Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut's Periphery

Abstract

Drawing on Lefebvre's theorization of space in order to examine the compatibility of neoliberalism and the right to the city, this study investigates how the formation of informal settlements since the 1950s had provided lowincome dwellers in Beirut (Lebanon) a means to conceive of and engage in city making (neighbourhood production, management, and organization) at a time when state regulations and/or market constraints would have excluded them from the city. It also examines how the prevailing neoliberal ideology of the 1990s, as translated through Lebanon's sectarian-clientelist regime, is curtailing these possibilities. Evidence for the article was drawn from interviews with dwellers, developers and public officials, as well as from archival searches and aerial photographs.

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

“…Furthermore, these architects, anthropologists, and planners lobbied for public interventions that would upgrade what they described as self-help neighborhoods, guiding and supporting the production of self-help housing and learning from its strengths (Peattie, 1968;Turner, 1972). Four decades later, with changing economic and political circumstances, the commodification of urban land, and numerous other changes in the global political economy, some of the shortcomings of this approach have become increasingly visible (Fawaz, 2009b). In particular, the Marxist critique denouncing the way in which self-help advocates failed to question the larger framework of inequality, celebrating resilience sometimes in circumstances where low-income city dwellers were exposed to excessive hardship, proved particularly prescient of the dismal housing conditions with which many city dwellers struggle with today (Burgess, 1982(Burgess, , 1985.…”

Space and Identity in Resistance against Neoliberal Urban Planning in Turkey

“…However, their inhabitants have produced this space as part of an ongoing symbolic and physical struggle against different state agencies, during which their living space was repeatedly threatened by destruction. By building their houses and neighbourhood, these semi‐informal settlement dwellers produced spaces that have alternative forms to those dictated by the market and state codes (Fawaz, : 836).…”

“…Nevertheless, this tendency is not specific to Turkey. A great deal of research has emphasized the neoliberal character of the restructuring of cities in countries of the Middle East such as Lebanon and Egypt (Deboulet and Berry‐Chikhaoui, ; Fawaz, ). Fawaz (: 840), for example, points out that public authorities in the post civil‐war era proceeded to restructure Beirut by facilitating the establishment of gated communities and upmarket entertainment areas for the rich, and the proliferation of new forms of private policing and security systems all within a neoliberal urban governance.…”

“…A great deal of research has emphasized the neoliberal character of the restructuring of cities in countries of the Middle East such as Lebanon and Egypt (Deboulet and Berry‐Chikhaoui, ; Fawaz, ). Fawaz (: 840), for example, points out that public authorities in the post civil‐war era proceeded to restructure Beirut by facilitating the establishment of gated communities and upmarket entertainment areas for the rich, and the proliferation of new forms of private policing and security systems all within a neoliberal urban governance. It could therefore be argued that urban policies in cities of this region are shaped in accordance with a neoliberal order in which the role of public planning has shifted towards entrepreneurialism and has been mobilized to boost large cities such as Istanbul, Cairo and Beirut as competitive regional centres in order to attract global and regional finance and service industries…”

“…In this article, I define as neoliberal all policies seeking to entrench market forms of relations in everyday practices. Neoliberal policies lead to the predominance of competition as a way of managing urban and rural spaces, in contrast to principles of redistribution that were upheld in earlier eras, resulting in the transfer of many functions that were previously in the hands of the state to non‐state and quasi‐state bodies such as corporations and non‐governmental organizations to respond to the needs of the citadins (Bayat, ; Fawaz, )…”