sustainability Article Sustainable Beirut City Planning Post August 2020 Port of Beirut Blast: Case Study of Karantina in Medawar District David Aouad 1, * and Noushig Kaloustian 2   Citation: Aouad, D.; Kaloustian, N. Sustainable Beirut City Planning Post August 2020 Port of Beirut Blast: Case Study of Karantina in Medawar District. Sustainability 2021, 13, 6442. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116442 Academic Editors: Agnieszka Bieda and Agnieszka Telega Received: 7 May 2021 Accepted: 26 May 2021 Published: 5 June 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of Architecture and Design, Lebanese American University, Beirut 1102, Lebanon 2 Department of Natural Sciences, Lebanese American University, Beirut 1102, Lebanon; noushigk@gmail.com * Correspondence: david.awad@lau.edu.lb; Tel.: +961-3-721794 or +961-70-126329 Abstract: The 4 August 2020 Port of Beirut blast caused material damage to an estimated 77,000 apartments located across 10,000 buildings within a 3 km radius of the blast, impacting around 300,000, people predominantly in the municipality of Karantina, which is situated adjacent to the Port of Beirut. The blast shed light on the instability and unsustainable development approach of the city of Beirut since well before the French mandate circa 1921–1940. The impact of the blast provides an opportunity to reassess the relationship between many relevant aspects of the city planning including but not limited to: the relationship of the city to its suburbs, waterfront, and city center; the lack of local planning and cross sectorial master plans; the preservation of the heritage versus the complexity of its urban development; the city growth and increased haphazard urbanization; the infrastructure/service systems that have over the years become increasingly deficient; the lack of public spaces; impacts on urban climate; and the urban divide and inequality that have only grown deeper since the blast, all of which have a combined and adverse impact on the quality of city life. This paper analyzes the most suitable indicators that one must highlight within the context of Beirut city to propose a better and sustainable quality of life with a focus on areas that were significantly impacted by the recent POB blast, namely Karantina. Examples of indicators which were analyzed include sustainable urban design, open spaces, heritage, infrastructure, and urban fabric. The results indicated that the following four main urban design features help improve the quality of life in Karantina, including: (i) connecting areas of Karantina and Mar Mkhael through the reactivation of vacant lots; (ii) reactivation of Ibrahim Bacha and El-Khodr Streets; (iii) redefining the historical El Khodr Mosque boundary and reclaiming its role as an urban landmark; and (iv) integration of classified built heritage. These parameters are necessary to improve the quality of life. The benefits of community participation are also assessed in the improvement and sustainable planning of the city of Beirut. Keywords: Beirut; sustainable urban design; Karantina; port of Beirut blast; stakeholder participation 1. Introduction The rapid rate of urbanization as a result of changing social, political, economic, and environmental factors has created new opportunities, along with a set of critical challenges in the development and sustainability of the city of Beirut. Rising levels of urban poverty and inequality, unemployment, and a critical shortage of affordable housing have led to the rapid growth of informal settlements, leaving Beirut with inadequate capacity to provide basic services. The institutional capacity necessary to oversee the transition to sustainable urbanization is also deemed lacking. These combined factors have led to the rapid influx of settlements into Karantina, the subject of this paper, resulting in its haphazard urbanization and lack of the essential sustainable elements that allow for a final strategic development plan for the city that will integrate various priority projects and actions to improve and sustain a better quality of life for inhabitants according to their needs and preferences where local stakeholders’ Sustainability 2021, 13, 6442. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116442 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability