Mona Fawaz

Living Beirut's Security Zones: An Investigation of the Modalities and Practice of Urban Security

Over the past decade, security has gained enormous attention in the urban literature, reflecting its visibly increasing presence in cities worldwide. It is now widely acknowledged that security is a structuring force for cities both historically and now. Few scholars have however looked at the implications of security on the daily practices of urban dwellers. Based on extensive fieldwork during which we developed a street by street survey of security mechanisms in Beirut (Lebanon), interviewed city dwellers, and worked with artists and local writers reflecting of “security issues”, this paper describes “security” as the accumulation of a set of constructed threats that bring together a multiplicity of forms and agents of securitization, both public and private, and generate new forms of social hierarchies with unequal repercussions on city dwellers. Far from the coherent symbol of an independent sovereign, we argue that security acts in Beirut as a reflection of and a catalyst for social and political divisions.

Hezbollah as urban planner? Questions to and from planning theory

Charara W., 1996, DAWLAT HEZBOLLAH; CLERC V, 1996, THESIS U PARIS 8 PAR; Davis DE, 2003, IRREGULAR ARMED FORC; DEBOULET A, 2006, WORLD C SOC DURB S A; FAWAZ M, 2007, ISIM REV FAL, P22; FAWAZ M, 2005, NGOS GOVERNANCE ARAB, P229; FAWAZ M, 2007, RECONSTRUCTION H HRE; Friedman J., 1987, PLANNING PUBLIC DOMA; GHANDOUR M, 2008, MIDDL E CTR C NEG SP; Hall P., 1988, CITIES TOMORROW; HARB M, HEZBOLLAH B IN PRESS; Harb M, 2005, THIRD WORLD Q, V26, P173, DOI 10.1080-0143659042000322973; HILAL N, 2008, THESIS AM U BEIRUT; QASIM N, 2002, HEZBOLLAH AL MANHAJ; QUILTY J, 2007, MERIP, V37, P31; Sandercock L., 1998, COSMOPOLIS; YIFTACHEL O, 2001, POWER PLANNING; Yiftachel O, 2000, INT J URBAN REGIONAL, V24, P418, DOI 10.1111-1468-2427.00255

Exceptions and the actually existing practice of planning: Beirut (Lebanon) as case study:

Taking the provision of building permits as an entry point to its analysis, the paper documents the widespread practice of issuing ‘exceptions’ on which planning agencies in Beirut (Lebanon) frequently rely in their management of urban developments. The paper analyses ‘exceptions’ as a variable set of policy departures that take numerous forms (e.g. tolerance, concession, incentive), temporalities (before/after building), justifications (e.g. for political/social or developmental reasons), and materialise in different legal statuses (e.g. within the framework of the law/as temporary, extra-legal measures). It furthermore unravels a grammar that structures the allocation of specific forms of exceptions to particular social groups and urban spaces. The paper argues that although they are typically described as aberrations, exceptions cannot amount to the lack of the planning. Exceptions are rather a planning strategy that introduces a margin of manoeuver for planning authorities, without conceding radical changes in the structure organising access to the city. Furthermore, like other planning interventions, exceptions to building permit procedures perform to define, and consolidate, and/or reconfigure the entitlement of various social groups to dwell in the city but also to take part in its government, materialising hence in the reorganisation of urban territories and sovereignty arrangements. Ultimately, an invisible zoning dictated by these exceptions restructures the city in the variegated geography of centre, periphery, slum, camp, political territory, and others, and classifies urban dwellers into tolerated populations, political constituencies, outsiders, etc. The paper is based on the analysis of over 200 building permits in five areas of the city and more than 1000 decisions taken by public planning agencies.

Planning and the refugee crisis: Informality as a framework of analysis and reflection:

In December 2013, a few months after the dramatic influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon had transformed the housing landscape of the country, I found myself sitting across the table from a European planner leading the housing sector in one of the largest relief agencies operating in Lebanon since the outbreak of the war in Syria a year earlier. Eric and his “shelter” team composed of both Lebanese and foreigners who all had previous experiences in housing refugees in other national contexts could hardly conceal their frustration with the Lebanese government’s position to block what they described as the efforts of the international community to respond to the shelter crisis for what was then nearing 1 million Syrian refugees.1 The only solution to provide the required number of shelters rapidly, they argued, was to establish “camps.” In his years of experience as a shelter sector manager, it was the first time Eric faced such a challenge, particularly as national governments typically prefer to round refugees in camps, a preference shared by international organizations concerned about targeting relief (Kibreab, 2007). Furthermore, Eric looked positively at the option of building camps to house refugees because of his own successful experiences in “site development”. Indeed, prior to coming to Lebanon, Eric had worked in Africa where he used government land to house refugees after installing rudimentary infrastructure, latrines and tents. It responded to the main concern he had: How will it be possible to secure shelters rapidly to the estimated million refugees who had flooded a country notorious for its lack of affordable shelter? As a Lebanese planner with experience in the housing sector, I had been called to advise on the best strategy to supply housing to the very large number of refugees who had arrived into the country. To most of the planners, architects, and engineers specialized in the shelter sector, the problem was very clearly framed: Lebanon, a country

