From Old Damascus to Possible Damascus: A Vision for a Livable, Just and Evolving City

Damascus appears here as a civilization still breathing, a city older than empires that still struggles with problems that should have been solved generations ago, and the case for change is made from Jisreen in Eastern Ghouta, where the writer was born and where people have long complained that no buses reach the nearby capital. The lack of transport is treated as a question of dignity, equality and belonging, and the book proposes a metropolitan Damascus that plans, grows and invests together with its surrounding villages instead of treating them as margins. Its chapters call for electric buses, bicycle networks, pedestrian corridors and light rail, for water, sewage and electricity before symbolic towers, and for housing that remembers the Damascene house with its courtyards, shaded arcades, local stone and jasmine. They also argue for reviving neighborhood markets for artisans, farmers, women entrepreneurs and young innovators, for a city that produces, and for restoring the orchards of the Ghouta as a green belt that once gave food, climate protection and identity. The closing pages ask that a child in Jisreen, a student in Harasta and a farmer in Douma feel equal to a resident of Mezzeh or Al-Maliki, and that Damascus aim to become itself again instead of copying Dubai, Paris or Singapore.