ABSTRACT
It is the private sector that clamours for reconstruction. This has been the case with every destructive incursion since the formation of the modern State of Lebanon in 1943. Banks, now as then, are credited with playing an instrumental role. They were prominent in the making of the Lebanese economic miracle of the years up to 1975, a period when Beirut’s Central District became the fi nancial capital of the Middle East. This fuelled the overspill of banks from their traditional home on Banking Street into neighbouring Hamra Street in the 1960s. A year into the Civil War in 1976, following the destruction of the downtown area, this process accelerated further with various businesses relocating to the immediate and distant suburbs, creating alternative centres. With the end of the Civil War in 1990 and the subsequent return to the traditional Central District, the banks, like
other groups of the private sector, returned to take part in various aspects of the reconstruction. This most recent billboard call for reconstruction was about the rebuilding of the infrastructure that had supported the re-emerging globalized centre; Beirut International Airport, the Port of Beirut, and the highways linking the city centre to various parts of the country and to the world (fi gure 4.2).
