Aouad's Article on UNDP's Salam Wa Kalam

While this article proposes community‐driven neighborhood planning as a method to guide post‐war recovery in divided neighborhoods, the key question asked is not whether these methods will mitigate divisions among neighborhoods, as this is a different topic, but rather how the devastated neighborhoods should get organized to improve their quality of life within a clustered and divided city.

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Aouad Publishes "Neighborhood Planning for a Divided City: The Case of Beirut"

This article discusses planning within Municipal Beirut, Lebanon, while focusing on the specific context of divided cities and societies, proposing a series of recommendations based on socio‐economic and political science and planning theory to understand such contexts. It explores the case of Municipal Beirut that has undergone a devastating blast on August 4th, 2020, and left thousands of households in critical condition by leaving an already shattered sectarian city/society with an unforeseen planning future. By examining successful examples or frameworks in other cities and similar‐context cities in history with urban/social shocks, evaluating current planning initiatives, and analyzing the case study of the recent Beirut Urban Declaration report, this article investigates neighborhood planning as a flexible framework that one must undertake to provide the divided city of Beirut a healthy and sustainable development. It argues that difference and diversity are a noteworthy feature of the city of Beirut and its society and should hence be incorporated in any planning approach even if the consequences on the ground may differ.

Considering that planning could change the spatial, socio‐economic, and political dimensions of a defined urban space, this article explores which of these dimensions can be used to intensify or lessen contestations over space in Beirut under the current sectarian culture reflected in both social and spatial realms. In the wake of the blast and amid all these divisions, this article will show that neighborhood planning stands out as a flexible and sustainable solution. By establishing a spatially targeted program, introducing innovative tools for neighborhood planning and management, and initiating a small‐scale governance structure, neighborhood planning will create an intermediate level between the municipality, citizens, and other local actors, enhancing its social capital and leading eventually to an undivided planning strategy at a national and city scale.

This article is part of the issue “Urbanisation, Crisis, and Resilience: The Multiple Dimensions of Urban Transformation in Beirut, Lebanon” edited by Liliane Buccianti‐Barakat (Saint Joseph University) and Markus Hesse (University of Luxembourg).

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Two Things [6]

1.

It has been almost a year since August 4th, when surveys from thousands of households, under the multi-sector needs assessment, identified the following priorities: Shelter, reconstruction and rehabilitation, livelihoods, cash assistance, access to healthcare and medication, psychosocial support, and food security. Amid a wave of local and international organizations providing help and assistance for many, in a city more divided than ever, impoverished by a series of overlapping poor management, where sectarianism has emerged as a crucial mobilizing agent in the struggle for urban reform or preservation, it is time today to investigate neighborhood planning as a flexible framework that one must undertake to provide the divided city of Beirut a healthy and sustainable development for the future years to come.

2.

Difference and diversity are noteworthy features of the city and its society – to be incorporated in any planning approach, even if the consequences on the ground may differ. Considering that planning could change the spatial, economic, social, and political dimensions of a defined urban space, it would be crucial to depict which of these dimensions can be used to intensify or lessen contestations over space. By introducing a spatially targeted program sought to solve social problems at the neighborhood scale and innovative tools for neighborhood planning and management, backed by a small-scale governance structure, neighborhood planning will create an intermediate level between the municipality, citizens, and other local actors, enhancing its social capital, leading eventually to an undivided planning strategy at a city scale.