Can Collective Recovery Endure?

What happens when a disaster hits—and the state can’t (or won’t) respond? In this episode, urban studies professor Mona Harb, co-founder of the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut, takes us inside Beirut’s post–port explosion recovery through the lens of “urban commoning”: the collective creation, repair, and shared management of urban spaces and resources outside state control. From Nation Station—a community hub born in an abandoned gas station—to a citywide ecosystem of organizers, nonprofits, faith-based networks, professional teams, political actors, and diaspora-led initiatives, Harb’s research traces how communities became de facto urban governors. But the episode also explores the limits: why some efforts stalled under politics, property disputes, donor constraints, and neighborhood tensions—and what it would take for urban commons to endure.