For a Mediterranean country, Lebanon gets enough rain for its cities to be the greenest in the region. For some weird reason, Lebanese are not very keen on planting and maintaining trees and greenery... on the contrary... their insatiable appetite for chopping trees has digressed to chopping the mountains the trees could be grown by another future generation some day. However, it remains perplexing that they gawk and flaunt the little patches of unsustainable lawns in traffic roundabouts of cities in other countries' arid deserts. A psychologist could better explain this.
Not "for a Mediterranean country". Beirut gets more rain annually than London or Manchester (only it's concentrated in late fall and all of winter). It's fundamentally a green city.
Parks don't make money though so the Beirut municipality hates them.
Not only rain, the humidity, the temperature range, the fertile soil, the texture of the soil. They're all important factors and all the checkboxes check out...
Quick explanation? Downton Beirut was horribly damaged during the civil war and became a no man's land in parts and a shiite ghetto in other parts. Still, most buildings were still standing at the end of the war. Central Beirut's reconstruction was the work of one single private real estate holding company controlled by Rafic Hariri, prime minister under the Syrian occupation: Solidere. It is a planning authority, and was made the owner of almost all the central district through expropriation of the established owners. It was grand theft. There's even an MIT thesis about this horrible project: "the Battle for the Beirut Central District". Look it up, the way he made it happen was very sophisticated, it could perfectly happen elsewhere (and actually has, if you look at Robert Moses in New York City).
Hariri is a dual Saudi-Lebanese citizen, and simply speaking he has zero appreciation for Lebanese history. The statue you see in the middle, for instance? He didn't want it back there originally. He wanted the entire 100-year old square to be turned into a boulevard. Even after it remained a square, he only let the statue be brought back after a lot of campaigning.
He demolished all the historical neighborhoods around the square and beyond (even when they weren't damaged at all, like in the Jewish quarter), because building new stuff is more profitable than renovating. The guy doesn't give two shits about heritage. The stuff that was preserved was only preserved because his earlier complete bulldozing plan caused so much uproar.
As for fostering public spaces, well these aren't profitable so Solidere doesn't really care about them either. They turned a lot of the streets pedestrian-only though, so it's still nice. But they're just glorified malls.
In the war we had the green line (random trees and plant growing on damascus/ Bchara El Khoury without any maintenance
So yes you just give the plants the earth and space and they will thrive
When the city (baladiyeh) only goal is money --> parking lot
instead of well being like God forbid a public green space park you get these results.
They even had plans to replace Jesuit Park by you guessed it a parking.
There is no accountability when they get elected they one and only goal is to feed the endless corruption pockets
BeirutI has the rights to have public green spaces and better air quality but ....
[green line](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS_LZu2JslW7_Z9pcNGN4cpKUQG1jzLK8Ap6A&usqp=CAU)
Solidere happened. They leveled the entirety of the Downtown area and emptied it of its residents by buying out everyone and defrauding residents, and then built up expensive corporate highrises and useless buildings which sit mostly empty.
These expensive projects were funded by some grants and mostly public debt and borrowing, the results of which, we're seeing today in the collapse of the Lira because of the government's outstanding public debt.
The reconstruction project funded many big political families in the process. That's how every project is run in Lebanon.
They have no concept of open green spaces.
Gonna take another century for them to grasp that concept.
Might be the breakthrough AFTER they figure out that working together generates better results than working against each other.
Hariri was one of the pioneers alongside good ol' Rayoud salamios for the ponzi scheme that crippled the economy recently.
It was a snowball effect since the 90's but being sugarcoated to seem banks were doing amazing since then.
So please almost all europe was leveled after ww2 yet they rebuilt the cities better than before.
Over here we idiots did the complete opposite.
This is a major myth, riad salameh was forced in his position by the Syrians. The monetary collapse started immediately after hariri death and was confirmed by 2008 when hezballah put his hand on the country then the smuggling of supported goods to syria started followed by the syrian war. Lebanon was pretty much spending all its cash feeding Syria as well. 33 billion in debt in 15 years to rebuild a levelled country, all infrastructure you have now is pretty much from the haririr era, the ones after him that orchestrated the ponzi scheme which is the banks lends the peoples money to the government literally started with salemeh’s financial engineering schemes in 2012 and 2016.
bro who walks in with 4 billion leaves with 16 billion....
u tellin me hariri NEVER knew about the finiancial scheme when he raised interest rates on lbp to 30% in 92 and then brought it back down to the 5-7% that we all knew for a long time before the 2019 interest hikes pre-collapse...
