Satellite cities turned to ghost towns? On the contradictions of Morocco’s spatial policy

Monitoring rural-urban transformation in the coastal region of Rabat-Sale-Kenitra, Morocco

“…Between 2005 and 2010, the country adopted a stringent regulatory strategy to control the expansion of large urban centers, alleviate existing dysfunctions, and address urban development challenges. This approach involved the establishment of new cities to curb the chaotic expansion of the suburbs [ 84 ], and the reclassification of some rural communes as urban such ad Ain Attik (2009), and Sidi Allal Elbahraoui (2009). The government allocated a substantial budget to these newly established urban centers, to develop the necessary infrastructure.…”

A kingdom of new cities: Morocco’s national Villes Nouvelles strategy

“…A handful of primarily French language publications examine Tamesna and Tamansourt, the earliest government-led new city projects, and their implementation (Ballout, 2017;Harroud, 2017aHarroud, , 2017bRousseau and Harroud, 2019), yet no research to date examines more recent projects, provides a broad portrait of Morocco's city-building activities, or connects the kingdom's new cities to the global new city-building trend. Our analysis is informed by 29 interviews with planners, architects, senior government officials, and new city directors conducted by the first author in summer 2016 and fall 2018, as well as fieldwork in three new cities: Tamesna, Zenata Eco-City, and Benguerir Green City.…”

“…The state also mobilized extensive land resources to enable new city construction nationally. Of note are the 100 square kilometers of agricultural land belonging to public agricultural development societies (SODEA and SOGETA) that have been redesignated for urban development with the state-sanctioned acquisitions of land through an agreement with the Ministry of Finance, thus ending the longstanding national priority of preserving fertile land for food production (Rousseau and Harroud, 2019). In other cases, land is being mobilized by state authorities through large-scale expropriations rendered possible through a royal declaration of a project's 'public purpose' (Law 7-81), as is the case in Zenata Eco-City, or through the controversial claim of 'collective lands' (Berriane, 2017), like in the new urban pole in Aïn Chkef.…”

“…Furthermore, the so-called 'national policy' is not overseen or managed by a specific group or board and does not have a designated budget to handle city-building operations on a national scale (Rousseau and Harroud, 2019). Although the Department of Habitat and Urbanism created the 'inter-ministerial committee on new cities' in 2006 to address this issue, the committee is an unofficial entity without a judicial basis to define its composition, status, and mission (Harroud, 2017b).…”

Politicising the debate on urban sprawl: The case of the Lyon metropolitan region

“…Based on a comparative analysis of the various local policies implemented in a single metropolitan area, our argument differs from the general critics of the anti-sprawl movements presented above. Its main starting point is that, since compactness and density can be defined in various ways, the local policies they inspire are inevitably diverse (Charmes and Keil, 2015;Mustafa et al, 2018;Rousseau and Harroud, 2019;Touati, 2015). Behind the consensus for the compact city and the fight against sprawl, there is considerable scope for implementing a range of policies.…”