One of the mechanisms through which decentralization policies materialize at the regional and local levels is development and planning strategies. In this paper, I explore three sets of questions: How do city and development strategies become mobilized by networks of institutions and a focus of learning of local and regional governments? How do they re-assemble and re-produce territorialities? How do they impact political, economic and socio-spatial structures and relations? I undertake this investigation in an antagonistic sociopolitical context and a polarized built environment--that of Lebanon. Over the past few years, an increasing number of municipal federations, gathering about two-thirds of Lebanese municipalities, have initiated strategic planning exercises, motivated by the influx of resources through decentralized cooperation partnerships with European countries and grants from international donors. These take place in regions either homogeneous on the sectarian level or mixed. They often engage a multiplicity of stakeholders from civil society and from the private sector. Preliminary findings, based on observation and qualitative interviews with policy makers and elected councilors, indicate that city development strategies have become a new policy panacea in Lebanon via a network of local and international urban policy experts. They are not monolithic direct importations, but highly eclectic and variable processes of learning that negotiate different models, approaches, and technologies, and organize diverse mobilities, yielding dissimilar outcomes. Another observation relates to how these strategies become tools through which power struggles between opposing political and/or sectarian groups, often associated to real estate, economic and territorial interests are reproduced and sometimes negotiated. Regional and local governments, as well as real-estate developers and ordinary citizens are the key actors of these struggles, as they have direct access to urban planning tools through which city strategies can be maneuvered and resources geared in ways to further or challenge dominant political and economic groups, either on the intra-sectarian or inter-sectarian levels.