4 research outputs found
Syria’s Contrasting Neighbourhoods: Gentrification and Informal Settlements Juxtaposed
Syria's neoliberal public policies have encouraged stark inequalities between the privileged centers and deprived peripheries of its cities. The authors of Syria's Contrasting Neighbourhoods compare and contrast the settlements around Syria's largest city, Aleppo, with the newly developed chic neighborhoods in the old city of Damascus
Neighbourhood and Health Inequalities in Formal and Informal Neighbourhoods in Aleppo
Syria's neoliberal public policies have encouraged stark inequalities between the privileged centers and deprived peripheries of its cities. The authors of Syria's Contrasting Neighbourhoods compare and contrast the settlements around Syria's largest city, Aleppo, with the newly developed chic neighborhoods in the old city of Damascus
Gentrification and urban heritage under authoritarian rule: the case of pre-war Damascus, Syria
This thesis examines gentrification in the historic centre of the Syrian capital
Damascus prior to the civil war beginning in spring 2011 and to what extent the
authoritarian regime facilitated and benefited from gentrification and urban heritage
as means of regime maintenance. In so doing it critically engages with and brings into
dialogue bodies of literature that, on first sight, have not much in common: first,
gentrification, the production of urban space for the better-off, a process which can
now be observed globally; second, urban heritage (i.e. its use for economic, political
or identity-related purposes); and third, authoritarian resilience, with a focus on the
Middle East, a region where authoritarian regimes remained resilient to internal and
external pressures for economic and political liberalization. The thesis identifies the
advance of neoliberalism and alterations in Syria’s elite composition as the contexts in
which the literatures as well as the processes under scrutiny overlap. Qualitative
interviews with private and official stakeholders in gentrification and heritage
preservation in Old Damascus form the empirical foundation of this study,
complemented by the analysis of newspaper articles, internet sources and works of
fiction.
Until 2011, gentrification emerged mainly in the form of commercialized historic
property, a trend mainly driven by members of the upper and upper-middle classes,
who were both producers and consumers of a gentrified Old Damascus. Beside the
sheer interest in capital accumulation, stakeholders “used” the old city as a source of
identity and an element of a Damascene heritage discourse. In addition to upper-class
Damascenes’ economic and identity-related interests this thesis argues that
authoritarian resilience, and thus the interests of the authoritarian state, developed into
an additional aspect of gentrification and heritage promotion in Old Damascus, as the
regime benefited from and facilitated both processes. Providing affluent parts of the
population with a commodified landscape of consumption enabled the regime to
domestically gain the support of consumers and those co-opted by privileged access to
lucrative business opportunities in the old city (i.e. regime cronies and loyal
entrepreneurs). Additionally, the promotion of a gentrified Old Damascus and its
heritage as a tourist attraction functioned as an opportunity to upgrade the country’s
negative image abroad. In conclusion, approaching authoritarian resilience through the
analytical lenses of gentrification and heritage contributes to a broader understanding
of urban transformations in authoritarian states. However, in the face of coercion
through urban warfare, destruction and ethnic cleansing, it is unclear to what extent
gentrification and heritage are still of importance for regime maintenance in Syria’s
cities