When the gates finally opened, it was both a symbolic victory and a real-life stress test for the city. Horsh demonstrated that in Beirut, public space doesn’t operate by decree, but through governance: maintenance budgets, posted rules, human presence, social mediation. The park’s success lies in a patient compromise among institutions, civil society, and residents: a fragile but reproducible model.

Small projects that heal the city

Other modest initiatives, led by municipalities and associations, point the way toward better public space design. Two discreet cases tell the story more vividly than any speech.

In the Naba’a neighborhood of Bourj Hammoud, a 200 m² municipal plot squeezed between two gray buildings has been transformed. Once a vacant lot with an old kiosk, it now echoes with children’s laughter. A few wooden benches, three sparse trees, a makeshift fountain: nothing extraordinary, yet everything feels right. In the late afternoon, mothers gather, watching the children play with a distracted eye; elderly men exchange political news in hushed tones; a street vendor pauses, sets down his cooler, chats for five minutes. The ground is still too hard, the fence closes early, but the space breathes. It is clear that the neighborhood, not an investor, has reclaimed it. Behind this simplicity, civil society members organized participatory workshops to decide its fate: a little shade, but not too much; a fountain; fixed hours to avoid disputes. The park is no miracle, just a successful deliberative, citizen-led project.

In Mar Mikhaël, the story is more complicated. In March 2023, an urban project at the Gouraud–Pasteur intersectionaimed to widen sidewalks and turn the landing of the grand Gholam staircase into a small public square. The idea was simple: slow traffic without blocking it, make walking easier, and green the block. The municipal council approved it, the governor of Beirut authorized it; the project was expected to finish by July 2023. Reality intervened. Disinformation campaigns, political pressure, and threats on the ground forced the work to stop. The team revised the plans to address concerns: the roadway expanded to ~7 m, three delivery zones added, parking reorganized—all while keeping pedestrian priority. A petition signed by over 80 local residents, along with the support of hundreds of professionals, confirmed local backing. Nothing worked: when public space becomes a common good, it collides with entrenched interests - sidewalks claimed by shops, car priority, clientelist networks. The project became living proof that an alternative policy is possible, yet blocked by private and clientelist logics.

These two micro-spaces have become landmarks. Their value lies in embodying a social contract: they give form to public space based on sharing, clear rules, and the responsibility of those who use it. The essential lesson is clear: a city’s quality depends less on icons than on everyday use, and it is precisely what these small projects reveal, and what the system often obstructs.

The blocked memory

When I was in high school, history and geography classes ended with the Second World War. The curriculum concluded with Lebanon’s independence, as if on a victorious note. Nothing beyond that. Nothing on the civil war. Nothing on the fifteen years that shaped every street, every silence, every fracture in the country. The war existed only in family conversations, partial accounts, and “versions”: the uncle’s, the neighbor’s, each TV channel’s.

At school, the past stopped where the myth of national unity began. This institutional amnesia is visible in the city. Beirut rebuilt itself without an official memory. The books fell silent, and the walls eventually spoke, before being erased. In some neighborhoods, a few bullet-riddled buildings remain, like scars that no one had the courage to erase or the strength to confront. Most, however, have disappeared, swallowed by the logic of “new” and profitable. Urbanism has polished over the war.