FROM FRAGMENTED LANDSCAPE TO GREEN-BLUE NETWORK: SUSTAINABLE GREENING OF TYRE

Abstract

The rapid urban growth is reshaping the Lebanese coastal cities and their surrounding hinterlands, by, introducing major challenges for the preservation and conservation of open/green landscapes. Besides, "Political instability is partly responsible but also collapse of the welfare state, economic liberalization and partial integration into global systems” (Makhzoumi, 2015). As Lebanon faces an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, the privatization of state lands has been suggested as a silver bullet solution by the government. As a result, in Lebanon’s fourth largest coastal city - Tyre, state lands that constitute 63% of the city’s area are threatened. The repercussions of privatizing Tyre’s state lands leave severe concerns that the southern area of the city that hosts large areas of agricultural and natural landscapes will be disfigured. The current urban planning approaches failed to accommodate sustainable urban development and green urban strategies. Therefore, this thesis adopts the ecological landscape methodology to propose a strategic design and conceptual approach that first, protects the ecological and cultural character of these threatened lands and second, connects the fragmented landscapes of municipal Tyre taking into consideration the complementarity between city and its periphery.

The rapid urban growth is reshaping the Lebanese coastal cities and their surrounding hinterlands, by, introducing major challenges for the preservation and conservation of open/green landscapes. Besides, "Political instability is partly responsible but also collapse of the welfare state, economic liberalization and partial integration into global systems” (Makhzoumi, 2015). As Lebanon faces an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, the privatization of state lands has been suggested as a silver bullet solution by the government. As a result, in Lebanon’s fourth largest coastal city - Tyre, state lands that constitute 63% of the city’s area are threatened. The repercussions of privatizing Tyre’s state lands leave severe concerns that the southern area of the city that hosts large areas of agricultural and natural landscapes will be disfigured. The current urban planning approaches failed to accommodate sustainable urban development and green urban strategies. Therefore, this thesis adopts the ecological landscape methodology to propose a strategic design and conceptual approach that first, protects the ecological and cultural character of these threatened lands and second, connects the fragmented landscapes of municipal Tyre taking into consideration the complementarity between city and its periphery.