Urban divide in Homs: a manifestation of political transformations and a fertile ground for civil strife

As its outskirts expanded over generations, the city brought together Syrians from different backgrounds and places and new comers were rarely asked why they came and if they truly felt that Homs is their city. Although the reasons behind leaving their small villages and towns “to settle down” on the outskirts of a major city instinctively seem to be driven by economic need and interest in job and educational opportunities, this presumed reason might not be the real motive. The answer to this question is also linked to the fact that the original inhabitants, in turn, were not given the opportunity to express the impact of this urbanization on their identity and their feeling that their spatial memory had been violated, which deepened their sense of alienation. In any case, the city’s expansion came along with social and political changes that impacted Homs’ urban fabric and these various residential communities.

Divisions usually produce social and political narratives carried by the city through its neighbourhoods and buildings, which were formed in Homs, at times, by the random decision of groups of residents to choose places of residence which “belong” to them, and, at other times, by systematic urban policies. In both cases, this disjointed urban fabric formed tools that the forces of conflict later exploited to achieve their goals.

Homs as a political and economic city and then as a popular one

Homs’ urban structure reflects economic transformations of a sectarian nature that spanned over the past decades, as it currently includes more than 28 neighbourhoods that have emerged from its seven historical neighbourhoods. This development initially randomly occurred during the limited political and economic renaissance that Syria enjoyed in the 1950s and was followed by a systematic change that reflects the shifts in economic dynamics and social forces in the 1970s and up until the new millennium.

The Syrian regime played the most prominent role in making Homs a divided city with an ongoing social and economic conflict and on the brink of a potential armed conflict. The regime first began using forms of economic production that turned the public space into a competition arena that exacerbates the socio-economic struggle over the ownership of the urban space between the city’s various components.

The regime reshaped the city’s local economy and created a lower middle class of government and military employees, in addition to tightening the grip of some beneficiaries on the two newly created production lines, namely the military and security production sector and the government sector. Most of these were from a specific sect. As for private capital, it remained linked to the authorities through the quota system, with businessmen having to pay royalties to influential people to ensure the continuity of their activity. This shift in the forms of local economic production resulted in transformations in the sectarian and religious dynamics of the city of Homs and therefore reshaped the social fabric, which, in turn, reshaped the urban fabric and the city’s image, reflecting socio-political units with control over regions of strategic importance and in conflict or allied with the surrounding units.

This trend made the urban space closely tied to the state-directed economic production. Rural areas were previously the reservoir of human capital for labour in the city, and on the other hand, this rural workforce – along with the urban dwellers themselves – constituted a market to sell the local production, completing together a full cycle of value production and consumption. In contrast, the recently-created military production and government money were of no added value to the local production cycle, as the new sectors could not create a competition that would add surplus value to the city’s existing production cycle, despite the significant number of military and security personnel and civil servants. Linking this “new production line” to authoritarian prerogatives and privileges led to the emergence among these people of a collective sense of delusional control over the urban space, while the regime remained the biggest winner from an economic and demographic perspective by fuelling the social divide resulting from its practices.

Control over government jobs and public services

Control over government jobs and public services Since the establishment of the Homs refinery in the 1950s, and the General Company for Phosphate and Al Baath University in the 1970s, the Syrian regime adopted a clear policy based on preference for the recruitment of demographic groups that serve its interests. Government institutions and public services, such as education and health, became a breeding ground for cronyism, which led to the concentration of influence and privileges in the hands of certain groups that strengthened their ties with the regime in exchange for political and social allegiance.

Restructuring production patterns in an urban space grants this newly-created production a central role in shaping the urban character and achieving surplus value. Homs’ special case resides in the concentration of production in the military and government sectors whose creation compromised the dynamics of pre-existing production forces. This produced conflict relationships over the ownership of this urban space between various social classes and categories, particularly as preference was given to the employment of a demographic group over others in these sectors. The regime circumvented surplus value, or the lack thereof in this case, by granting workers in these two sectors privileges and superficial social authority.

In the analysis of the relationship between the urban space and the reproduction of social and economic disparities, David Harvey highlights in his book “Condition of Postmodernity” the role of capitalist systems in reshaping the space to serve the interest of the ruling elites. According to Harvey, “The widespread idea that there is “a time and a place for everything” turns into a set of rules that reproduce the social order by assigning specific social meanings to places and times.”

Harvey notes that the production of the urban space is not simply a natural result of demographic expansion or change, but rather the product of a guided process that serves specific political and economic goals. In Homs’ case, it is evident that the urban space was reshaped to perpetuate sectarian and social divisions, as urban decisions were directed towards the creation of well-defined isolated residential enclaves separating different demographic components. This division exacerbates the lack of social solidarity and allows the ruling regime to exploit these divisions to consolidate its dominance.