The Politics of Property in Planning: Hezbollah's Reconstruction of Haret Hreik (Beirut, Lebanon) as Case Study

Abi-Samra M., 2004, WAR TESTIMONIE UNPUB; Blackmar E., 2006, POLITICS PUBLIC SPAC; Blomley N., 2004, UNSETTLING CITY; Blomley N, 2004, ANTIPODE, V36, P614, DOI 10.1111-j.1467-8330.2004.00440.x; Bollens S. A., 2012, CITY SOUL DIVIDED SO; Bromley D., 1991, ENV EC PROPERTY RIGH; Davis Mike, 2007, EVIL PARADISES DREAM; De Soto Hernando, 2003, MYSTERY CAPITAL WHY; Deboulet A., 2011, CITIES SOVEREIGNTY N; Fawaz M, 2009, PLAN THEOR, V8, P323, DOI 10.1177-1473095209341327; Fawaz M., TAKING LEFE IN PRESS; Fawaz M., 2004, NGOS GOVERNANCE ARAB; Fawaz M., 2007, RECONSTRUCTION HARET; Foucault M., 1991, FOUCAULT EFFECT; Harb M., 2000, ARAB WORLD GEOGRAPHE, V3.4, P272; Harb M., 2010, LESSONS POSTWAR RECO; Harb M., 2010, HEZBOLLAH BEYROUTH B; Hilal N., 2008, THESIS AM U BEIRUT B; Lefebvre Henri, 2003, URBAN REVOLUTION; Lefebvre Henri, 2000, PRODUCTION ESPACE; Lorde A., 1984, SISTER OUTSIDER ESSA; Low S., 2006, POLITICS PUBLIC SPAC; McCann EJ, 2003, J URBAN AFF, V25, P159, DOI 10.1111-1467-9906.t01-1-00004; Mervin S., 2008, HEZBOLLAH ETAT LIEUX; Mitchell Don, 1996, LIE LAND MIGRANT WOR; Qassem N., 2002, HEZBOLLAH AL MANHAJ; Rogerson R, 2000, PROG PLANN, V54, P133, DOI 10.1016-S0305-9006(00)00011-8; Roy A, 2009, ANTIPODE, V41, P159, DOI 10.1111-j.1467-8330.2008.00660.x; Saliba R., 2000, EXPLORING BUILT ENV; Scott James C, 1998, SEEING STATE; Simone AbdouMaliq, 2010, CITY LIFE JAKARTA DA; Singer J., 1997, PROPERTY LAW RULES P; Singer JW., 2000, ENTITLEMENT PARADOXE; SINGER JW, 1988, STANFORD LAW REV, V40, P611, DOI 10.2307-1228814; Smith N., 2002, ANTIPODE, V34.3, P452; Smith N., 2006, POLITICS PUBLIC SPAC

The politics of property in planning: Hezbollah's reconstruction of Haret Hreik (Beirut, Lebanon) as case study

Abi-Samra M., 2004, WAR TESTIMONIE UNPUB; Blackmar E., 2006, POLITICS PUBLIC SPAC; Blomley N., 2004, UNSETTLING CITY; Blomley N, 2004, ANTIPODE, V36, P614, DOI 10.1111-j.1467-8330.2004.00440.x; Bollens S. A., 2012, CITY SOUL DIVIDED SO; Bromley D., 1991, ENV EC PROPERTY RIGH; Davis Mike, 2007, EVIL PARADISES DREAM; De Soto Hernando, 2003, MYSTERY CAPITAL WHY; Deboulet A., 2011, CITIES SOVEREIGNTY N; Fawaz M, 2009, PLAN THEOR, V8, P323, DOI 10.1177-1473095209341327; Fawaz M., TAKING LEFE IN PRESS; Fawaz M., 2004, NGOS GOVERNANCE ARAB; Fawaz M., 2007, RECONSTRUCTION HARET; Foucault M., 1991, FOUCAULT EFFECT; Harb M., 2000, ARAB WORLD GEOGRAPHE, V3.4, P272; Harb M., 2010, LESSONS POSTWAR RECO; Harb M., 2010, HEZBOLLAH BEYROUTH B; Hilal N., 2008, THESIS AM U BEIRUT B; Lefebvre Henri, 2003, URBAN REVOLUTION; Lefebvre Henri, 2000, PRODUCTION ESPACE; Lorde A., 1984, SISTER OUTSIDER ESSA; Low S., 2006, POLITICS PUBLIC SPAC; McCann EJ, 2003, J URBAN AFF, V25, P159, DOI 10.1111-1467-9906.t01-1-00004; Mervin S., 2008, HEZBOLLAH ETAT LIEUX; Mitchell Don, 1996, LIE LAND MIGRANT WOR; Qassem N., 2002, HEZBOLLAH AL MANHAJ; Rogerson R, 2000, PROG PLANN, V54, P133, DOI 10.1016-S0305-9006(00)00011-8; Roy A, 2009, ANTIPODE, V41, P159, DOI 10.1111-j.1467-8330.2008.00660.x; Saliba R., 2000, EXPLORING BUILT ENV; Scott James C, 1998, SEEING STATE; Simone AbdouMaliq, 2010, CITY LIFE JAKARTA DA; Singer J., 1997, PROPERTY LAW RULES P; Singer JW., 2000, ENTITLEMENT PARADOXE; SINGER JW, 1988, STANFORD LAW REV, V40, P611, DOI 10.2307-1228814; Smith N., 2002, ANTIPODE, V34.3, P452; Smith N., 2006, POLITICS PUBLIC SPAC

