changes in the world markets, trade shifted from traditional caravans bound to internal markets and interior cities, towards sea trade through coastal cities. Beirut gained exceptionally from trading with Europe. The city emerged as a base for regional networks of interaction and economic activity. It was mostly the silk industry and the trade exchange between Europe and Mount Lebanon and inland parts of Syria that gave Beirut its role as gateway to the Levant or ‘Geographic Syria’2. Between 1845 and 1914, silk became the single most important cash crop in the Mountain. Silk’s share of exports from the Port of Beirut jumped from 25% of a total of forty million francs’ worth of products in 1857, to 82.5% of total exports in 1873 (Khater, 2001). The construction of the Beirut–Damascus road that cut across Mount Lebanon in 1863, and the opening of the Beirut– Damascus railway in 1894, further strengthened Beirut’s position as a regional trade centre. Some historians argue that the Beirut– Damascus road was the ‘single most important’ factor behind the rise of the former because it strengthened its role as a port city, linking Mount Lebanon and the Syrian inland with European markets (Fawaz, 1983, p. 69). During this phase, and for the first time in its history, Beirut expanded beyond the walls and gates of the medieval city; by the 1880s, those gates became merely points of geographic reference. It is estimated that between 1841 and 1876, the area of the city increased fifteen times3 (Davie, 1996: see Fig. 2). Beirut expanded eastward along the Damascus road, northward along the Tripoli road, and southward along the Saida road. By the early 20th century, Beirut had expanded even further from its medieval walls. The routes of the first tramway network opened in 1909 and reflect the geography of the city at the time. It operated five lines with end-stops at the Pine Forest, the lighthouse, and the port (Hanssen, 1998). The end-stops of the tramway clearly reflect the borders of the city during that period. The pattern of growth during this phase followed a semi-circular model around the old town with the better-off leaving the old city to settle in ‘suburbs’ outside the city wall. A number of emerging quarters such as Zokak Blat, Ghabi, and Sayfi were urbanised during that phase, with the building of villas for élite merchant 2

Geographic Syria refers to Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and East Jordan. Chehabeddine estimates the size in 1860 at 134 hectares and in 1912 at 350 hectares. 3

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Fig. 2. Beirut Phases of Urbanisation.

families (Davie, 1996). Later, small settlements to the south and south-east became linked. By attracting newcomers, agricultural areas on the outskirts of the city centre were transformed from farms, with a few family farmers living and working on them, to neighbourhoods linked to the city-centre. New areas like Ashrafieh, Ras Naba’a, Mazraat el-Arab, Moussaitbeyh, Ras Beirut, and Qantari became more populated as the first true suburbs of the city. Towards the end of this phase, the size of the Christian community exceeded the number of Muslims. By 1920, around 64% of Beirut’s population was Christian, divided equally between the Greek Orthodox Eastern Church, Maronites, and Catholics (prior to 1840, Beirut’s minority Christian community was largely Greek Orthodox: Davie, 1996). A major change took place upon the arrival of Maronites and other Christian refugees who fled the 1860s pogroms in Damascus, Aleppo and Mount Lebanon, although Christian in-migration had started slightly earlier than 1860 through the movement of Christian merchants and intelligentsia from Mount Lebanon to Beirut for economic and political reasons. Christian merchants and the intelligentsia moved to Beirut at a time of an increased presence of European merchants in the city. Europeans found Christians easier to deal with in contexts of trade, politics and educational activities, compared to Muslims. Many of the Christian families who originated from Mount Lebanon and other interior regions became dragomans, clergy, merchants and bankers. Families like Al-Bustani and Sursock were notably successful in their relocation to the city and later became among the wealthiest and most influential Beirut Christian families (Zachs, 2005). This explains the choice of Christian refugees, fleeing the massacres of 1860, to settle in Beirut. They quickly were integrated into its fabric. The prosperous economy and the skills those migrants

