If we take a look at the history and present situation of state institutions, we can clearly see the complete failure in dealing with urbanization, development, environment and housing. Rather, we find that the successive emergence of institutions and then their closing down, from the fifties until today, contributed to a prevailing perception of urban public policies. This perception has dictated such policies be devoid of a social component, reduced to the legislation’s mechanism of producing political power. The current institutions have played a role in embodying the exploitation that manages the urban development processes, in a way that urban planning has become a tool to establish the dominance of large investors over the people, and a hegemonic control over people's relationship with their natural, social and cultural environments.

The “Ministry of Planning” was established in 1954 with the aim of developing the national “Development Plan”. However, this ministry was closed down in 1977, and the “Council for Development and Reconstruction” was established in its place, with its primary mission to draw up the same plan, which didn’t take place until more than half a century later (in 2009). The Development Plan was then reduced to a single chapter related to physical planning and land use and was called the “The national physical master plan of the Lebanese territories.” In the meantime, other councils and separate institutions had emerged, also dealing with urban issues. On the other hand, in 2000 a law aiming to close down the Ministries of “Housing and Cooperatives” and “Municipal and Rural Affairs,” was ratified, thus ending any official talk about the right to housing and balanced development.