Casablanca, Urbanity beyond Formal City : From Resettlement to Bidonville Upgrading

Casablanca, Urbanity beyond Formal City

Shifting the discourse: From Resettlement to Bidonville Upgrading through a Street-led approach

Graduation thesis report: Sara Semlali

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Title:

Casablanca, Urbanity beyond Formal City Shifting the discourse: From Resettlement to Bidonville Upgrading through a Street-led approach

Author:

Sara Semlali

Email:

ss.semlali@gmail.com

Supervisor :

Joan Moreno Sanz, UPC - Barcelona - Spain

Co-supervisor: Viviana d’Auria, KU Leuven - Belgium Jury:

Roberto Rocco, TU Delft - The Netherlands Ricardo Avella, IUAV - Italy

EMU - European Post-master in Urbanism ETSAB - UPC June, 2021 Barcelona, Spain

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ACKNOWLEGEDMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Joan Moreno Sanz for his trust in me directing this thesis. This project would not have been possible without the support, encouragement and helpful feedback he has given me during these months. I also want to thank the members of the jury for agreeing to examine this thesis and being part of this experience.

My field research would not exist without the collaboration of people of Erhamna, especially Mehdi, Karim, and Adil who were able to bring me closer to the Bidonville reality. I am grateful to you.

To my friends, Ali, Chiara, Oumkaltoum and Ainhoa, thank you for making me believe in myself and for always pushing me forwards.

Thank you for being a motivation when I needed it the most.

To my sisters Mounia, Houda and Zineb, thanks for making me feel loved and cared for. I would also like to express my affection to my baby niece Kenza, for brighting up the toughest moments throughout this year.

I want to thank Mhamed, for always being there, and for always bringing warmth to my life with his unconditional love and kindness. I cannot imagine how it would be without your guidance, patience, and care.

Last but not least, most grateful I am to my parents. It is for and thanks to you that I am here. To my father, Abdelkebir, thank you for always guiding us to the right path with your wisdom. To my mom, Hanan, thank you for being the best example of a strong independent woman. Words cannot express the love I have for you.

Thank you All!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Acknowlegments Table of content Abstract Introduction

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Theoretical framework

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1. Global Crises 2. Slum as a theory 3. Slum practices 4. Towards a street led approach for slum upgrading 4.1. Street led approach 4.2. Case studies a. Street upgrading for a sense of a Place in Korogocho, Nairobi b. Re-inventing Dharavi through an incremental street-led approach, Mumbai c. Rebrand Rio Slums with Expansive Mural Makeover, Rio de Janeiro 5. Street life in Morocco Conclusion

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Methodology

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1. Theoretical foundation 2. Research framework 3. Indicators and outcomes

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Case study: Casablanca

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1. Casablanca and the Bidonvilles

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1.1. Context: Casablanca city 1.2. The emergence of the bidonville 1.3. Past policies to tackle the issue of bidonvilles 1.4. The Moroccan version of Cities Without Slums 1.5 Villes Sans Bidonvilles: Critical review 2. Casablanca: Between activity and fragility 2.1. Urban Morphology 2.2. Activities 2.3. Social indicators Conclusion

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Erhamna Bidonville

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1. Erhamna: one of the biggest Casablanca’s bidonvilles 2. Future vision of Sidi Moumen 3. Spatial planning strategies

82 93 96

Conclusion

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Bibliography

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ABSTRACT Each year, nearly 240,000 people migrate from the countryside to Moroccan cities. As a result, the urban population has reached more than 57% of the total population and the number of inhabitants of cities doubles every 17 years. Like many other North-African cities, Casablanca experienced explosive population growth during the last century. Its population raised from 625 thousand people in 1950 to nearly 3.4 million people nowadays (United Nations, 2019). This rapid evolution makes some of the arrivals reside in the various avatars of the unsanitary housing of which the slums are the dominant version.

These areas are found in various cities of the Global South.

This thesis questions the current strategies to tackle the slum phenomenon in Morocco and explores other alternative inclusive approaches to deal with it through the intervention on the street.

Focusing on the city of Casablanca, Morocco, this graduation project analyses the case of Erhamna slum which will lead to better comprehension of spatial and social dynamics of the bidonville and therefore to develop contextualized street-led approach guidelines.

Key words: Bidonville, informality, social and spatial integration, bidonville upgrading, Street-led approach.

Research question: How can we reach socio-spatial integration of the Bidonville with the city of Casablanca through a street-led approach ?

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INTRODUCTION During the 19th century, the industrial revolution and its technical and economic advances marked the global urban landscape with the appearance of an unprecedented form of urbanization often qualified as precarious, unhealthy, or even parasitic. Indeed, the poor urban community constantly increasing due to job opportunities particularly in large cities, provoked the appearance of the first SLUMS in England, in which the workers found shelter, attracted by the advantages and promises of the city. Afterward, the phenomenon has spread rapidly and ends up being generalized in all the countries in full industrial development. The need for the labor of the new factories caused a remarkable rural into urban migration. Almost a century later, the hygienic trend and the major post-war housing projects overcame these precarious habitats in most of the Global North countries.

Nowadays, we are witnessing the reproduction of the slum phenomenon in the Global South countries where many cities are now facing an urban explosion that they are still struggling to control.

The global recession of the mid-1970s was at the origin of a second important rural-urban migration that led up to the increase in the number of people living in urban areas throughout the world to 50%.

This event favored the emergence and proliferation of slums.

Casablanca, the economic heart of Morocco, has always been considered an urban laboratory, especially during the French colonization (Cohen and Eleb, 2002). Throughout this thesis, the city of Casablanca will be taken as a case study to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of a Moroccan metropolis.

During the colonial times, the rapid growth of Casablanca’s population unleashed a series of pressing urban problems: the massive demographic explosion compromised the destiny of the consolidated city on every imaginable scale which led to the emergence of informal settlements. To locate ourselves in the Moroccan context throughout this thesis, I will be referring to Moroccan slums by using the term ‘Bidonville’. The word consists

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of two terms: the first, ‘Bidon’, refers to a can or shanty, while the second, ‘Ville’, designates a city. Hence, Bidonville would be a shantytown: a model of habitat in which demolition material takes on a new life in the construction of the city (Semlali, 2021).

Bidonvilles in Casablanca present extreme living circumstances of a vulnerable population in shanty houses that were built illegally and in most cases do not have access to basic infrastructures.

Nonetheless, the manner in which this crisis was handled resulted in significant levels of socio-spatial division: The authorities favored the resettlement strategy that pushes slum dwellers to ‘formal settlements’ in the outskirts of the city.

The current strategy hasn’t succeeded to solve the problem of bidonvilles in Morocco but has engendered serious social and economic problems within the displaced population. Thus, this emphasizes the importance of questioning the current strategies and starting to consider new alternatives where the population is the center of the transformation process: How about making the bidonville part of the city instead of eradicating them? This drives us to the hypothesis of this thesis: The street can be an entry point to bidonvilles’ integration among the city in the spatial, social, and economic aspects.

This graduation project goal is twofold. First, it aims to look at worldwide experiences of slum upgrading through street-led approach. Second, it analyses to which extent this approach can be applied to the Moroccan context to decrease urban inequalities.

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Fig 1.1. Inequality in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Source: Johnny Miller, https://unequalscenes.com/

“Cities (...) are currently growing by a million babies and migrants each week” Davis, M. (2007) Planet of slums

01. Theoretical framework This first chapter will focus on the global urban crises, especially economic globalization and rapid urbanization and how they are related to increasing social and geographical inequalities and slum emergence and proliferation in the Global South.