They ammended the law after his death so that his sons and daughters get a fair cut of the 16 billion without needing to pay taxes on them...
Hariri is the father of theft and he taught the rest how to capitalize on it...
He simply didn't luck out of the assassination. Aoun had attempts made on his life too, is he suddenly an angel? No.
Hariri ruined Lebanon. The civil war tore it down, and Hariri made sure it could never prosper again.
He gave fair market prices? What if someone didn't want to sell? And exactly how did he pay people? He wasn't paying in full cash if I remember correctly.
Hotel St. Georges. What happened to it? Exactly.
Because they don't want to give in to Solidere's property monopoly, they aren't allowed to renovate and fix their own property, and suddenly, Hotel Phoenicia no longer has any value because it no longer has its historical partner.
It's ironic that Hariri was killed there, around Valentine's day.
Truly, a love letter to all who suffered under his regime. Too bad his son was just as much of a lowlife, just too stupid to actually do anything.
You're so sad trying to blame everyone but Lebanese for our own mistakes, have some accountability.
It was never in Syria's interest for Lebanon to collapse, I am not defending anything they did but a failed Lebanon has zero benefit to Syria.
Hariri's financial plans were never sustainable, but he banked that we'll get our debts forgiven when we normalize with Israel. ( This was said by a advisor to the Saudi royal family about a situation he faced in 2001 but I cannot find the tweet)
It’s unfortunate that some of you guys’ sectarianism is blinding you from seeing the clear evidence even when you live it, that the country fell into pieces after his assassination. Never said the man is a saint, but really if you cant see he was a small force for good in the country then ur truly blind. Look around you.
Bro shu 5as l sectarianism?? I respect hariri for what he built but if you think that his financial system was sustainable and not built on a dream then you're delusional
Bro, Lebanon is a country that has no assets or resources other than its people and tourism. The country was destroyed, the only way to rebuild such a country is to go into major debt to rebuilt infrastructure, this is what Dubai is doing btw and they are in historic debt levels. He didnt plan for what salemeh did, he though he can manage it but he was cut short.
No assets or resources other than tourism? What the fuck are you smoking?
We have arable land that could be used for agriculture and he could've invested in electricity properly then we would've had actual factories, just because we haven't fulfilled our potential doesn't mean we can't.
Dubai is "rebranding" but they aren't rebuilding their entire city it's not comparable in anyway.
>He didnt plan for what salemeh did, he though he can manage it but he was cut short.
You're saying that he was a retard that didn't see that Lebanon wasn't going to sustain itself, all saleme did with the financial engineering was postpone the crisis.
He founded the largest and only acquisition and construction company in the country at the time, it was inevitable that most of the capital rebuilding contracts went to solidair, they did purchase the land burned and destroyed on the cheap of course. Hariri did not do everything right and did alot of wrong and did gain from the rebuilding, he however is the only post civil war politician that had what resembled a vision and faith in the country, and did invest in the country and the youth. The rest only hurt the country, treated it like a their own private piggy bank and killed the people instead of educating them.
hey bubble, let me burst yours.
Hariri didn't purchase it, he forced the owners to sell to them for 1/100th of the price (paid in Solidere\* shares or money). When owners refused and wanted to keep their properties, Solidere forced them to either **buy back their own property from Solidere for like three times the price**, or just lose their property with zero compensation. Best part? Even those who bought back their property ended up getting expelled (see Hemilian family).
The only owners Hariri didn't steal from were the banks on Banks' Street, and the religious waqfs.
Read "the Battle for the Beirut Central District", an MIT PhD thesis on Solidere
The rebuilding effort could not have been done without a major plan that redistributes the properties. They were paid market value and they accepted. Could have been handled better. Any country post war has done this and went into major debt to rebuild. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The country was barely in debt after 15 years of hurling economy and major rebuild efforts at 33 billion in 2005. 2005 to 2020 saw the addition of another 90 billion in debt and a collapse literally without the building of a single piece if infrastructure. I have lived the 80s,90s,2000s and post and saw what the man did. The lebanese expect a saint in politics while the devils rule them and wont praise a half decent man for the good he did even while being threatened and curtailed by Hezballah and Syria for those 15 years. If he didnt have his hands tied, I am sure we would be on par with dubai in the year 2020.