Contracts and Retaliation: Securing Housing Exchanges in the Interstice of the Formal/Informal Beirut (Lebanon) Housing Market

The current housing policy paradigm supports the integration of informal settlements’ housing markets with the larger housing markets. Given, however, that housing production and exchange happen in a continuum of formal and informal processes, this article seeks to look at the effects of this integration on the conditions of housing acquisition for low-income urban dwellers. Based on a case study in Hayy el-Sellom (Beirut), the article traces the changing practices that ensued from the integration of this informal settlement’s housing market in the affordable housing market of the city’s suburbs by looking at how exchanges were secured and redress sought in cases of default. Research findings indicate that the introduction of practices borrowed from the larger housing market did not improve market securities. This suggests that rather than focusing on the formal—informal divide, planners should devise context-specific methods to address locally identified market weaknesses.

Towards the right to the city in informal settlements

Introduction: Locating Right to the City in the Global South Tony Roshan Samara, Shenjing He and Guo Chen Part I: A City Divided Against Itself 1. Towards the Right to the City in Informal Settlements Mona Fawaz 2. Cities Without Slums in Morocco? New Modalities of Urban Government and the Bidonville as a Neoliberal Assemblage Koenraad Bogaert 3. The Divisive Nature of Neoliberal Urban Renewal in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Wouter Bervoets and Maarten Loopmans 4. Greening Dispossession: Environmental Governance and Socio-spatial Transformation in Yixing, China Jia Ching Chen Part II: Governance and Cosmopolitanism: Escaping the South 5. Urban Governance, Mega-Projects, and Scalar Transformations in China and India Xuefei Ren and Liza Weinstein 6. Bourgeois Environmentalism, Leftist Development, and Neoliberal Urbanism in the City of Joy Pablo S. Bose 7. Public Space Versus Tableau: The Right To The City Paradox In Neoliberal Bogota, Colombia Rachel Berney 8. Resisting the Neoliberalization of Space in Mexico City David Walker 9. City Ghosts: The Haunted Struggles for Downtown Durban and Berlin Neukolln Christine Hentschel Part III: Governance and Counter-governance: The Shape of Urban Conflict and the Urban Future 10. Insurgency and Institutionalized Social Participation in Local-level Urban Planning: The Case of PAC Comuna, Santiago de Chile, 2003-2005 Ernesto Lopez-Morales 11. Distinguishing the Right Kind of City: Contentious Urban Middle Classes in Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey Ryan Centner 12. Bloggerss Right to Cairos Real and Virtual Spaces of Protest Wael Salah Fahmi Afterword: Re-engaging with Transnational Urbanism Martin J. Murray

Planning and the making of a propertied landscape

Abstract Although property is a basic ingredient of planning, its repercussions on the profession have rarely been considered. Building on the critical analysis of property, I argue that planning is giving in to the “property effect,” the unquestioned assumption that natural and built landscapes are propertied. Looking specifically at one case-study of land-use planning in Tibneen (Lebanon), I show planning interventions replicate inequalities embedded in property relations, maintain the dominance of propertied representation of the landscape, and limit possible claims over natural and built landscapes to those formulated within the framework of the ownership model. Consequently, land-use planning determines the possible futures of particular towns and regions through the institutional structures of the property regimes in place and within the historically and geographically contingent political-economies where these regimes operate.

Of property and planning: a brief introduction

Of property and planning: a brief introduction This collection of essays is a small selection of the work presented at a conference entitled Of Property in Planning that was held at the American University of Beirut in the spring of 2014. The conference aimed to investigate how a critical outlook on property borrowed from recent debates in urban geography, anthropology, and legal studies could inform our understanding of the imaginative possibilities and limits of urban planning and design interventions while also offering guidance to future planning practices. We began with the premise that planning and design interventions are deeply entangled in and productive of property, and more specifically, of an ownership model of property, where the environment is considered to be divided in clearly delimited ownable parcels, with individuals holding the right to exclude and transmit (Singer, 2000). While the realization of a deep entanglement between property and planning has floated in the discipline for many years, planning theorists have rarely questioned the implications of their assumptions about the nature of land for the practice of planning. Yet a critical examination of this assumption is necessary for an urban planning practice that corresponds better to the principles of social justice, development, and ecological responsibilities that form the main claims of the discipline (Campbell, 1996). In this short introduction we present briefly the general framework of the conference against which the essays in this special issue should be read. Given the limited space, we only highlight the main titles through which debates in anthropology, geography, legal studies, and political theory inform a discussion of property in planning before we locate the essays in this collection in relation to the forms of planning they discuss, namely land-use planning and property titling in informal settlements.1 We conclude by highlighting some of the alternatives to the ownership model that emerge from this work.