This chapter will also review some slum practices around the world and then will focus on the Street-Led Approach for slum upgrading. It will draw lessons from international experiences from different continents demonstrating the strength of a street-led approach to improve slums’ physical and environmental conditions.

Finally, to situate ourselves in the Moroccan context, the chapter will end with an overview of streetlife in Morocco and how urban interventions in streets could be an entry point to slum upgrading.

Sections : 1. Global crisis 2. Slum as theory 3. Slum practices 4. Street-Led approach for slum upgrading – Case studies 5. Steetlife in Morocco

1. Global Crisis 1.1 Economic Globalisation Over the years, the complexity of global crises is increasing and growing to touch different dimensions. They are, nowadays, interconnected across geographical boundaries, repeated and increasingly urban. Our current world is progressing in three ways: we are talking about economic globalization, the urbanization of the world, and environmental degradation. Nowadays, the global scenario is experiencing a rise in the rate of poverty and inequality while we live in an era marked by technological development and the accumulation of wealth.

“The world has entered a new era of laissez-faire globalization” (Un-Habitat, 2003, p:52). This has impacted the world on several levels, in particular mercantile booms and busts and the uneven wealth distribution generating poverty and inequality (Freeman, 2018). By way of illustration, in 2012, there has been a 60% increase in the wealth of the top 1%, the richest 100 billionaires in the world added 240 US billion dollars to their wealth, a sum of money enough to end world poverty four times over (Sassen, 2015, p:45).

In developing countries, the difference between the social class that benefits from globalization and the poor is more visible and obvious. (UN-Habitat, 2003).

In the past, economic globalization was responsible for the creation of informal settlements -following huge waves of migrations- in many

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cities in the developed world, and it is doing the same again currently in the developing world. In fact, with a new economic model and new opportunities that were generated since the beginning of industrialization, the cities have attracted rural migrants.

This process led to a demographic explosion out of ordinary in unprepared cities, which caused a deterioration of living conditions under the shade of informal settlements known as slums, characterized by not only unhealthy living conditions but also insecurity and dangerous contexts (Guzey, 2016), essentially because of a lack of rules and urban planning, as well as growing urbanization and increasing population growth pressures. (Amado et al, 2015).

1.2 Rapid Urbanization All actual data shows that the world’s future lies in cities. In 1950, 30 percent of the population of the world was urban. This percentage has reached 54% in 2014 (figure 1.2). Cities offer a variety of benefits, or the so-called “urban advantage”, such as prosperity, job opportunities in diverse sectors, better education, and new horizons.

The developed world is an urbanized world featuring urbanization levels above 80%, for example in the USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealand (United Nations, World Urbanisation Prospects: The 2014 Revision, 2014).

1990

2014

Fig 1.2

Fig 1.2. Increasing world urban rate and cities population in 1990-2014. Source: UN-Habitat. Map adapted by the author

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The urbanization wave did not stop only in the developed regions. In the previous two decades, namely from 1990 to 2014, the percentage of people living in cities increased by 8 to 15% in middle-income and low-income countries (Borowik, 2018). It is expected that by 2050 middle-income countries will reach a rate of urbanization of 67%, and low-income countries 48%. Every year, the world’s population living in urban areas grows by approximately 60 million people. This growth concerns especially the countries from the Global South. (United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, 2014).

The urbanization boom is the main challenge that the cities of developing countries are facing. This phenomenon goes hand in hand with ‘urbanization of poverty’, a resulting process from the movement of the global poverty to cities: According to UN-Habitat, around one billion people, or one-third of the world’s urban population, live in slums, the majority of them in developing countries (figure 1.3)(UN-Habitat, 2003).

Rapid urbanization is usually seen positively only when migrants are skilled and are able to contribute formally and actively to the economy. Under the neo-liberal system, or sometimes due to the lack of insufficient resources, stability, and infrastructure, authorities neglect informal human settlements and their low-income dwellers and focus on further developing areas for middle-income social groups

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influencing positively the image of the city (McGranahan et al., 2003).

These exclusionist processes and policies accentuate social inequalities, disparities, and exclusion.

Consequently, exclusionary processes have concrete manifestations in urban space (Madanipour, 2004).

Slums, although considered as urban pathology, in many cases are the first stopping point for social groups in a complex socio-economic context as they provide them affordable housing.

To summarize, several scholars and also the UN-Habitat in The Challenge of Slums report of 2003, agreed on the fact that slums are the result of the two main phenomena facing the world, in particular, the evolution of human settlements around the turn of the century: Economic globalization and rapid urbanization (UN-Habitat, 2003). To live up to an expectation of prosperity, developing countries’ governments should come up with innovative approaches, strategies, and ground-breaking ideas to meet the needs and expectations of millions, to reduce urban poverty and inequality and to reach a balance between the formal and informal city.

Fig 1.3

2. Slums as a theory According to McFarlane and Waibel (2016), the formal-informal divide is an epistemological demarcation put to ‘work in different ways and contexts’ and often emerges through urban processes and practices. Informality is often read as a spatial categorization and translated into a physical and material outcome, hence to be territorialized within ‘slum’ settlements. These territories are considered marginal from the legal, political, economic, social, and environmental perspectives.

Informality often transmits the idea of a spontaneous, tacit, and effective way of organization. Although it does not exist in isolation from the formal city, they are blurred and there is interaction between them.

As mentioned before, the threshold of one billion slum dwellers, or one-

third of the world’s urban population, was crossed at the turn of the 2000s, according to UN-Habitat figures (UN Habitat, 2003). Various representations have highlighted this phenomenon, such as the cinema, which has staged the social problems around slums of several continents: The City of God for Brazil, Slumdog Millionaire for India, or God’s horses for Morocco. In the academic field, the issue of slums has also entered the register of major development issues. In economics, the work The Mystery of Capital, published in 2000 by Hernando De Soto, places in the foreground, as a way to reduce urban poverty, the resolution of the problem constituted by the informal sector, and a fortiori slums.

In sociology, and in an apocalyptic view, Planet of Slums, by Mike Davis (2006), approaches the slums as a physical reflection of liberalism and as one of the proofs of its bankruptcy, the inhabitants of the slums then Fig 1.3. World population living in representing the contemporary figure of slums (% of urban population) in 2018. the Lumpenproletariat (Bartoli, 2011).

Source: World Bank. Map by the author

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But what are Slums?

The operational definition of the world ‘Slum’ presented by the UN-Habitat is: “a heavily populated urban area marked by unsanitary housing and poor living conditions, miserable lives”.

Three criteria are thus put forward, both non-quantified and subjective: density, housing, and misery. This definition was explained better afterward: “An area that combines, to various extents, the following characteristics: inadequate access to safe water, to sanitation and other infrastructures, poor structural quality of housing, overcrowding, insecure residential status, and unsanitary housing”. Nevertheless, even a quick glance at this definition is enough to show that the articulation between spatial, economic and social issues is far from being addressed properly (Bartoli, 2011): it is “restricted to the physical and legal characteristics of the settlement”, and eschews the more difficult-to-measure “social dimensions”, although it is equated in most cases to economic and social marginality (Davis, 2006).

In 2007, Alan Gilbert criticized the UN’s view of the slums and emphasized that the ‘slum’ is not an absolute but rather a relative concept given the variation of standards across the world. What may be regarded as slum by lowincome individuals in one nation may be recognized as perfectly adequate living circumstances by even poorer people in another (Gilber, 2007).