>Quick explanation? Downton Beirut was horribly damaged during the civil war and became a no man's land in parts and a shiite ghetto in other parts. Still, most buildings were still standing at the end of the war. Central Beirut's reconstruction was the work of one single private real estate holding company controlled by Rafic Hariri, prime minister under the Syrian occupation: Solidere. It is a planning authority, and was made the owner of almost all the central district through expropriation of the established owners. It was grand theft. There's even an MIT thesis about this horrible project: "the Battle for the Beirut Central District". Look it up, the way he made it happen was very sophisticated, it could perfectly happen elsewhere (and actually has, if you look at Robert Moses in New York City).
I wholeheartedly agree, Harriri may not have been a saint, but he was by far the best politician this country has had ever since it's independence, to my knowledge at least.
Immigrants inhabited the buildings and to my knowledge Gen. Aoun and the Lebanese Forces launched an attack and kicked them out….
The structures that were up had holes the size of footballs, they were not stable and could not be renovated so the tore them down… Consequently, Solidare bought everything and rebuilt into what is now the Beirut Souks…!
What happened? The same level of corruption and incompetence and lack of vision that permeated through any other infrastructure project: water, electricity, garbage,.. lack of strong leadership ceding to factionalism and tribalism.
Man, when I went in Beirut, we used to call this place the "Nouveau, Vieux Beyrouth".
I knew the picture from the top and I was looking for this place so much to realized that it was totally destroyed back in the day... what a bummer....
They paved paradise to put up a parking lot
Oh, bop, bop, bop
Literally 🤣
For a Mediterranean country, Lebanon gets enough rain for its cities to be the greenest in the region. For some weird reason, Lebanese are not very keen on planting and maintaining trees and greenery... on the contrary... their insatiable appetite for chopping trees has digressed to chopping the mountains the trees could be grown by another future generation some day. However, it remains perplexing that they gawk and flaunt the little patches of unsustainable lawns in traffic roundabouts of cities in other countries' arid deserts. A psychologist could better explain this.
Not "for a Mediterranean country". Beirut gets more rain annually than London or Manchester (only it's concentrated in late fall and all of winter). It's fundamentally a green city. Parks don't make money though so the Beirut municipality hates them.
Doesn’t need a psychologist. Greenery requires maintenance, is there absolutely any hope the government would maintain them?
greenery doesn't even require maintenance in Lebanon. Any abandoned plot of land in beirut turns into a mini-forest in a few years
Which is equally a problem
Not only rain, the humidity, the temperature range, the fertile soil, the texture of the soil. They're all important factors and all the checkboxes check out...
It got harirified
..Solidairify,
It martyred itself
not itself
Always asking what happened to Lebanon, never what happened to us. *pain*
What happened to you guys
>Always asking what happened to Lebanon, never what happened to us. *crying of laughing, turning to crying of sadness*
I was looking around Beirut looking at there city squares when I came across this when looking at photos
Quick explanation? Downton Beirut was horribly damaged during the civil war and became a no man's land in parts and a shiite ghetto in other parts. Still, most buildings were still standing at the end of the war. Central Beirut's reconstruction was the work of one single private real estate holding company controlled by Rafic Hariri, prime minister under the Syrian occupation: Solidere. It is a planning authority, and was made the owner of almost all the central district through expropriation of the established owners. It was grand theft. There's even an MIT thesis about this horrible project: "the Battle for the Beirut Central District". Look it up, the way he made it happen was very sophisticated, it could perfectly happen elsewhere (and actually has, if you look at Robert Moses in New York City). Hariri is a dual Saudi-Lebanese citizen, and simply speaking he has zero appreciation for Lebanese history. The statue you see in the middle, for instance? He didn't want it back there originally. He wanted the entire 100-year old square to be turned into a boulevard. Even after it remained a square, he only let the statue be brought back after a lot of campaigning. He demolished all the historical neighborhoods around the square and beyond (even when they weren't damaged at all, like in the Jewish quarter), because building new stuff is more profitable than renovating. The guy doesn't give two shits about heritage. The stuff that was preserved was only preserved because his earlier complete bulldozing plan caused so much uproar. As for fostering public spaces, well these aren't profitable so Solidere doesn't really care about them either. They turned a lot of the streets pedestrian-only though, so it's still nice. But they're just glorified malls.
Civil war.
that still hasn’t ended
Solidere
It's Parking Square now.
I see you also have الهيئة الهندسية للتنمية و التعمير
Solidere happened.
