Reconstruction and informal settlements in Damascus: intersecting logics of urban policies in a context of conflict

Abstract

The article analyzes the Syrian reconstruction through the prism of informal urbanization. It shows that in the context of an unfinished conflict, the choices of Damascus in favor of urban renewal join the fundamental logics of eviction characteristic of policies vis-à-vis informal settlements.
Through a double legislative apparatus of town planning and security, this policy of selective urban disappearances destroys rather than rebuilds the places of life and memory of two categories of the population, which overlap considerably: the opponents of the regime and the inhabitants of informal settlements.