ABSTRACT
Ethno-national and religious hostilities, unlike more traditional wars, 2 are often protracted. Cities that have experienced extended conflict are usually badly damaged, physically and functionally, as well as existentially. Contradictory messages and situations abound: the desire for urban confidence and tolerance is demanded by the international community at the same time that the inhabitants of a badly conflicted city shrink back into their own neighbourhoods and quarters and become fatigued and disillusioned by long and fruitless searches for solutions. Samir Khalaf writes about fluctuating perceptions of Beirut and Lebanon, from the ‘Paris of the Middle East’ to ‘a congenitally flawed entity doomed to self-destruction’. 3 The expectations of peace negotiations may compromise or ignore the long term problems and viability of such fractured cities. That is to say, political concerns are usually addressed but urban needs are often overlooked, and they may become, as Jan Morris has wisely observed, ‘one of those places like Danzig or Tangier’ that have been argued, questioned, and written about ‘less as living cities than as political hypotheses’. 4 Whilst not to diminish the importance of the cessation of violence, non-violence alone does not make a good city.