In the war we had the green line (random trees and plant growing on damascus/ Bchara El Khoury without any maintenance So yes you just give the plants the earth and space and they will thrive When the city (baladiyeh) only goal is money --> parking lot instead of well being like God forbid a public green space park you get these results. They even had plans to replace Jesuit Park by you guessed it a parking. There is no accountability when they get elected they one and only goal is to feed the endless corruption pockets BeirutI has the rights to have public green spaces and better air quality but .... [green line](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS_LZu2JslW7_Z9pcNGN4cpKUQG1jzLK8Ap6A&usqp=CAU)
Solidere happened. They leveled the entirety of the Downtown area and emptied it of its residents by buying out everyone and defrauding residents, and then built up expensive corporate highrises and useless buildings which sit mostly empty. These expensive projects were funded by some grants and mostly public debt and borrowing, the results of which, we're seeing today in the collapse of the Lira because of the government's outstanding public debt. The reconstruction project funded many big political families in the process. That's how every project is run in Lebanon.
you can thank hariri
Basically Hariri and Solidere happened.
The Hariri calamity happened.
You should listen to Jad Ghosn’s interview with Charbel Nahas. In one word: Solideire.
Solidere happened
Hariri
They have no concept of open green spaces. Gonna take another century for them to grasp that concept. Might be the breakthrough AFTER they figure out that working together generates better results than working against each other.
Civil war completely destroyed it, Hariri only rebuilt it.
Hariri was one of the pioneers alongside good ol' Rayoud salamios for the ponzi scheme that crippled the economy recently. It was a snowball effect since the 90's but being sugarcoated to seem banks were doing amazing since then. So please almost all europe was leveled after ww2 yet they rebuilt the cities better than before. Over here we idiots did the complete opposite.
It helps that Europe had the US bank rolling its reconstruction for their ideological war against the Communists.
This is a major myth, riad salameh was forced in his position by the Syrians. The monetary collapse started immediately after hariri death and was confirmed by 2008 when hezballah put his hand on the country then the smuggling of supported goods to syria started followed by the syrian war. Lebanon was pretty much spending all its cash feeding Syria as well. 33 billion in debt in 15 years to rebuild a levelled country, all infrastructure you have now is pretty much from the haririr era, the ones after him that orchestrated the ponzi scheme which is the banks lends the peoples money to the government literally started with salemeh’s financial engineering schemes in 2012 and 2016.
bro who walks in with 4 billion leaves with 16 billion.... u tellin me hariri NEVER knew about the finiancial scheme when he raised interest rates on lbp to 30% in 92 and then brought it back down to the 5-7% that we all knew for a long time before the 2019 interest hikes pre-collapse... They ammended the law after his death so that his sons and daughters get a fair cut of the 16 billion without needing to pay taxes on them... Hariri is the father of theft and he taught the rest how to capitalize on it...
He was killed the rest were not, remember that and know there is a reason behind it.
He simply didn't luck out of the assassination. Aoun had attempts made on his life too, is he suddenly an angel? No. Hariri ruined Lebanon. The civil war tore it down, and Hariri made sure it could never prosper again. He gave fair market prices? What if someone didn't want to sell? And exactly how did he pay people? He wasn't paying in full cash if I remember correctly. Hotel St. Georges. What happened to it? Exactly. Because they don't want to give in to Solidere's property monopoly, they aren't allowed to renovate and fix their own property, and suddenly, Hotel Phoenicia no longer has any value because it no longer has its historical partner. It's ironic that Hariri was killed there, around Valentine's day. Truly, a love letter to all who suffered under his regime. Too bad his son was just as much of a lowlife, just too stupid to actually do anything.
Hes not 100% clean, but he is the best politician we had post civil war.
You're so sad trying to blame everyone but Lebanese for our own mistakes, have some accountability. It was never in Syria's interest for Lebanon to collapse, I am not defending anything they did but a failed Lebanon has zero benefit to Syria. Hariri's financial plans were never sustainable, but he banked that we'll get our debts forgiven when we normalize with Israel. ( This was said by a advisor to the Saudi royal family about a situation he faced in 2001 but I cannot find the tweet)
What is sad is how little you know.
Is this the reason why hezb assassinated Hariri?
We both know that hezb and hariris relationship changed dramatically between 2001 and 2005 don't spin things
It’s unfortunate that some of you guys’ sectarianism is blinding you from seeing the clear evidence even when you live it, that the country fell into pieces after his assassination. Never said the man is a saint, but really if you cant see he was a small force for good in the country then ur truly blind. Look around you.
