The City [Un]divided: Forms of Urban Organization in Naba’a District – Bourj Hammoud (Beirut)

The subject of this contribution, supported by maps, timelines and graphs, is the evolution of migration trends in Beirut during the last century. Its aim is to show how the urban structure and its topological identity can coexist with a dynamic and ever changing socio-cultural reality. This works also aims to show, through an emblematic example, the district of Nabaa, how urban divisions work and interact with the physical fabric of the city, in order to identify some useful devices to be used in regenerating the district of Nabaa itself or other similar urban areas. Nabaa is an enclave in the eastern side of Beirut that grew up in the last century as a place of absorption of different migratory flows. Its dominant characteristics are division and segregation. The municipality of Bourj Hammoud, of which Nabaa is a part, has a population of 90,000 people distributed in only 2.4 km2. 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. Nabaa can be therefore considered a paradigm of the [UN]divided city (a coexistence of “sharing and dividing”): a reality characterized by strong divisions, both physical and social but, at the same time, endowed with sharing factors, both actual and potential, that recall the values of the Arrival City, as codified by Doug Saunders.