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The nomination of slums varies from one country to another: Favelas in Brazil, ‘Colonias Populares’ (Popular Colonies) in Mexico, ‘Villas Miserias’ (Miseres Towns) in Argentina, Barriadas (suburbs districts) then ‘Pueblos Jovenes’ (Young Villages) in Peru, ‘Poblaciones Callampas’ (settlements that grow like mushrooms) in Chile, ‘Umjondolo’ in South Africa, ‘Shammasa ‘in Sudan, ‘Gecekondu’ in Turkia meaning “built overnight”. In the case of French colonized African countries and starting from Morocco, the ‘Bidonvilles’ were defined as precarious premises made from oilcan from nearby landfills. Thus, whatever the terminology used throughout the world for these same plagues, the finding remains the same: all have in common the distinctiveness of being - at least initially - the result of decentralized actions and spontaneous initialization of their inhabitants (El Ghilali, 2016).

The different pictures of slums (figure 1.4; 1.5; 1.6; 1.7) around the world show that the word “slum” could have various interpretations, in a sense that there is an incredible variation between them and consequently, there is an imperative necessity to explore and understand these territories as environments that have their own processes and logics and eventually give different results. Undoubtedly, there are common social and economic conditions, but in terms of physicality and materiality -at least from the perspective of an aerial top-down image- we can already notice the difference between the kind of structures, densities, and urban patterns

Fig 1.4

Fig 1.5

Fig 1.6

Fig 1.7

that are embedded within slums. Hence, we could start questioning the fact of having an umbrella term for this kind of environment. Slums cannot be defined safely in any general accepted way since they could be seen differently depending on socioeconomic status, culture, and ideology. Moreover, the concept is not constant over time since what we regard to be a ‘slum’ evolves (Gans, 1962). Likewise, slum inhabitants are a diverse group of people with different backgrounds, interests, and means, they are not a homogeneous population (City alliance, 2013)

If slums are relational and as much a mental construct as they are a physical structure, then any government or international organization would find it difficult to eradicate them. (Gilbert, 2007, p: 700). Mahabir et al. (2016) discussed that in order to implement and develop strategies to improve slum inhabitants’ conditions, one must consider the reasons that push people to live in them.

In other words, taking a step back is necessary to successfully understand the complexity of slums, thereby moving forward and coming with new appropriate policies to tackle this phenomenon.

Fig 1.4. Petare Slum, Venezuela.

Source: Courtesy of Urban-Think Tank Fig 1.5. Kibera Slum, Kenya. Source: Airpano Fig 1.6. Manila Slum, Philippine.

Source: Bernhard Lang Fig 1.7. Dharavi Slum, India. Source: Jonny Miller

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In his provoking article on the return of the Slum, Gilbert (2009) notes three different ways in which the word slum is employed, and especially warning that it is being exploited as a catchphrase to combat urban poverty. Arabindoo (2011) addresses that not all the slum inhabitants are poor. Indeed, slums are home to a large number of the urban poor, however, the extreme poverty is not automatically found in slums. This fact takes us to the question: Who is the true target? The poor’s situation or the image of the city?

3. Slums practices Since the appearance of slums, governments have adopted different approaches to fight against this phenomenon and all that results from it. From the 1950s to the 1980s, classic examples of the top-down initiatives took place in various countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Brazil, Nigeria, Philippines, etc… which was a mass public housing program for the urban poor provided by the state. In most cases located outside the city, the low-cost housing proposed was insensitive to inhabitants’ needs and consequently, led to many falls of this solution. In parallel to this, a lot of policies restricting migration towards urban areas were implemented in order to avoid the creation of new slums in Korea, China, and Colombia, accompanied by a clearance of the

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slums and displacement of the dwellers towards the outskirts of the cities.

‘Sites and Services’ strategy was thereafter adopted in some countries in the 1970s and 1980s. It is a lowcost housing solution scheme where governments buy a serviced plot of land for the residents to build on and invest in. Servicing generally includes facilities such as sanitation, drainage, and electricity. Plots were serviced at various stages and were of various sizes to appeal to a wide range of income classes (Bolton, 2020).

Furthermore, In-situ slum upgrading is another approach put into effect in the 1970s. Upgrading started as a response to slum clearance policies. The term «In-situ» refers to the fact that people remain in their homes as the work is being done.

In the 1990s, the “Enabling approach” emerged where the government acts as an enabler, and the communities are supposed to take action. Governments include subsidies or other forms of financial assistance, as well as land tenure regulations that are versatile. It is a bottom-up approach that has taken place in Karachi for example with the famous Orangi Pilot Project or Quinta Monroy project in Chile (Borowik, 2018) Following the same direction, in the twenty-first century, the agreement between scholars, NGOs, governments was ‘slum upgrading’ instead of ‘slum eradication’. Upgrading is about finding possibilities for slum population to

improve their living conditions, to achieve a richer, healthier, and safer living environment instead of displacing them out of the slum (Panday, 2020).

However, these measures haven’t responded to the problem’s rising magnitude, and it is now widely acknowledged that slum upgrading must be expanded from projectbased to citywide initiatives in rapidly urbanizing countries.

of an integration process. To reach this objective, governance challenges must be given more emphasis, such as the combination of both ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches in a holistic equilibrated model that prioritizes slum settlements in planning processes

Life conditions in informal settlements have always presented a serious difficulty for society’s growth, notably in terms of public health and the socioeconomic setting. In their struggle for survival, people in informal settlements have no other viable options for resolving this issue but to come up with innovative solutions to support themselves, or what Mike Davis describes in his famous book as “originating ‘informal survivalism’ as the new primary mode of livelihood in a majority of Third World cities” (Davis, 2004, p:178).

Nowadays, the governments are more and more conscious about the phenomenon of Slums given the problems that they generate and suffer from at the meantime. For this, several approaches are being studied around the world, as well as innovative strategies are being developped to draw a systemic inclusive framework allowing to address this problem in a way that takes into account the current world economic situation and incorporates aspects of sustainability.

CONCLUSION:

The informal survivalism, the flexibility to innovate, the creativity are certainly hidden potential of slums that should be emphasized. Although, it is not sufficient to tackle the issue of informal settlements. In other words, the spread of festering slums would be inevitable without the implementation of effective appropriate policies. Therefore, rather than concentrating on eradicating these areas, we should concentrate on their potentialities and enhance the «survival» behavior in the framework

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4. Street-Led approach for slum upgrading “Good urban places are judged by their street life. For it is in streets as multipurpose spaces – that all the ingredients of city life are combined: public contact, public social life, people-watching, promenading, transacting, natural surveillance and culture. Streets bring together people who do not know each other in an intimate, private social sense, including strangers.”

Montgomery, 1998

Slums are often considered dangerous and unsafe by visitors and slum residents themselves (UN-Habitat, 2011). Since the slums are devoid of a distinct structure capable of generating feelings of security and safety, most people living outside them also see them as threatening environments (Abbot, 2004). In their report ‘Streets as Tools for Urban Transformation in Slums’ of 2019, UN-Habitat considered slums as poor neighborhoods that are part of the whole structure of the city system, suffering from spatial isolation and disconnection because of the lack of the lack of open spaces and streets.

