urban sprawl

Research-Based Article

The Construction Sector in Lebanon: How Neoliberal Urbanization Destroys the Environment

Lebanon faces a multitude of environmental threats, primarily driven by a neoliberal approach to urbanization. This approach prioritizes short-term private economic gains in the construction industry and associated businesses, including a dominant cement …

Dossier

How Urbanization is an issue of climate Justice

The fight against climate change often centers on shifting to renewable energy sources and reducing carbon pollution—two needed actions which cannot be worthwhile unless we reconsider the whole way in which we are …

Investigation

About Ein el-Hilweh Camp

Yesterday in Ein el-Hilweh camp, and today in Gaza, Palestinians lose their land and neighborhoods for different reasons, with occupation and displacement serving as the common thread that binds their struggles. This article …

Report

The Council of Exceptions: A report on the decisions of the “Higher Council for Urban Planning” (2019-2021)

The General Directorate for Urban Planning and its higher Council are Lebanon’s official and primary bodies for urban planning. They support urban development and favor the interests of real estate developers and the …

Policy Watch

On the Agenda of the Higher Council of Urban Planning

Subdividing Forestry Land in Ihmij for the Benefit of Investors.

Read details in Arabic here.

Research-Based Article

Residents Facing Land Consolidation and Parcellation Projects:

The Example of El-Tanak Neighborhood in Mina

In this article, our focus revolves around the Land Consolidation and Parcellation projects in the cities of Tripoli and Mina in North Lebanon. We examine their influence on the economic and urban identity …

Law Commentary

Local Members of Parliament Are Proposing a Parcellation Draft Law Which Sacrifices Agricultural Lands in Hermel and Younine

Proposing an accelerated law on the consolidation and parcellation of El Hermel and Younine cadastral zones in the Baalbek-El Hermel governorate.

The committee found that the proposed law requires further study and inspection, and thus decided to postpone its decision about it and to request the concerned administrative entities to provide some observations that are related to application of the proposal, in case of its approval.

Law Commentary

The Future and Resistance blocs facilitate construction in rural regions without addressing housing needs

Proposing the law of exemption of some building permits from fees according to prototypical designs.

It was referred to the Administration and Justice, Finance and Budget, and Public Works Committees on 10/6/2020.

Research-Based Article

Baalbek: A Long History of Exclusion, for the City and its People

In this text, we present an overview of the city of Baalbek and its neighborhoods, and the exclusion that resulted from specific planning tools. We read into the numerous masterplans, in their dwarfing …

Activity

Discussion Session in Tripoli’s Public Square:

Commodifying Housing in the Service of the Rentier Economy

After decades of handing over the fate of city dwellers and their right to housing to the real estate market and the housing loan policies, housing has been reduced to a commodity, lacking …

Activity

Defending Social Spaces for an Equitable City

Dialogue Series: The Social Value of Land

Speakers in this session discuss the reclamation and preservation of social spaces threatened by real-estate speculation. They examine urban planning laws and the experiences of Bayt Beirut, Fouad Boutros, Beirut Theatre, Dalieh, and …

Activity

Discussion in Kaferman’s Public Square

Regions Marginalization Under the Rentier Economy

The national vision for economic development in Lebanon has historically been closely tied to the construction and real estate sector. How has this led to the destruction of livelihoods and the impoverishment and …