32 YEARBOOK 2022 that attract a very niche and small percentage of the Beirut community. Tourists and investors tend to be more impressed by an authentic city that retains its culture and identity. Careful planning of public-private partnerships Private models of redevelopment exacerbate inequality unless controlled. Public-private partnerships may work on a smaller scale, but it is clear they cannot deliver on the wider set of benefits needed in a post-conflict city. Social harmony, equality, representation and memorialisation need to be considered alongside business interests and politics. Reconstruction will not mend deep political divisions but it can be used to rebuild common public spaces that promote reconciliation. The price Beirut has paid for selling its city centre to the highest bidder is immense. Those who promote this form of development will always blame external players for their problems, but the reality is that this is a very poor way of rebuilding cities, in that it meets the needs of only a very narrow group of the population and only by taking enormous financial risk. Awareness raising on the pace of reconstruction Redevelopment must be realistic and implemented at the right pace. A war-ravaged city will not recover overnight, and rebuilding some of its core will not immediately mend a damaged community. The initial focus of rebuilding must be on more modest aims – recovery of families and communities, the return of small businesses and the development of a sustainable economic base, at a pace that is realistic and achievable. Berlin and Beirut started rebuilding their city centres at around the same time and while both have very different contexts and issues, both are incomplete and evolving processes. Both put commercial interests too much to the front, often creating lifeless urban areas designed by famous architects that are overshadowed by their more interesting and creative neighbourhoods Full local community engagement Ownership models should not be seriously disrupted and local inhabitants’ rights should be guaranteed. There was a major complicating factor of property rights in the CBD. While property owners and their descendants have rights to their own property, so do, under Lebanese law, leaseholders, tenants and their descendants. Consequently, there were approximately 250,000 individual claims to property within the BCD alone, along with some 15,000 squatters. This had potentially serious consequences for any attempts at comprehensive rebuilding, and so it was suggested that a single real estate company be set up to expropriate the property and oversee the redevelopment of central Beirut. Those with bona fide claims to such property would not be paid for their property but would be given controlling shares in this real estate company. Ending the effective ownership of thousands of people and then handing them shares in a company over which they had little control was not a satisfactory arrangement. By insisting on very expensive reconstructions and a rapid timetable for rebuilding, Solidère put additional pressure on owners to accept shares rather than reclaim their property. Integrated approaches for local benefit Control of development must be transparent and allow the community to debate and make amendments to plans. Urban planners tend to admire systems that sweep away planning law and put schemes in the hands of allpowerful agencies or public-private partnerships. However, although they are often able to turn infrastructure problems around rapidly, they tend to concentrate power, eschew any accountability and ignore public opinion. Such powerful organisations often deliver projects isolated from their target communities. Working with donors Funding for reconstruction is a challenge and most of the money and work requires investment from local entities and owners themselves, not foreign investors. Regulations must be tailored to support the interests of city residents above any narrow group of investors. International support should allow for the establishment of effective credit mechanisms to support reconstruction and new local businesses. This should not be left entirely to the private sector, as experience in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that banks could be involved in money laundering and lending to the politically connected. Security planning Despite the long history of violence in Beirut, security features seem to have been ignored in the planning of BCD. Rather than building in relatively inconspicuous security devices, they were added later, cutting off large areas around government buildings and preventing life from returning to the centre. Some new buildings, for example the United Nations regional office of ESCWA, are relatively insecure despite blast proofing and other efforts. If government offices or embassies are to be located in sensitive areas then security needs to be considered from the start. Archaeological remains in Central Beirut have been selectively kept following the excavations and reconstruction work in 1990s. Old buildings are still visible in areas outside Beirut Central District.
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