"An Ideal Turned Into an Ordeal". A Political-Economic Analysis of the Creation of a New Town in the Fringes of Rabat, Morocco
The decision of the Moroccan government to create the new town of Tamesna in the fringes of Rabat in 2004 was officially presented as an important tool in order to solve the problem of slums by providing new affordable housing for the marginalized population of the capital of Morocco. The new town was also supposed to constitute a turn in the strategy of development of the country by bringing in the idea of "social integration of housing" through social mix . However, the economic crisis led several private developers involved in the project to leave it early, putting the public developer in charge of the spatial planning of the city into trouble and triggering a political controversy at the national scale. Today, Tamesna still appears as under-equipped and inhabited by an under-projected population struggling to make a living in what an inhabitant refers to as "an ideal turned into an ordeal". As such, the creation of the new town appears as a tool which entails the multifaceted violence of spatial planning in a neoliberalizing Southern country. Drawing on a political-economic approach, we will analyze the failure of Tamesna and its consequences by inquiring on the genesis of the project, which we describe as reflecting the contradictions of the Moroccon State and the increasing influence of the real-estate sector under the current phase of "roll-out neoliberalism". We will also replace the emergence of social movements in Tamesna in the context of a broader political and social transformation of Morocco.
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| Format: | conference_item biblioteca |
| Language: | eng |
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AAG
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| Online Access: | http://agritrop.cirad.fr/591049/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/591049/1/ID591049.pdf |
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| Summary: | The decision of the Moroccan government to create the new town of Tamesna in the fringes of Rabat in 2004 was officially presented as an important tool in order to solve the problem of slums by providing new affordable housing for the marginalized population of the capital of Morocco. The new town was also supposed to constitute a turn in the strategy of development of the country by bringing in the idea of "social integration of housing" through social mix . However, the economic crisis led several private developers involved in the project to leave it early, putting the public developer in charge of the spatial planning of the city into trouble and triggering a political controversy at the national scale. Today, Tamesna still appears as under-equipped and inhabited by an under-projected population struggling to make a living in what an inhabitant refers to as "an ideal turned into an ordeal". As such, the creation of the new town appears as a tool which entails the multifaceted violence of spatial planning in a neoliberalizing Southern country. Drawing on a political-economic approach, we will analyze the failure of Tamesna and its consequences by inquiring on the genesis of the project, which we describe as reflecting the contradictions of the Moroccon State and the increasing influence of the real-estate sector under the current phase of "roll-out neoliberalism". We will also replace the emergence of social movements in Tamesna in the context of a broader political and social transformation of Morocco. |
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