Streets are crucial components in improving life quality in cities, especially in dense settlements such as slums where the lack of streets creates various problems for inhabitants and ends up affecting the city as a whole. Moreover,

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they are the key to connect businesses, economic activities, and neighbours and therefore, to achieve socio-spatial integration of the slum and its dwellers within the city. In slum upgrading measures, reinforcing and enhancing existing streets and access points should be deemed non-negotiable. In their report Streets as tools for urban of 2019, UN-Habitat argues that this is an incremental development strategy also based on participatory planning is more effective than a single-phase approach presenting a rigid complex upgrading project. The street-led approach for slum upgrading considers the sociocultural and economic dimension of the street beyond their physical infrastructural role of mobility and accessibility where drainage systems, water and sewage tanks, and electricity lines are installed (UN-Habitat, 2019).

Fig 1.8. Case studies in the world map

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01.

Korogocho Fig 1.10

Fig 1.11

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One of the main urban challenges that Kenya is facing, same as many developing countries, is to create a conducive atmosphere for increasing the provision of suitable housing, jobs, as well as essential urban services to slum dwellers (UN Habitat, 2003). The Kenyan government is recognizing the presence of informal settlements such as slums and fixing their situation by upgrading policies. Establishing long-term sustainable solutions to face urban growth is becoming primordial (Syrjänen, 2008).

Nairobi is Kenya’s beating heart. It is a city of contrast, showing a modern face to the world characterized by formality meanwhile an increasing number of the population is living in a poor environment marked by informality

Fig 1.9

Street upgrading to

create a sense of a Place (Warah, 2011). The rate of urbanization and slum growth in the city of Nairobi is very high. Slums in Nairobi cover only 5 percent of the city area, and yet, 70 percent of the population lives in them.

More importantly, the number of slums’ population is not stable but is predicted to double in the next decade (UN Habitat, 2012).

Among the slums of the city of Nairobi, Korogocho is composed of 8 different villages (figure 1.13) that extend over 50 hectares on public land and a small amount of private land, located 11 km from the city center. It is considered the fourth largest slum in Nairobi, home to 42.000 inhabitants. Founded in the 1970s, Korogocho borders one of Nairobi’s main garbage disposal sites, Dandora, and it is now part of

the inner-city (Gathuthi et al., 2010).

A considerable number of Korogocho inhabitants are victims of displacement strategies from other slums. The first arrivals were quarry employees that started to build temporary houses. The slum expanded over the years with the squatters resettled from demolished slums in other parts of the city (IFRA, 2011).

In order to enhance Korogocho’s living and working circumstances, The Korogocho Slum Upgrading Programme (KSUP) was launched in 2007. The upgrading of the streets was carried out as part of a wider framework of KUSP. The interventions on the streets aimed at the integration of Korogocho within the city by developing both accessibility and communication in the widest context and improving security by promoting street business opportunities as well as lighting. The idea was to

Fig 1.12

exploit the streets to provide a testing ground for the community’s approval of the idea and to open up the region for development (UN-Habitat, 2012).

Brown (2006) considers that all community groups relate to place, in this case, the Street, as co-creators.

Although, the program puts particular emphasis on women for being often underrepresented in participatory development, children and youth for being the future of the area, and finally vendors for the important role they play in public space.

The upgrading program concerns only four main streets: Market Road, Mama Ngendo Road, Kamunde Road, and Community Lane. The selection was made on the basis that these streets guaranteed the connection between the eight villages and did not need many relocations (figure 1.14).

Fig 1.13

Fig 1.9. Korogocho skaters are taking advantage of some of the best streets in one Korogocho.

Source: Quartz Africa Fig 1.10. Kenya in the world map .

By author.

Fig 1.11. Nairobi city in Kenya’s map. By author.

Fig 1.12. Korogocho is situated on a ridge between Nairobi River Fig 1.13. Korogocho’s 8 villages Fig 1.14. The four upgraded street.

Source: UN-Habitat. Adapted by author.

Fig 1.14

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The conceptual framework is structured into three concepts (figure 1.15): The first one is Activities representing vitality (the amount of people on the street at various times of the day) and diversity (mixture of activities) of a place. The second one is Conception that means a mixture of how people perceive a place.

Finally, the Form, which is the physical shape. The interrelation of the three concepts generates a sense of a place.

Starting from the Form, the working team analyzed the relationship between the open space and the built space to understand the different characters of the patterns and enhance their potentialities in order to come up with new design ideas. Six street typologies were identified through observation and photography on the basis of physical aspects for example: border zone differences, dimensions, and pavement, etc… Furthermore, connectivity and street hierarchy have been analyzed in order to identify the areas that are less integrated. Finally, floors, walls, equipment, and vegetation have been investigated.

Fig 1.15. Conceptual framework of the street-upgrading project in Korogocho. Source: UNHabitat. Adapteb by author.

Fig 1.16. A street in Korogocho before upgrading. Source: Global designing cities Fig 1.17. A street in Korogocho street after upgrading. Source: Global designing cities.

Fig 1.18.

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Fig 1.16

Fig 1.15

The street paving has built a continuous floor that connects the slum to the larger city and facilitates local displacement and activeness (figure 1.16 - 1.17). The new ‘Talking Walls’ which consist mostly of facades of the houses, reflect the locals’ concern for and development of their surroundings: They were used to pass information and messages of hope. The new equipment in the area created possibilities that enhance and improve the appropriation of urban space for a larger proportion of the day.

Fig 1.17

After the mapping of important attraction points, the Activities associated with the street were categorized into three categories: priority activities such as hiding to work or school, buying food, and taking transportation. Optional activities and social activities that involve interaction with other people.

This helped to understand the level of activity in the streets (figure 1.18). The conclusions from this analysis showed that the majority of attraction points are on Kamunde Road and Market Road, that the market is a major attraction point and finally, it showed the entrance points to the slum provide several important functions and activities (figure 1.19). These spots were given particular attention during the planning process.

Fig 1.18

The intervention had a strong impact on street flow and capital flow: the number of vendors and businesses has increased in Korogocho, consequently, the inhabitants could feel a rise in competition in a sense that new microeconomic activities were generated like small businesses and street vendors that could also operate at night thanks to street lighting.

Moreover, the streets have contributed to boosting the movement flow which gave more customers, and have made products availability easier. However, illicit activities continue to be an issue in Korogocho, but they have diminished in most areas thanks to street improvements.

Fig. 1. 18. Activity level in Korogocho streets. Source: UN Habitat.

Adapted by author

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Fig 1.19 Fig 1.19. Attraction points along the street. Source: UN Habitat.

Adapted by author

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Finally, in the framework of the last concept which is Conception, three parameters were taken into consideration: safety and security, sense of belonging and appropriation, and social relations. Workshops and interviews were organized for this matter in order to understand what the street represents for inhabitants and how it is perceived by different groups in the different villages The perception of the inhabitants varies from one village to another. The street upgrading, particularly the illumination and street widening, had undoubtedly increased security in the region. This has given the inhabitants the possibility to choose more secure areas. Despite the conflicts that have been raised due to relocation and land restructuring along the course of the project, since the streets were upgraded, many residents are satisfied and more proud of their villages. They have noticed a better connection of the slum to the surrounding and thus, it gave them a feeling of better social inclusion in their city.

Various key lessons were listed on the basis of the Korogocho street upgrading experience. Among them, street upgrading goes beyond laying paving, it is about making a comprehensive flexible street design that responds to different uses, community needs, and temporalities of street life. Moreover, the design has to take into consideration the existing social structures that represent the social capital of the slum. This is a strong part of the slum identity that must be preserved and promoted.

The local community has participated in the process through interviews and questionnaires by proposing improvement ideas that were in most cases about traffic safety and flow organization and accommodation.

