Beirut is a growing city. It extends well beyond its official municipal borders, and there is pressure for it to spread even farther. The need to accommodate young families and individuals demands a wholesome living environment, and so does the future of Beirut and its property sector. Planners, developers and real estate professionals have urgent stakes in responding to the growing demand for affordable housing, and we hold to the view that adequate, inexpensive housing for limited-income families can be provided within a 25- kilometer belt outside Beirut’s city limits. A promising calculus Several factors have put growing pressure on Beirut to spread out from its current tri-partite center of the Central District, Ras Beirut and Ashrafieh. The first is demographics. Beirut already accommodates more people than its space and infrastructure can adequately support. One need only look at the traffic jams or the sewage system that floods with the
