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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
Modern housing built on the outskirts of Tripoli
Housing was one of the major concerns of the revolutionary
government from the beginning, and the provision of adequate
housing for all Libyans by the 1980s has remained a top priority.
The former regime had undertaken to build 100,000 units to relieve
a critical housing shortage, but this project had proved an
expensive fiasco and was abandoned after 1969. A survey at the time
of the revolution found that 150,000 families lacked decent
shelter, the actual housing shortfall being placed at upward of
180,000 dwellings.
Both the public and private sectors were involved in housing
construction during the 1970s. Private investment and contracting
accounted for a large portion of all construction until new
property ownership laws went into effect in 1978 that limited each
family to only one dwelling. Despite the decline of privately
financed undertakings, the housing sector constituted one of the
most notable of the revolution's achievements. By the late 1970s,
the hovels and tenements surrounding Benghazi and Tripoli had begun
to give way to modern apartment blocks with electricity and running
water that stretched ever farther into what had once been groves
and fields. These high-rise apartments became characteristic of the
skylines of contemporary Benghazi, Tripoli, and other urban areas.
Between 1970 and 1986, the government invested some LD2.8
million (for value of the Libyan dinar
(LD--see Glossary) in
housing, which made possible the construction of 277,500 housing
units, according to official sources. To reach these targets, the
regime drew not only upon Libyan resources but also enlisted firms
from France, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), Spain,
Italy, Turkey, the Republic of Korea (South Korea), and Cuba. Since
1984, budget allocations for housing have fallen in keeping with a
general decline in government spending. Many housing contracts have
been suspended or canceled as a result, causing financial
difficulties for foreign firms. A shortfall in new construction
also raised the prospect of overcrowding and the creation of new
shantytowns as the country's burgeoning population threatened to
overwhelm the supply of housing.
Data as of 1987
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