A large number of inhabitants have commented in the interviews concerns about smoothening the process of evictions and extending the infrastructure in all villages.

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02.

Dharavi Fig 1.21

Fig 1.22

30

Fig 1.20

Re-inventing Dharavi through

an incremental street-led approach

Asia’s most known slum, Dharavi, located in the city of Mumbai, the financial capital of India (figure 1.22). It is the world’s second-largest slum after the Orangi Town in Pakistan with around 1.000.000 people. Like all slums, Dharavi faces a series of problems such as water and air pollution, absence of sewage and drainage systems, tenure issues… Although, if we focus on its potentialities, Dharavi has a unique characteristic which is a very close live-work relationship. In nearly every home we can find productive activities which make the economic activity of Dharavi decentralized, home-based, low-tech, and labor-intensive (Cervilla et al., N.A). As a result, this has generated a pedestrianized and community-centric incrementally developing urban form.

Apte (2008) has described this model

as an example that many planners aim to recreate in cities around the world and argued that “a simplistic re-zoning and segregating of these activities would certainly hurt this very unique urban form.”

Dharavi is worldwide-known as one of the world’s most important human settlements needing a vital intervention.

In this context, Reinventing Dharavi competition was launched in 2014 to come up with new strategies, approaches, and holistic interventions for the improvement of living conditions in a sustainable manner combining multiple dimensions: health and sanitation, recreation, education, economics, environment…

Felixx Landscape architects and planners’ proposal aims to make use of the street as an access point to a gradual redevelopment to integrate Dharavi into the city of Mumbai. They base their approach on three main strategies that they integrate into the redesigned street (figure 1.23): Infrastructure and mobility (connecting to Mumbai and enhancing the public realm for greater accessibility and mobility), Water & sanitation (developing conexions with the Mithi river and improving the water system to guarantee better sanitation), and finally, Regeneration & Development (Streetled approach to slum upgrading and provoking urban development through the connection with Mumbai).

Unlike the government-driven top-down strategies that reflect the struggle to organize the informal grown community, the main idea was to connect instead of framing. To reach this objective, the working team organizes the strategies into six steps:

Fig 1.23

1. Use the natural elements as qualities: Using the Mithi riverbed as an engineered wetland for flood protection and as a park of recreation adding environmental values to Dharavi.

2. Make Dharavi part of Mumbai: the working team aims to develop a new street section in the main infrastructure connection through Dharavi, organize the flows and the uses, and inject new functions along the street (figure 1.24).

Fig 1.20. Proposal of revitalization of a street in Dharavi slum. Source: Felixx.

Fig 1.21. India in the world map . By Author Fig 1.22. Mumbai City in India’s map. By author.

Fig 1.23. Felixx proposal scheme.

By author Fig 1.24. Integration process scheme. Source: Felixx, adapted by author.

Fig 1.24

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This infrastructure will be used to create an underground grey-water connection to guarantee the drainage for Dharavi: the water will be cleaned by the engineered wetlands before it flows to the river (figure 1.25) 3. Develop the 90ft Road as a multimodal green urban backbone 4. Use the existing disconnected streets and alleys to establish a local street network and develop its hierarchy to improve the accessibility to the nagars and allow for different traffic modalities to be used. This guarantees the link of the inner neighborhoods Existing situation

Street upgrade

Gradual development

Fig 1.25

32

with the higher infrastructures and thereby profit from it. In parallel to this, sewage networks collect wastewater, and clean water supplies are provided in Dharavi. Furthermore, giving names to the streets serves to enhance the identification of the slum dwellers with their living environment. The new nodes resulting from upgraded street crossing create focal locations for small business development.

5. Creating a central square in the heart of each nagar, connected to the street network, as a platform to enhance social interaction and commercial activities (figure 1.26).

6. Redevelopment of the nagars by upgrading the internal built fabric within the new framework of the streets (Felix, 2014).

This leads to a complex public space system that controls the various solutions within a participatory process that involves both local entrepreneurs and international developers who link every scale from the Mumbai Metropolitan region to the various neighborhoods of Dharavi.

Fig 1.25. Incremental development: Mobility and urban facade development. Source: Felixx Fig 1.26. Incremental development: Central squares in the nagars. Source: Felixx

Existing situation

Street upgrade

Gradual development

Fig 1.26

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33

03.

Santa M Fig 1.28

Fig 1.29

34

Fig 1.27

Rebrand Rio Slums with Expansive Mural Makeover

The favelas have represented part of the urban landscape of Rio de Janeiro since the 1850s when the hills of the city center were gradually occupied by a significant number of precarious wooden shacks (Gonçalves, 2008).

Various policies were established to improve living conditions in this kind of settlement.

Research has shown that colors have many psychological effects. Hence, the idea of putting paint brushes into the hands of slum dwellers and covering the crowded, dusty buildings into a colorful canvas as a way to tackle this growing phenomenon (Zaremba, N.A).

The social dimension of this idea not only offers temporary job opportunities to the slum inhabitants but also raises the sense of belonging and positively affects these areas.

Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, two artists from the Netherlands were the first to come up with the idea of Painting the Favela in order to fight against the hopelessness of slums.

Since 2005, they’ve been raising money and awareness for a slum in Rio de Janeiro. Favela Painting, their art endeavor, brings people together by transforming the dirty structures into a single work of art. Their first project was a simple painting of a boy flying a kite covering three houses in the center of a community called Vila Cruzeiro. Encouraged by the success it has known, they decided to take their project to another level. The second intervention was painting a street covered with concrete and transform it into a river in the Japanese style with the help of Rob Admiral, a tattoo artist, and some locals (figure 1.30) After

that, Haas & Hahn wanted to include more locals in the process and cover more houses with a much simpler design. In 2010 the next project took place in a Favela in the central part of Rio called Santa Marta that consisted in the transformation of a square (figure 1.31a) into a colorful attractive painting over 7000 square meters, which included thirty-four surrounding houses. (figure 1.31b) These artworks are called “points of pride” by the favela dwellers which reflect the positive effect that it had on the community.

Fig 1.30 a

Fig 1.31 a

In their TED conference in October 2014, Haas & Hahn revealed that both the informality and the strong sense of community of these settlements were the inspiration for their artwork: “The favela was not only the place where this idea started … Together with the people, you can almost work like in an orchestra, where you can have a hundred instruments playing together to create a symphony.”

Fig 1.27. Santa Maria Favela painted walls. Source : https://clickmylook. wordpress.com/2013/11/08/favelapainting/ Fig 1.28. Brazil in the world map Fig 1.29. Rio de Janeiro City in Brazil’s map Fig 1.30. Favela Villa Cruzeiro hill before and after being painted.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=iCXfJVCg1LA&t=404s Fig 1.31. Favela Santa Marta public square before and after being painted.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=iCXfJVCg1LA&t=404s

Fig 1.30 b

Fig 1.31 b

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Fig 1.32

Fig 1.32. El Seed’s mural painting covering Manshiyat Naser houses.

Source: Samuel Forey

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The use of mural painting to improve the esthetic dimension of the slum landscape did not stop in the favelas but has already started to tour informal settlements in several countries. Egypt is one of them. In 2014 The Tunisian artist El Seed started a project of a mural painted across 50 buildings in Manshiyat Naser neighborhood in Cairo in order to beautify a poor neglected area. The artwork appears in scraps on the streets of the neighborhood, separated from one another and standing alone (El Seed, 2016) and it carries a relevant message for the

community. In this case, they were Arabic words of St. Athanasius of Alexandria that mean: “Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eyes first.” After receiving positive feedback from the local community, El Seed started questioning the real purpose of this project. During the process, he understood it was not about improving a location by introducing art to it., but rather about “switching perception and opening a dialogue on the connection that we have with communities that we don’t know” (El Seed, 2016).

