Public parks, private payment

The coming few months will witness the reopening of Sanayeh Garden, the first green space in Beirut to be renovated through a public-private scheme. In a city overgrown with concrete, more parks are a necessity. The reason for opening up to the private sector is partly budgetary; the Municipality of Beirut has, like most state institutions, less money to spare than in previous years. But it is also partly ideological — the body reasons that the private sector is more efficient and has more experience in producing rapid quality work than the bloated public sector. As the municipality explained to this magazine (see article), there are also bureaucratic reasons for shirking away from public financing of parks. The official public route could have taken years, with numerous hoops needing to be jumped through. By accepting donations from the private sector, they have circumvented much of this unnecessary bureaucracy. There are,