Coastline Overrun by Development

On this trip to Lebanon, I had the opportunity/misfortune of traveling the Lebanese coast from Chekka to just south of Saida (Sidon) on various trips. Although I had been here just last year, I was still amazed and dismayed by the amount and type of out-of-control development. A tsunami of individual buildings and massive complexes has covered the entire coast and washed up the foothills of the mountains. Everywhere you look, there are new building going up and new holes being dug deep into the bedrock.

While the hinterlands of the Shouf Mountains southeast of Beirut remain relatively unspoiled, their coastline is starting they resemble the dismal situation north of Beirut. A landscape of sweeping slopes, small gorges, and numerous peaks is now infested with ugly concrete buildings piled on top of each other or spread at random, bulldozed soil dumped down hillsides, and the occasional gravel pit.

The new freeway between Beirut and Saida has made travel easier. In the old days, the trip used to take about an hour on a two-lane road winding from one little village to the next. It now takes about half an hour - when there's no heavy traffic. Back then, Saida was in an entirely different part of Lebanon. Now it is possible to live anywhere between these two cities and commute to either for work. Thus the proliferation of lower-cost apartment buildings and complexes for the hordes of refugees fleeing the high cost of apartments in Beirut, a result of the ongoing Dubaization of that city.

Urban sprawl in Doha -Na'ameh area south of Beirut

This sprawl may not physically resemble classic suburban sprawl in the US, but the result is the same: loss of habitat and landscapes, a merging of formerly distinct villages and towns, and a car-dependent lifestyle that calls for driving to the supermarket, entertainment venues and so on.