brought with them helped in their integration in the city’s economy and society. The changes that occurred in this period (1850–1920) transformed Beirut into a prominent cosmopolitan Ottoman city. The influx of communities bestowed a heterogeneous aspect to the city as it became for the first time a truly multi-confessional society. The trade-orientation and large presence of European merchants contributed to the city’s cosmopolitan features. A number of universities, colleges, and community organisations were established during this phase. This period was generally calm and peaceful, although a few small and localised communal clashes took place between Christians and Muslims. Success in preventing communal clashes was partly a result of the balance of power between the city’s strong European consuls and Ottoman authorities (Fawaz, 1984). Violence was also prevented as the city’s residents, merchants, and political patrons were able ‘to place [their] economic interests above [their] sectarian allegiances’ (ibid: 490). Phase 2: 1920–1958: French mandate, early independence and ‘building’ a mini Paris The defeat of the Ottomans in the Great War and the dismantling of their Empire brought the victorious French and British to the Levant. Based on the Sykes–Picot agreement between Britain and France in 1916, the French controlled Syria and Lebanon while the British controlled Palestine and Iraq. The French authorities, after a series of failed arrangements, divided the region under their control into two countries: Syria and Lebanon. ‘Grand Lebanon’ was created by expanding Mount Lebanon, a semi-autonomous district during the Ottoman rule, to include the coastal cities of Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, and Tripoli, in addition to the interior-rural

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areas of Bekaa, Jabal Amel, and Akkar. The French declared the city of Beirut as the new capital of Grand Lebanon and as headquarters for the French forces in Syria and Lebanon. The French authorities continued the Ottoman plans of the late 19th century to modernise the city, yet stamped their projects with their own colonial touch. Large parts of the old city were demolished to create a gentrified commercial centre. This modernist stance of functionalism and efficiency in urban design and development prevailed by paving thoroughfares, such as the Frenchmen Avenue and large streets named after the victorious British and French generals Allenby, Foch and Weygand, and by building landmarks such as the National Museum and Parliament (Barakat, 2004). The Mandate’s public investment also financed the extension of a road network, from 500 to 2500 kilometres and all centred on Beirut (Gates, 1998). An airport was opened in the city in 1939 and the expansion of the port’s capacity enabled traffic to almost quadruple between 1920 and 1939 (Gates, 1998). The first post-independence presidential terms (1943–1952 and 1952–1958) continued the policies launched during the Mandate. Such policies were decisive in promoting the role of Beirut as a trade and service centre. Most of the attention went to sectors that would enhance trade and commerce which were almost always located in Beirut and around it. But the most crucial state policy was adopting a minimalist approach towards intervention in economic and social spheres. Laissez-faire policies were posited as pillars of the new republican model. The success of this model was mostly based on the skills and know-how of the country’s urban élite and their long-standing relationship with the Western market system. The city continued to grow along the three main axes: the Damascus road to the east, the Tripoli road to the northeast, and the Saida road to the south. In addition, further expansion moved westward towards Ras Beirut and the rocky area of Raouche. New neighbourhoods appeared during that period (Fig. 2) and new roads were constructed to accommodate these spatial changes. Beirut’s demographic growth during that phase was boosted by the settlement of large number of political refugees. The first wave included Armenian and Syrian refugees who fled Turkish prosecution. In 1922, around 10,000 Armenians arrived to Beirut fleeing Cilicia and other Turkish regions. This was followed in 1939 by another wave of refugees from Alexandretta4. Armenian and Syrian refugees—mostly Orthodox Christians—contributed to the increase in the size of the Christian community in Beirut and its suburbs. They became quickly integrated and were naturalized and given all civic and political rights. Armenian, Syrian and other Christian communities settled in the 1920s in temporary housing in the vicinity of Beirut. The first Armenian camp was built in 1922 in the Qarantina area near the port of Beirut, a location used originally as a quarantine area in the 19th century (Fawaz & Peillin, 2003). The Armenians gradually moved outside that camp to relocate in permanent housing in nearby areas. As early as 1924 and climaxing in the 1930s, Armenians re-settled in the area of Bourj Hammoud on the east bank of Beirut River, originally a marsh and agriculture area cultivated by local Maronite families (see Fig. 2). In 1948, a large wave of displaced persons arrived from Palestine. Most of the 100,000 Palestinian refugees who fled the first Arab–Israeli war settled in camps on the outskirts of Beirut (Ugland, 2003). They settled temporarily in the same camps previously used by Armenian refugees, especially in the Qarantina area (Fawaz & Peillin, 2003). Later on, and with the help of the newly established United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA), six permanent camps were built on leased land on the outskirts of Beirut between 1949 and 1952. Mar Elias camp was the only

