Abstract :
[en] This editorial introduces a thematic issue of Urban Planning on recent developments in Beirut, Lebanon. It emphasises the multiple crises the city has been undergoing for some time, which include an enduring political and economic crisis, the impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic, and most recently the devastating impact of the blast that happened in the port of Beirut on 4th August 2020. The editorial outlines the specific challenges resulting from these crises and addresses the concept of resilience, which is taken up by the articles included in this issue.
Special issue title :
Urbanisation, Crisis, and Resilience: The Multiple Dimensions of Urban Transformation in Beirut, Lebanon
Commentary :
This thematic issue has evolved from activities under the umbrella of the Urban Commission of the International Geographical Union (UGI‐IGU), whose 2020 annual conference was supposed to have taken place in Beirut, Lebanon. The same applied to its follow‐up conference in 2021, which was devoted topicwise to the multiple challenges of resilience. Both meetings were eventually held as digital conferences, but already offered some close encounter of members of the Commission with a range of researchers from the Middle East—Lebanon and Beirut in particular—and
discussed related topics of urban development, policy, and research. Some of the articles included here were already presented works on those occasions, others emerged from an international call‐for‐abstracts. The thematic issue offers a chance to shed some new light on a range of specific Mediterranean and Arab urbanisms—not with respect to those places that already received some attention in recent years (such as Dubai or Doha), but to focus on a place that enjoys both variety and a rich history, while being subject to multiple political crises in recent times as well.
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