ABSTRACT

This chapter deals with the evolution of migration trends in Beirut over the last century. Its aim is to show how the urban structure and its topological identity can coexist with a dynamic and everchanging socio-cultural reality. In parallel, it gives evidence, through the emblematic example of the district of Naba’a, how urban social divisions work and interact with the physical fabric of the city, aiming to identify some useful devices to be used in regenerating the district of Naba’a or other similar urban areas. Naba’a is characterized by divisions and segregations and is in itself an enclave on the eastern side of Beirut that grew up in the last century as a place of absorption of different migratory flows. The municipality of Bourj Hammoud, of which Naba’a is a part, has a population of 90,000 people concentrated in only 2.4 square kilometres. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, 17,000 refugees have settled there cohabiting with families and communities belonging to different confessions: Armenians, Maronites, Sunnis and Shiites.