4

Al-Iskandaroun in Arabic and Hatay in Turkish.

camp within the borders of municipal Beirut at its southern end. In the east and northeast were Dbayyeh, Tall Zaatar, and Jisr elBasha and to the south were Sabra–Shatila and Bourj Barajane (see Fig. 2). The presence of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and specifically in and around Beirut, would become a significant issue in spring 1975. Towards the end of this period, clear class and sectarian discrepancies between quarters and neighbourhoods became apparent. Those to the east of the old city quarters of Ashrafiyah, Sayfi and Ghabah became mostly bourgeois Christian and were ‘integrated into the [new] republican regime’ (Thompson, 2000, p. 178). Areas to the south and south-west, such as Basta, Bourj Abu Haidar and Zarif, were mostly Sunni. Some mixed quarters emerged, such as Moussytabe and Ras Beirut, which grew around the American University of Beirut as a multi-sectarian intellectual enclave. At the edge of the city’s municipal borders, the ‘first bidonvilles sprouted’ (ibid: 178). These were mostly settlements for Armenian and Syrian refugees and later for Palestinian refugees and Lebanese rural migrants. Phase 3: 1958–1975: rapid urbanisation, urban sprawl and the misery belt The city asserted its position as a Middle Eastern centre for the service economy during the late 1950s, 1960s and 70s. The government’s encouragement of the service-based economy led to more concentration of economic activity in the capital. By the early 1970s, two-thirds of all economic activity took place in Beirut and almost all banking activities were based in the capital (Nasr, 1993). The entire state administration, as well as all higher education institutions, were located in the capital (Sarkis, 2003). Holding most of the country’s economic activity, hosting all government institutions and accommodating more than half of the population, Beirut was turning into more than the political and economic capital—it was becoming a city-state. Among the factors contributing to Beirut’s ascendant role was the closure of the prosperous regional port of Haifa in 1948 (as a result of the first Israeli–Arab war) and the transfer of its activities to Beirut. As Arab states boycotted Haifa Port for their transit activities, Beirut’s port regained its late 19th century prominence. It became especially successful in supplying transit services to inland oil-rich Gulf countries and importing goods and products from the West. This phase saw arguably the only serious attempt to produce a master plan for the city. Influenced by the relatively statist regime of the president Fuad Shehab (1958–1964), the state commissioned French planner Michel Ecochard to work on a master plan. The 1964 plan failed however to make any difference. Failure in formulating an urban policy and strategy was mostly a result of pressure from private developers who wanted and succeeded in having ‘fewer restrictions and more room for exploitation’ (Salam, 1998, p. 128). One of the interesting features of the Ecochard plan was to include areas beyond the municipal boundaries of Beirut. It was the first attempt to foresee the metropolitan future of the city. The plan also reflected the increasing socio-economic inequalities in Beirut, or as described by Ecochard himself: ‘the capital of social injustice’ (Salam, 1998). Indeed, it was during this phase that in-migration to Beirut was dominated by an influx of rural migrants from the peripheral districts of South Lebanon and Bekaa. Pushed by neglect to rural areas and mounting inequalities between rural and urban areas, rural to urban migration accelerated during the 1960s.5 The trend

5 The per capita income in Beirut was five times larger than it was in the whole country. Statistics show that only 9.9% of families in Beirut had an income less than LL 3000 ($1000) compared to 23.6% in the North, 35.2% in the South, and 43.7% in the Bekaa (Halawi, 1992)

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Fig. 3. Beirut at war and division (based on news reports).

