“Mixity” in Urban Policies directed towards Informal Settlement Areas in Damascus, a Concept for Public Decision?

Since the Syrian President Bachar al-Assad took office in 2000, liberalization induced together an important high-income property development and a large expansion of informal settlements areas in Damascus. At the same time, informal settlements have increasingly featured in the political agenda. Two main approaches can be simultaneously identified: a citywide rehabilitation and regularization of informal settlements and a citywide redevelopment of these areas. What is the role of urban mixity in the public decisions concerning informal settlements? Both approaches encourage mixity, but in different ways, considering either the social and functional qualities of informal settlements to encourage or the partition of the city in segregated areas to avoid. However, mixity is not the main argument for public decision. Competition for land, dominant urban representations or, more recently, urgent social reorientation in a burning regional context play a much more dynamic roles to guide public decisions.