A segment of Beirut’s real-estate machine : housing production and exchange in Tariq el-Jdide (1996-2018).

Abstract

Over the past decade, several researchers have argued that Beirut’s housing market, well in line with the rest of cities around the globe, has been “financialized”. Describing changes at the policy and practice levels, these arguments show that banks and financial actors play an increasing role in the production of the built environment. Building on ongoing research in the Beirut Urban Lab that explores the “actually existing financialization of land”, this thesis investigates the intersection of public urban planning policies (housing finance and building law) and the built environment in the neighborhood of Tariq el-Jdideh. The thesis shows that the “actually existing financialization” in this market segment is subject to the effects of banking finance and building law, yet materializes differently within the segment’s class and sect distinctions. In Tariq el-Jdide, the building law amendment 646 issued in 2004 intensified gentrification and contributed to the financialization of the built environment by providing the incentive for professional and amateur developers to invest intensely in the market. Conversely, the thesis shows that banking finance (for both developers and residents) had relatively insignificant impacts on real-estate production in this market, which nuances the findings of earlier scholars who link processes of financialization to urbanization and production of the urban built environment (Marot 2018, Krijnen 2015). Finally, by looking at how sect and class determine the profiles of both developers and their clients, the thesis shows that one cannot understand the actual materialization of financialization without accounting for social (family, sectarian, political and religious) networks in housing production and exchange. It further shows that the reproduction of this neighborhood as a sectarian-political territory occurs through the organization of building development.