Over the course of more than a century, Beirut has witnessed a radical transformation and tremendous urban and population growth intertwined with major historical events. Aerial maps show this expansion, but also they raise a basic question: Who is Beirut today, with its urban complexities and interactions?
While the urban built environment is extending continuously, there is no single authority responsible for the city of Beirut to this day. The 31 municipalities that make up -the conventional, not administrative- Beirut, operate within their specific administrative scope, and guidelines are issued for each one separately (see maps below). It covers the municipality of Beirut in addition to three municipal unions, covering the suburbs and a group of small municipalities, and there are no formal mechanisms for integration or response to this broader geographical component.
At the same time, the public discourse still revolves on the one hand around Beirut –, the capital, defined within its current administrative borders, and on the other hand around the suburbs surrounding it. In fact, over time, the nature of what were viewed as suburbs changed to become a city in their own right. The suburb has become one of the primary destinations for affordable housing for low- and middle-income people, and it is also a place of work and entertainment for the city.
This article coincides with the approaching municipal elections, to emphasize the urgent need to establish a unified concept for the Greater City of Beirut that goes beyond the current administrative divisions. By tracing the emergence of this term in plans and laws across different historical periods, we reveal that the establishment of “Greater Beirut” was not just a technical necessity, but was also a political battle that still needs to be fought today.