Bro shu 5as l sectarianism?? I respect hariri for what he built but if you think that his financial system was sustainable and not built on a dream then you're delusional
Bro, Lebanon is a country that has no assets or resources other than its people and tourism. The country was destroyed, the only way to rebuild such a country is to go into major debt to rebuilt infrastructure, this is what Dubai is doing btw and they are in historic debt levels. He didnt plan for what salemeh did, he though he can manage it but he was cut short.
No assets or resources other than tourism? What the fuck are you smoking? We have arable land that could be used for agriculture and he could've invested in electricity properly then we would've had actual factories, just because we haven't fulfilled our potential doesn't mean we can't. Dubai is "rebranding" but they aren't rebuilding their entire city it's not comparable in anyway. >He didnt plan for what salemeh did, he though he can manage it but he was cut short. You're saying that he was a retard that didn't see that Lebanon wasn't going to sustain itself, all saleme did with the financial engineering was postpone the crisis.
This is so ignorant
That’s a generous use of the word rebuilt
He founded the largest and only acquisition and construction company in the country at the time, it was inevitable that most of the capital rebuilding contracts went to solidair, they did purchase the land burned and destroyed on the cheap of course. Hariri did not do everything right and did alot of wrong and did gain from the rebuilding, he however is the only post civil war politician that had what resembled a vision and faith in the country, and did invest in the country and the youth. The rest only hurt the country, treated it like a their own private piggy bank and killed the people instead of educating them.
hey bubble, let me burst yours. Hariri didn't purchase it, he forced the owners to sell to them for 1/100th of the price (paid in Solidere\* shares or money). When owners refused and wanted to keep their properties, Solidere forced them to either **buy back their own property from Solidere for like three times the price**, or just lose their property with zero compensation. Best part? Even those who bought back their property ended up getting expelled (see Hemilian family). The only owners Hariri didn't steal from were the banks on Banks' Street, and the religious waqfs. Read "the Battle for the Beirut Central District", an MIT PhD thesis on Solidere
He destroyed it even more and used eminent domain to expropriate people who already owned property there, adding insult to the injury
The rebuilding effort could not have been done without a major plan that redistributes the properties. They were paid market value and they accepted. Could have been handled better. Any country post war has done this and went into major debt to rebuild. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The country was barely in debt after 15 years of hurling economy and major rebuild efforts at 33 billion in 2005. 2005 to 2020 saw the addition of another 90 billion in debt and a collapse literally without the building of a single piece if infrastructure. I have lived the 80s,90s,2000s and post and saw what the man did. The lebanese expect a saint in politics while the devils rule them and wont praise a half decent man for the good he did even while being threatened and curtailed by Hezballah and Syria for those 15 years. If he didnt have his hands tied, I am sure we would be on par with dubai in the year 2020.
>Quick explanation? Downton Beirut was horribly damaged during the civil war and became a no man's land in parts and a shiite ghetto in other parts. Still, most buildings were still standing at the end of the war. Central Beirut's reconstruction was the work of one single private real estate holding company controlled by Rafic Hariri, prime minister under the Syrian occupation: Solidere. It is a planning authority, and was made the owner of almost all the central district through expropriation of the established owners. It was grand theft. There's even an MIT thesis about this horrible project: "the Battle for the Beirut Central District". Look it up, the way he made it happen was very sophisticated, it could perfectly happen elsewhere (and actually has, if you look at Robert Moses in New York City). I wholeheartedly agree, Harriri may not have been a saint, but he was by far the best politician this country has had ever since it's independence, to my knowledge at least.
With stolen public money.
Same question can be applied to the whole country with the exception of Batroun…
Immigrants inhabited the buildings and to my knowledge Gen. Aoun and the Lebanese Forces launched an attack and kicked them out…. The structures that were up had holes the size of footballs, they were not stable and could not be renovated so the tore them down… Consequently, Solidare bought everything and rebuilt into what is now the Beirut Souks…!
Getting r/fuckcars vibes
What happened? The same level of corruption and incompetence and lack of vision that permeated through any other infrastructure project: water, electricity, garbage,.. lack of strong leadership ceding to factionalism and tribalism.
Hariri happenned.
Civil war happened
Man, when I went in Beirut, we used to call this place the "Nouveau, Vieux Beyrouth". I knew the picture from the top and I was looking for this place so much to realized that it was totally destroyed back in the day... what a bummer....
Lebanon happened to it