accelerated later, so that by the early 1970s around 40% (estimated at half a million people) of Lebanon’s rural population had moved from their hometowns to settle in Beirut and its suburbs (Nasr, 1993). This rapid rural influx led to major changes in the demography and geography of the city. The capital, attracting most internal migrants, had a threefold population increase in the period 1952– 1964 (Khalaf & Kongstad, 1973). By 1975, more than 45% (1.2 million) of the country’s population was living in Beirut and its vicinity. They were largely new urbanites as reflected in a household study conducted in 1970 that showed that 37.4% of population of Beirut and suburbs were actually born outside the city (Ministry of Planning, 1970).6 Parallel to the demographic growth of the 1960s and 1970s, Beirut underwent massive suburbanisation. Settlements expanded all around the capital to incorporate the rapid demographic growth (Fig. 2). Horizontal expansion reached the small towns and villages around Beirut. Unregulated settlements sprawled around Beirut during this phase. The first expansion of squatter settlements was around and near refugee camps such as Qarantina and Maslakh to the east of the city’s port, and the Palestinian camps of Tall Zaatar to the east, and Sabra, Chatila and Bourj Barajaneh to the south of the city. These settlements attracted Lebanese working classes, in addition to Palestinian refugees and Syrian and Kurdish labourers (Fawaz and Peillen, 2003). These settlements became known as the city’s ‘‘misery belt’’, a term that was widely used in the media and by politicians to refer to all low-income settlements around the municipal boundaries of Beirut. Conditions were indeed miserable. In some areas around 55,000 inhabitants lived per square kilometre (Halawi, 1992). Environmental degradation, lack of sanitation and municipal services, high density, and poverty gave these areas the reputation as poverty-entrenched neighbourhoods. The ‘misery belt’ that comprised the informal settlements surrounding Beirut’s city-centre became a breeding ground for radicalization and militancy. Palestinian refugee camps, in particular, became in the early 1970s a place for recruitment and training of commando fighters – fidayeen – to be part of the battle against Israel. The mostly Muslim Lebanese youth in the poverty-stricken quarters neighbouring these camps found in the Palestinian struggle a space of rebellion against traditional and skewed politics and

6 The survey (L’enquete) conducted by the Ministry of Planning provides the most reliable information on the population movements and urban morphology in the 1970s.

against injustices caused by the Lebanese state’s neglect. For Christians, on the other hand, the militarization of Palestinian factions and their Muslim allies and their visibility in streets and neighbourhoods was seen as a tangible threat to a state they had sought to build. Phase 4: 1975–1990: violent urbanisation and civil war The Lebanese civil war emerged with an orgy of violence in April 1975. Collective violence was the culmination of heightened tension between the Muslim-Leftist side and their Palestinian allies, and the mostly Christian side. The first 2 years, which were labelled the ‘Two-Year War’, were one of the most violent eras. Gruesome massacres and expulsions of people were committed in the first few months. The first 2 years of the war were mostly an urban phenomenon. Major ‘urban’ attacks were perpetrated by both sides. Christian forces attacked the quarters of Maslakh and Qarantina to the east of Beirut Port which were part of the ‘misery belt’. This slum area was inhabited by Muslim Lebanese, Palestinian, Kurds and Syrian families and workers. It was estimated that 1000 died in that attack. Later, Christian militias bulldozed the whole area. Muslim–Palestinian forces did their share in attacking Christian neighbourhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut and in expelling their inhabitants. Subsequently, collective violence forced individuals and families to move from mixed areas and neighbourhoods to homogenous sectarian ones. Almost all Muslims were displaced from the eastern suburbs and other Christian-dominated areas. Many Christians in return were displaced from West Beirut, the southern suburbs and other Muslim dominated areas. No exact data on population exchange in the first 2 years are available but statistics in later periods show the extent of population exchange that took place in a short period of time. Between 1975 and 1989 the proportion of Christians in West Beirut dropped from 30–40% to 5%. In Ashrafieh area in East Beirut, the proportion of Muslim population dropped from between 4–10% in 1975 to less than 1% during and after the war. Similarly, the eastern suburbs of Beirut had a Muslim population of 40% in 1975 compared to 5% in 1989 (Genberg, 2002; Huybrechts, 1991; Nasr, 1993). After reciprocal expulsion of members of the ‘other’ sectarian community, militias employed several measures to re-organise the urban space and territory according to the emerging political, sectarian and military realities (Yassin, 2010). Acting as urban designers, militia leaders and their men redesigned the city and