COMPARISON TABLE Korogocho Location Area Population

Dharavi

Santa Marta

Mumbain, India

Rio de janeiro, Brazil

82 ha

223 ha

7.22 ha

42.000 inhabitants

1.000.000 inhabitants

8000 inhabitants

Nairobi, Kenya

Type of Project

UN-Habitat uppgrading project

Date of Project

2012

2014

2010

Project progress

Done

-

Done

-Street paving -Street lighting -Street naming by the residents -Wall painting -Improved drainage -Urban furniture -Natural and agricultural vegetation

-Street network with developed hierarchy; - Create an urban backbone -Creating central squares -Create a resilient water system by connecting the slum to the river -Develop street crossing nodes

-Facades painting -Public space floor painting

Strategies

Community Participation Aspects

-Workshops organisation in schools -Interviews with inhabitants -Neighborhood participatory exercises.

Competition (by Felixx architects)

(The project has not been selected in the compitition)

Artists initiative

-The inhabitants helped painting the facades

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5. Streetlife in Morocco Moroccan population has a strong tradition of living in Gemeinschafts, where there is a shared culture, people greet each other without necessarily knowing each other, and a deep sense of identity exists (Luthander & Gustavsson; 2014). The Street, or as called in the Moroccan context ‘Zenka’, is a vital and crucial element anchored in the culture and the daily life of Moroccans. Zenka in Moroccan dialect is a synonym of ‘outside’. It’s a place sometimes for rediscovering the city: either through circulation or as a gathering space to ‘hang out’. It is a place of urban sociability expression which receives and generates practices and pieces of individual and collective life (Moussalih, N.A).

The street represents a playful space.

It is explored by different Moroccan users in different ways. In this variablegeometry legal framework, individuals continue to negotiate the limits of their autonomy, in a quest for self-realization and seeking to assert their right to the city despite illegal practices. From this point of view, certain deviant practices of public spaces appear as forms of resistance for more justice (Anglade, 2015). By way of illustration, the streets represent the principal support of the informal economy in a sense that the Ferracha (informal street vendors) take possession of the streets where they bargain aloud with the poor and the rich, exchange words and goods, and transform it into an informal market (figure 1.33).

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The Moroccan Zenka is also a place for frequent cultural manifestation. In fact, Morocco has a long history of street theater. Several actors assemble around a narrator and play out the story in the Halka (literally “circle”) (figure 1.33). Moreover, for some users, streets are seen as a playground, especially for kids and street football players, one of Morocco’s most popular outdoor activities (figure 1.35, 1.36).

Furthermore, the street space is also used for practicing religious rituals, spatially during the Eids (Muslim holiday) where man and children meet to do the morning prayer together in a mosque, but also several times, in the street (figure 1.37).

However, in Morocco and in many less developed countries, the planning and management of streets, or more general public space, often lacks coherence and global vision. Indeed, it is clear that in Morocco and many other countries, the right to freely enjoy the streets poses many security problems: theft, sexual harassment, the dilapidated state of infrastructure, etc. Citizens, and more especially women, often complain about the lack of security in public spaces aggravated by the lack of infrastructure (public transport, lighting), but also by the trivialization of violence in public spaces and particularly violence against women (HEM, 2018).

Fig 1.33

Fig 1.34

Fig 1.35

Fig 1.36

Fig 1.33. Moroccan Halka in Marrakesh. Source: Ahmed Ben Smail Fig 1.34. Informal vendors occupying the street. Source: https://cerss.org/archives/3880 Fig 1.35. Kids playing in the main street next to the bidonville. Source: Yassin Alaoui Ismaili Fig 1.36. Football games in the streets of Casablanca. Source: Youssef Ouchen Casablanca, Urbanity beyond Formal City

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Fig 1.37. Eid Al Fitr prayer in the streets of Casablanca. Source: Yassin Alaoui Ismail

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CONCLUSION: In sum, the streets offer several facets: lucrative, fun, cultural, supportive, rewarding, and liberating. The social life of users is woven in the streets, through temporalities that provide many opportunities for urban areas to adjust, coexist, and perpetuate the compromise necessary for city life (Anglade,2015). In the bidonvilles, the narrow labyrinthine streets are the only public space that exists. The inhabitants of the bidonvilles have a strong appropriation of the street and use their sense of belonging as an identification referring

to the persons living in the same street as ‘Wlad derbi’ (literally, sons of my street). Furthermore, in these kind of settlements, the street is not only a public space but is often used as an extension of the housing unit for some functions such as the laundry room.

The way the bidonville’s inhabitants perceive the street and appropriate outdoor space should be seen as a strong potential of the bidonville and therefore, could be an interesting entry point to its upgrading.

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Fig 2.1. Inequality in Papwa Sewgolum Golf Course, Durban.

Source: Johnny Miller, https://unequalscenes.com

02. Methotology In this chapter, the methodology of the research that has been followed throughout this thesis will be elaborated and presented to address the problem and context of study, analysis and reflections of the project in hand. Afterwards, a brief elaboration on the conceptual framework is introduced. There are also methods used for theoretical, conceptual and analytical understanding of the problem.

At the end of it, in order to understand urban and social structures that will allow us to address the bidonvilles, a list of indicators to be analyzed in different scales is presented and followed by the outcomes expected in each scale.

Sections : 1. Theoretical foundation 2. Research framework 3. Indicators and outcomes

1. Theoretical Foundation: True “urban enclaves”, the bidonvilles spaces are in physical, social and economic rupture with the formal city that surrounds them, and which they surround by their organic evolution, out of any urban planning on the one hand, and their singular organization, characteristic of these places, on the other hand. A strong feeling of stigmatization appears, the difference is frightening, and therefore the city is divided into two opposing entities, a dichotomy between the planned City and the non-planned, informal city in perpetual movement.

The theoretical underpinning section will explain the project’s key hypotheses.

It is divided into two parts: The first part encompasses the potentialities of streets in the bidonvilles and how it can be an entry point to an upgrading project. The second part focuses on the argument against the Ville Sans Bidonville program. After that, the conceptual framework section will highlight the interaction and impact of the key research principles established in the theoretical section on each other in the context of this project.

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Streets as vectors of upgrading Jane Jacobs, a well-known urbanist and activist, claims that the most unique feature of a territory is the public life that occurs between the residents on the streets and squares where a functioning urban life demonstrates a strong combination between freedom and social order. As a result, there is more diversity (Jacobs, 2005).

Jacobs insightfully arguments that there is no clear connection between decent housing and well-functioning urban environments. Obviously, good housing quality leads to good urban quality, but this is not always the case. According to Jacobs, the streets are the most important public spaces and the city’s most vital organs where people gather.

As mentioned before, the bidonvilles are in physical, social and economic rupture with the formal city which surrounds them and which they surround by their organic evolution out of any urban planning due to an absence of streets and open spaces (UN Habitat, 2012). The Bidonvilles

are not only the accumulation of barracks made of collected and recycled materials stacked on top of each other, they are also a network of streets, squares, exterior spaces which are important to be taken into account in the understanding process of what a bidonville is. Streets are the support of social and economic life and a specific characteristic of a bidonville constituting its labyrinthine fabric, full of surprises, unexpected mixtures of spaces with various uses, impossible to predict. Therefore, the integration process should begin by studying and assessing the relationship between the inhabitant and the street as a potential and therefore, a vector of change.

making nor the implementation process, and their rejection of the resettlement project should push us to look into an alternative holistic bottom-up approach, focused on the inhabitants and their social needs to make them part of the overall city system.