This dynamic is also reflected in the Syrian regime’s control over the public space through economic production linked to government institutions and the military sector, which led to reshaping the space to match the “hegemony over resources” model, as described by Harvey. Therefore, Homs’ urban fabric becomes a tool to reproduce political and social hegemony instead of being a space for complementarity between the different communities.

Homs’ neighbourhoods reflect the economic and social narrative

Homs has emerged as a divided city governed by conflict relations from the late 1960s up until the 1980s, which peaked with the clear divide during the armed conflict in 2011. The city’s urban fabric reflects a social and political narrative, as transformations in this fabric were linked to the collective understanding of the concept of public and private space.

Homs witnessed a shift in the concept of urban economy, which moved from the hegemony of inherited professions, political bourgeoisie, and landowners to a new hierarchy based on the labour force within a single sect, the inherited professions of the first families, and the amount of private capital accumulated as a result of the regime’s control. The city’s social concept was no longer limited to the place of residence and work, but included forms of daily life, family bonds, human behaviours, and the nature of relationships within the public and private spheres.

With the replacement of traditional forms of production and the hegemony of one sect over formal production, migration to the city was accompanied by the reshaping of the urban space. The concentration of government institutions in the city centre and the adoption of a regional system for educational and health services led to the absence of any public space that could bring together the city’s diverse demographics. Neighbourhoods emerged as isolated urban enclaves within the urban fabric, as some slums were included in urban planning schemes, while others remained excluded, exacerbating disparities among them.

This urban alienation constituted a battlefield not only over the public space, but also over the ownership of the private space later on, as urban planning policies for slums and the violation of building regulations, which granted a de facto immunity to certain groups and not others, contributed to entrenching divisions within the city.

In the absence of an inclusive public space, fault lines emerged between urban fabrics and five independent residential enclaves were formed, namely the predominantly Sunni centre, where middle-class Christians are also present; the North, which was created for upper-middle class Sunnis; the West, representing the growing wealthy Sunni class; the South, with slums and poor Sunnis; and the Alaouite East. These regions are separated by road networks and traffic nodes representing clear urban boundaries. Kevin Lynch believes that “urban boundaries” are elements that define the resident’s perception of the city and include routes, traffic nodes, landmarks, roads, and boundaries between urban fabrics. In Homs, boundaries between enclaves were not only clear, but also emerged within each enclave, producing fragmented urban spaces populated by isolated communities that lack any social solidarity.  

As the armed conflict broke out in 2011, routes played the most important role in “demarcating” conflict lines and areas of control of different political groups. Road nodes gained strategic importance by allowing different warring parties to control entrances to regions and their connections with surrounding areas, as fault lines were concentrated along the roads separating the regions. Three crucial fault lines emerged during the armed conflict: in the North, where they separated the northern neighbourhoods of the city from military housing in the far north, the southern central line which separated the eastern part of the city from its centre and its western centre, and the northern central line which separated the centre from the northeastern neighbourhoods of the city. Each of these lines represents one of the urban boundaries which shaped the city’s pre-war perception.

The Al Kathib roundabout – officially known as Tadmor Gate (the fault line in the northeastern centre), was the clearest example of the role of traffic nodes in shaping fault lines during the armed conflict. The roundabout constituted a focal point where intersecting roads lead to three urban areas with separate historical origin, demographic composition, and service reality. Despite these differences, two of these regions joined forces during the conflict.

Towards an inclusive public space

While the demographic distribution may appear to be the result of popular and random decisions made by communities that had recently come to the city, or families who had managed to overcome the economic-class obstacle to accommodation, it is clear that the city’s design played the most important role in exacerbating divisions between its different components in a deliberate and targeted way. Whether through the inclusion of certain neighborhoods only in planning schemes to adjust the demographic balance, or the use of the large road networks to break up social units and prevent solidarity between them, the city was reshaped to form separate entities. This further complicated the situation through the militarisation of the city, as security squares were established at its vital intersections and were surrounded by military housing to ensure full control as needed.

Homs’ case is a striking example of how urban planning can lead to the escalation of civil conflicts. It is a lesson that reveals the need to reconsider urban plans from a comprehensive social perspective. Although there is no single solution to the conflict in other Syrian cities like Aleppo or Lattakia, in my personal opinion, reshaping the urban space based on foundations that bring the society together and that take into account its diversity may help mitigate conflicts or avoid them altogether. At this stage where the Syrian regime or some international players are talking at length about the future of Syria’s reconstruction, the adoption of a perspective considerate of the specificities of the different residential communities, their narratives about migration to the city and their belonging to the public space will be a cornerstone in devising urban plans that ensure civil solidarity between the different components instead of making them dedicated tools to consolidate the authority of a certain political regime.

In any case, some communities could refuse sharing a shared urban space, but urbanism is imposed by daily life. The same city, through its daily dynamics, can force its inhabitants to go beyond isolation boundaries towards the construction of an all-inclusive comprehensive public sphere.

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.