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Fig. 4. Recent Developments in Beirut Central District (by Author).

its milieus to produce a new spatial order aimed largely at reaffirming the new social and political orders under their control. Physical barriers were put into demarcate one’s area against the others. The biggest division was through installation of a Green Line between east and west Beirut, stretching from the old city southward along the Damascus and Old Saida roads and dividing the city into two

enclaves (see Fig. 3). It created a narrow no-man’s land between the two areas. Makeshift walls were built, and sandbags and burned buses were installed to achieve this physical partition. The civil war generated a new form of urban morphology. It resulted primarily in the division of Beirut into two major enclaves: a Christian-controlled east and Muslim and Leftist-controlled west.

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Fig. 5. Renovation of Old Quarters of Beiruit (by Author).

The Green Line between the two sides of Beirut was reified as a noman’s land with a handful of militia-controlled-crossings between the two Beiruts. Sectarian territorialisation was an integral part of the war, as it reflected the power of one faction and helped at the same time in making and shaping the identity of the group. Those violent practices were what Kalyvas describes as ‘reciprocal extermination’ where ‘neither political actor intends to govern the population it targets’ (Kalyvas, 2006, pp. 30 and 31). The division lasted until a peace settlement was reached in 1990.

Phase 5: 1991 – now: post-war urban reconstruction and neoliberal peace By the late 1980s, Beirut had reached a stage of war fatigue that resulted from years of civil fighting, Israeli invasion in 1982 and Syrian armed control of its western side as of 1986. By that time, the war had left more than 150,000 killed, 300,000 injured, and around 800,000 displaced (Khalaf, 2002; Sawalha, 1998; Yahya, 2004). In 1990, a peace settlement was reached by the warring factions in what was called the National Reconciliation Agreement7 (Kerr, 2005; Krayem, 1997). A new constitution was ratified in September 1990 under a modified power-sharing mechanism based on equal Muslim–Christian representation (Baydoun, 1999). In spring 1991, militias were disarmed and national armed forces (Lebanese 7 Also known as The Taif Agreement, named after the city of Taif in Saudi Arabia where the negotiations took place.

Army and Police) were deployed in Greater Beirut.8 Subsequently, barriers between West and East Beirut were removed, a sign that the city was being reconnected and that Beirutis were free to move anywhere in their city. As normality resumed, a post-conflict rehabilitation programme was launched in 1993 with the aim of reconstructing the war-torn country. The reconstruction plan, led by the late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri,9 envisioned the reconstruction of Beirut as a symbol of ‘the determination of the Lebanese to rebuild their capital’ as put by Hariri himself (cited in Yahya, 2004, pp. 110–111). The jewel in the crown of the post-war reconstruction projects was the rehabilitation of the destroyed city-centre of Beirut as a commercial and business district, with the motto of ‘Beirut: an ancient city for the future’ (El-Dahdah, 1998). The vision of the reconstruction and rehabilitation project was to regain the role of Beirut as regional business capital, a role that had been lost during the war (Gavin & Maluf, 1996) (Fig. 4). The reconstruction plan was hugely influenced by the neoliberal peace model that assumed economic growth and recreating linkages to the liberal world system would sustain peace and bring prosperity. The rehabilitation of the old centre of Beirut, an area of 191 hectares, was also privatized to a real estate company that 8 It was also agreed that Hezbollah would keep its arms as it was seen as the main resistance movement against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon. 9 Hariri was prime minister between 1992 and 1998 and then between 2000 and 2004. He was assassinated in February 2005.