Ville Sans bidonville program failure As it will be explained in the next chapter, the non-achievement of the ‘Villes Sans Bidonvilles’ program goals even after 11 years of the first set deadline and the increasing number of bidonville dwellers are strong arguments that the program has failed.

Moreover, the lack of participation of the population concerned in the decision

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2. Research Framework

46

3. Indicators and outcomes

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Fig 3.1. Casalanca photography by Lorenzo Salemi

“What we are ultimately aiming for is not just to have cities without slums, or to substitute soulless concrete blocks, resistant to any sociability. Rather, we intend to erect our cities into spaces conducive to life in good understanding, conviviality, and dignity, and make them poles of investment and production, and agglomerations attached to their specificity and the originality of their stamp. “ His Majesty King Mohammed VI, The National Meeting of Local Authorities.

Agadir, 12/12/2006

03. Case study: Casablanca At first, this chapter will introduce the city of Casablanca. It aims to explain the main reasons behind the emergence and the proliferation of the bidonvilles, and it critically presents how this phenomenon was dealt with in the past and the present.

Moreover, this chapter will elaborate the structure of the city of Casablanca in order to understand its morphological, economic and social characteristics. This analysis will allow us to comprehend the relationship between the bidonvilles and the city. Through a morphological and social analysis, we are going to identify the strengths and weaknesses in order to show the dichotomy between activity and fragility of Casablanca.

Sections : 1. Casablanca and the Bidonvilles 1.1. Context: Casablanca city 1.2. The emergence of the bidonville 1.3. Past slum policies 1.4. The Moroccan version of “Cities Without Slums” 1.5. Villes Sans Bidonvilles: Critical review 2. Casablanca : Between activity and fragility 2.1. Urban Morphology 2.2. Activities 2.3. Social indicators

1. Casablanca and the Bidonvilles 1.1 Context : Casablanca City

Fig 3.2

Fig 3.3

Fig 3.2. Morocco in the world map.

By author.

Fig 3.3. Casablanca in Morocco’s map. By author.

Fig 3.4. Urban evolution of Casablanca through history. By author.

50

Before presenting the object of the urban analysis, Casablanca, it seems important to briefly introduce the Moroccan context. This Northwestern African country of 36,470,000 inhabitants, whose administrative capital is Rabat, has undergone profound changes during the 20th century.

Casablanca is the largest and densest city in Morocco and its economic capital thanks to its geographical location facilitating land and sea trade. The dynamic metropolis of more than 4 million inhabitants covers an area of almost 386 km² on the west coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It developed brilliantly from the 20th century: from a small port city of 20,000 inhabitants in the early 1910s to become today the first metropolis of the Maghreb and an “emerging megacity”.

If we take a quick look at the plans, the city appears fragmented, showing an irregular urban fabric. At first glance, therefore, there seems to be a particular organization that does not fall within an ancient dominant fabric, around which the city could have been organized (Fossorier, 2017). This fragmentation dates back to the first city planning in 1912 when Morocco officially was placed under the French protectorate. The French architect Henri Prost has painted an atypical portrait of Casablanca. His idea was to create the city at the base of zoning, instead of thinking of it as a whole, to manage its evolution following the country’s economic and demographic

trends. From this idea, an overall plan emerges: the east regroups commercial and industrial activities, in the west, the residential districts overlooking the sea are dedicated to Europeans, and in the center, the administrative buildings and residential areas of the Muslim population take place. With his plan, Prost proposed a clear separation into neighborhoods by differentiating the settlements of the indigenous population from the European communities, following the colonial doctrine which aims at certain segregation (Hassani, 2020).

Over the years, with new factors that came into play, we can still see this image of fragmented urban mosaics that is not limited to the spatial dimension but also translated into the social plan, in a sense that Casablanca is experiencing increasing inequalities and poverty. The socio-spatial problems are manifested through a number of issues such as urban expansion, excessive density, increased reliance on street economy activities, Bidonville proliferation, deterioration of public facilities, and a limited transportation network.

Population: 25.000

Population: 135.800

Population: 728.000

Population: 2.670.000

Population: 3.361.000

Fig 3.4

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1.2 The emergence of the bidonvilles Since the 20th century, as a result of its economic development, Casablanca has been the main migratory terminus for people leaving their home towns.

Escallier (1980) relate this to the fact that the city was the only important industrial pole at the time and consequently, and that it was the first Moroccan city to acquire the status of a metropolis, with higher-level dominance and direction instruments, allowing it to stand apart from the rest of the national territory.

In the center of Casablanca, the uneven evolution of migration flows highlights the diversity of socioeconomic facts and the socializing characteristics of migrants. In general, the urban populations experience a favorable integrationist path. In this matter, Escallier (1980) explains that the regions that have preserved social structures produce flows of immigrants who benefit from networks of promotional relations and mutual assistance. Regions like the Atlantic costs where modernity leads to worker proletarization and the loss of traditional social bonds, on the other hand, lead for the rise of informal settlements (bidonvilles), a poorer kind of urban economy, and social injustice.

On the other hand, regions (such as the Atlantic plains) where modernization leads to a proletarization of the workers and the loss of conventional social relationships allow for the growth of informal settlements (slums), a lower

52

form of urban economy, and social injustice.

This expansion that Casablanca experienced in the 20th century is owing in large part to a strong migratory wave that is projecting uprooted peasants from destabilized rural areas to cities along the Atlantic coast. If we stick to current appearances, one could imagine that this wave of migration was merely a product of the city’s economic modernization. However, if we stick to the findings of most researchers who aim to understand the more general causes of Moroccan migration to modern cities, the following factors should be classified in order of importance: the country’s overpopulation; the drying up of the southern and pre-Saharan regions; and the growing desire to raise the standard of material living. In addition to this, some secondary factors, less effective and more local come into play such as the development of European colonization; locust invasions; overgrazing and disintegration of cultivable soils; the grabbing of land by notables and violations of the native command; the disintegration of pastoral society and racial tensions are some of the secondary factors that are less effective and more local (Montagne, 1952). Whatever the reason is, the rural migrant, becoming a bidonvilles dweller, found it hard to integrate within the city since there were neither provisions in housing nor public facilities (Cohen and Eleb, 2002, p:325).

In the 1920s, the first bidonville appeared in Casablanca as a product of colonization (figure 3.5). On the one hand, the colonial administration refused to share the urban space with the Moroccan proletariat and to guarantee housing to the growing number of Moroccan rural-urban migrants seeking job opportunities in the fast-growing city. Their cheap workforce, on the other hand, was necessary for colonial factories. In order to keep distances between the fresh society and the Moroccan workers, the colonial administration established strict plans of spatial ethnic segregation by keeping the medinas untouched and building modern European cities next to them. This contributed to the emergence of the first informal settlement in Casablanca then their proliferation in several areas of the city (figure 3.6) (Beier, 2019).

Following Casablanca’s fast and constant expansion, and by developing and diversifying its activities, the city has become a metropolitan entity and a complex urban body with a high level of heterogeneity of the urban fabric. A fragmented city where several quarters of diverse ideologies help to create the city’s urban mosaic: villa districts, modern collectives (experiments by the French), the European French town or the so-called “la Ville Nouvelle”, traditional collectives, housing estates, the old medina, the new medina, and the bidonvilles. This richness of the urban fabric causes the emergence

of contradictions, a diversity of socioeconomic components, and cultural characteristics of neighborhood populations (Escallier, 1980).

