Greening dense inner-city neighborhoods : the case of Soleiman Boustany-Jalloul Street, Tariq el-Jdideh, Beirut (Lebanon).

Abstract

Urban greening is strongly emerging as a strategic approach to address the poor living quality of inner-city dense neighborhoods. Efforts are being exerted to revive urban ecologies for ensuring social, economic, and environmentally sustainable growth, while improving urban wellbeing. This thesis focuses on the urban greening of Tariq El-Jdideh, a dense residential Beiruti district suffering from a lack of open spaces, crowded streets and high incidence of traffic generators such as hospitals, universities and public institutional buildings. The thesis is an elaboration on a Planning and Design Workshop, which was conducted at the American University of Beirut (Fall 2016), entitled Mobility and Neighborhood Planning: Tariq al-Jdideh . The workshop focused on mobility and accessibility as an entry point to explore and understand the diverse problematics ranging from housing, to public open spaces. The premise of this thesis is that living conditions in Tariq El-Jdideh could be improved through the enhancement of walkability and the provision of green infrastructure strategies using contemporary approaches to urban design. The thesis is situated within the general framework provided by the urban greening comprehensive study “Projet de Plan des Deplacements Doux (soft mobility) supported by Région Île-de-France - Bureau for the Municipality of Beirut in 2011. In line with this study, my proposed intervention in Tariq al Jdideh aims to enhance walkability and to provide a healthy pedestrian environment on district and neighborhood levels. Through the concept of ‘green infrastructure’, I investigate the case of Soleiman Boustany–Jalloul transport artery bordering the Northern edge of the district. I provide recommendations for its improvement at three complementary levels: as transport infrastructure, as social infrastructure and mainly as green infrastructure