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was set-up for this purpose under the name of the Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut Central District and known by its acronym Solidere. Land ownership was transferred to Solidere, with 50% of the shares of the company given to the previous property owners and the other 50% to investors (Yahya, 2004). While Solidere offered a solution to the issue of multiple ownerships, it was set-up as a real estate company depending heavily on a ‘massive external injection of capital’ from profit-seeking investors, led by Hariri himself (Beyhum, 1992). The rehabilitation of the central district was by standards of post-war regeneration successful in producing state of the art quarters along with public and green spaces, business districts, souks and residential areas. Solidere was successful as well in restoring some quarters, maintaining the 19th and early 20th centuries design of buildings and streets (Fig. 5). The development programme, however, over-emphasized the city centre, de-linking it from other areas in the ever growing city, and excluded from rehabilitation its backyard areas and neighbourhoods. The overgentrification transformed the city-centre to ‘an exclusive entity floating in a non-existent city’ (Yahya, 2004, p. 116). More critically, behind the façade of Beirut’s commercial and tourist-welcoming district, the city at large continued to be divided. The city that was sectarianized and enclaved during the 15 years of war continued to be spatially divided across the warinduced sectarian lines, signalling a failure to reach normalcy. Khalaf (2002, p. 307) explains this ‘convergence of spatial and communal identities’ as a ‘means of escape from the trials and tribulations of war’. He notes that continuing ‘to seek refuge in cloistered spatial communities’ even after the war had ended was a result of ‘two seemingly opposed forms of self-preservation: to remember and to forget’. These two conflicting forms resulted from the ‘efforts to anchor oneself in one’s community’ or from the ‘escapist and nostalgic predispositions to return to a past imbued with questionable authenticity’ (ibid). This continued ‘convergence of spatial and communal identities’ appeared opaque to the Lebanese state, and issues related to post-conflict reconciliation and peace building were swept under the rug (El-Khazen, 2003). Consequently, prospects of creating an inter-sectarian national sphere, institutionally and spatially, were not seriously considered in the reconstruction plan. The massive resources mobilised for the rehabilitation of Beirut’s city-centre, estimated at US$1.65 billion in 2006,10 were not matched even by a minute fraction for such activities that could address cultural and inter-communal aspects of post-conflict rehabilitation11. The state shied away from supporting civil society initiatives that addressed the memory of war and its commemoration (Haugbølle, 2002). Even today, there is no state policy or initiative for a commemoration or a remembrance day of the war and its victims.

Conclusion The growth of Beirut as the country’s main urban centre dates back to the mid 19th century. Since the 1850s, the process of urbanisation and urban growth has continued steadily, unabated even by the civil war (1975–1990). Beirut developed from a small Ottoman town with a population with around 16,000 inhabitants in the 1840s to a metropolis with 1.7 million inhabitants (UN, 2004). The city also expanded geographically to unprecedented levels and witnessed ‘vertical’ growth in high-rise buildings. The 10 This figure includes the overall capital of Solidere in 2006 as reported in the company’s annual report. 11 Post-war initiatives dealt only with the rehabilitation of destroyed or damaged houses and the return of the internally displaced persons (IDPs). Hundred of millions of dollars were spent on funding the return of the displaced and paying compensation to illegal tenants.

urban change since the 1850s was marked also by the transformation of the city’s social, economic, and cultural spheres. The future of Beirut carries a number of challenges that are inherent to the city and its urbanity. As a post-civil-war city, Beirut remains divided across war-induced sectarian lines. The east of the city remains predominantly Christian, the west is predominantly Muslim with some largely Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods and the city’s southern suburbs have become mostly Shia Muslim. While homogeneity is not a cause of conflict per se, tensions remain and urban divisions, if unabated, may exacerbate such tensions. This is in line of what Bollens (2001, p. 87) suggests ‘Separation in urban settings breeds contempt. Learning of stereotypes is made easier if you do not know the other person. It is harder to demonise someone when you are interacting with them’. The city lacks a strategic urban development vision. Except for land regulation, infrastructural investments and building codes, the central government, the Municipality of Beirut and the municipal authorities in the surrounding towns that make-up the suburbs of the city have hitherto shied away from formulating a strategy that would tackle the emerging urban issues of the growing Lebanese metropolis. The city is short of a vision that would address the existing social—as well as sectarian—divisions, and that would see the urban reality of Beirut as a sphere that has grown to include the city proper and its surrounding suburbs. This is reflected in the everyday life of the urbanites, who lack a public transport system, which has been left to the hands of the free market. It is also felt in the underserved and informal neighbourhoods whose services are taken care by grass-root movements and political parties such as Hezbollah. If unabated, the city would continue in its ensuing divisions – social and sectarian.

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