Fig 3.5

Fig 3.6 Fig 3.5. Postcard of the first bidonville in Casablanca, 1920 Fig 3.6. Casablanca 1950’s map Carte 1950 Bidonville by Michel Eccochard. Source: https:// www.arquiscopio.com/pensamiento/la-tramaecochard-en-marruecos/?lang=fr

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1.3 Past policies to tackle the issue of bidonvilles: After the mid-1990s, 57% of the Moroccans are living in cities– an important part of them in informal settlements, self-built shantytowns called “Bidonvilles” that represented the first stopping point for low-income arrivals by providing low-cost and affordable housing that will enable the immigrants to save for their eventual absorption into urban society (UN Habitat, 2003, p: 7). A total of 212,000 households were classified as bidonvilles, accounting for 10% of the city’s population. Another 19%, or 520,000 homes, were designated as clandestine quarters (World Bank, 2006, p: 7). Between 1992 and 2001, the number of bidonville inhabitants increased by 5.6% per year and the clandestine quarter households increased at 4.9% per year (Benjelloun, 2003, p: 2).

Fig 3.7. The building “Nid d’Abeilles” (Bee Hive) shanty town. Source: Moroccan minister of Habita.

Fig 3.8. Aerial view of the bidonville and the Ecochard project designed by Georges Candilis and Sadrach Woods in 1952 and in 2016. Source: Léopold Lambert.

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The bidonvilles were always considered a disturbing element that bothered the visitors and damaged the image of the city. Since their emergence, these territories are seen as areas that should be eradicated since they were built without any plans nor construction permits and represent extreme life conditions of a vulnerable population (Boudouaya, 2020).

Thereupon, the Moroccan government has implemented many strategies to reduce or eradicate the Bidonvilles in the courTose of the last century.

It started with Michel Écochard (a French architect and planner who played an important role during the French protectorate in urban planning in Casablanca between 1946 and 1952) who recognized the potential that Casablanca’s bidonvilles held and that needs to be dynamic. Ecochard has developed a plan (1943) (1950) (1955) known as the sanitary framework (figure 3.7; 3.8) that has been successively reproduced in the following decades.

Another strategy that was implemented was the so-called urban development projects (PDU) during the period 19701980, then from 1980 the strategy of building plots (Znagui, 2019). These different strategies have certainly improved the lives of some bidonville dwellers, nonetheless, none of them proved to be totally successful since the bidonvilles still exist and continue to each year with an average of 10 thousand households per year (Belkacem, 2020).

Fig 3.7

Fig 3.8

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1.4 The Moroccan version of Cities Without Slums: The Moroccan government, with the assistance and support of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), NGOs, and international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank, has announced the ambitious “Villes Sans Bidonvilles” (VSB, Cities Without Shantytowns) program as part of the 2020 “Cities Without Slums” initiative (Semlali, 2021).

Since 2003, and largely in response to the Casablanca bombings of the 16th Mai that deepened the stigmatization of the slums as a breeding ground for radical Islamists (Zaki, 2005), the Moroccan government has increased its efforts to tackle the ‘issue’ of the bidonvilles through the integration of disadvantaged populations into the social fabric and the creation of programmes dealing with the increasing housing crisis that has tormented Moroccan cities (Zemni & Bogaert, 2011). It is under the banner of housing reform that the Moroccan government with the assistance and support the US Agency for International Development (USAID), NGOs, and international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank, has announced the ambitious programme “Villes Sans Bidonvilles” (VSB, Cities Without Shantytowns) in the framework of “Cities Without Slums” initiative of UN-Habitat and the World Bank, first launched following their joint organization the Cities Alliance in 2000

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(Semlali, 2021).

The objective of the Ville Sans Bidonville initiative is to fight against the informal settlements and eradicate the bidonvilles, basically by displacing the inhabitant to peripheral serviced plots. The main goal of the program was to provide decent housing for the over 270,000 households residing in bidonvilles by 2010, a deadline that has been repeatedly extended (Moroccan Ministry of Housing, 2017).

However, since that date, the number of households has increased with an average of 34 percent per year: more than 10,250 households have been added to the initial number bringing the total population to 362,320 households in 88 bidonvilles. So far, the supervisory department has worked with 230,087 households (64 percent of the total) that have benefited from the rehousing project (Semlali, 2021).

The VSB program is based on four fundamental principles: The four basic concepts that underpin the VSB principles are as follows: 1. Providing slum dwellers with financial opportunities (loans. microcredit. etc,) 2. Introducing city contracts to regulate VSB execution at the national, regional, and local levels, as well as foster a collaborative decision-making approach; 3. Making the public-private sector nexus a central feature of the VSB program;

4. Fostering the construction of affordable housing, with the aim of producing 100,000 residential housing units and serviced land plots each year.

In 2004, when the VSB program was launched, the Moroccan Ministry of Housing identified around five million Moroccans living in “low quality housing” in different urban fabrics (Moroccan Ministry of Housing, 2017). At its start, the VSB Program concerned 70 cities; it now covers 85. It involves more than 1.5 million inhabitants of approximately 850 bidonvilles scattered over the 85 cities.

In June 2018, as a result of the program, the Kingdom of Morocco declared 58 of 85 cities across the country as slum-free (Atia, 2019). Although, we must precise that these 58 cities that were claimed to be “bidonville-free” are generally small cities, so this “bidonville-free” classification does not necessarily have a significant impact on the absolute number of families living in shantytowns (Guessous, 2020).

Fig 3.11

Fig 3.9

Fig 3.10

Fig 3.9. A man sleeping in the street after the demolition of his barrack.

Source: Fadel Senna Fig 3.10. The children of the Assibo douar in front of their “new barracks”. Source: MEE Margaux Mazellier Fig 3.11. Confrontation between the police and bidonville dwellers resisting eviction. Source: Fadel Senna

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VSB Modes of Intervention The program is structured on the basis of three methods of absorption: Restructuring (Restructuration) entails providing the necessary infrastructure equipment (sanitation, roads, drinking water, electrification) to the large and medium-sized bidonvilles that could be absorbed into the urban fabric, as well as regularizing their urban and land situation. In this case, the expense is estimated at 1.5 million dirhams per hectare. State funding (50 percent of the cost) is earmarked for road and sanitation equipment.

Moreover, drinking water supply, street lighting and electricity networks are the responsibility of the beneficiaries with a contribution (Znagui, 2019). However, this previous policy failed due to funding issues and the desire of bidonville dwellers to profit from the apartments or plots. As a result, this method of action was abandoned (Atia, 2019).

Rehousing (Relogement) is about displacing the bidonville households from their barracks in the center of the city to five-story social housing in the periphery (figure 3.12). This mode of intervention is designed to rehouse identified bidonville residents and, in some cases, households impacted by de-densification operations in areas to be restructured (UN-Habitat - VSBP evaluation, 2011). In the framework of the rehousing strategy, the bidonville households have to make a deposit on a 200.000 MAD apartment and make a mortgage on the remaining sum.

Although the government created a loan

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qualification scheme to make mortgages easily accessible by the population, the bidonville households, who work mainly in the informal sector, saw the loans as too risky and the prices as prohibitively high. Given the objections of bidonville dwellers that the program has faced, the rehousing strategy is considered (even by the government) as a failure and represents less than 10% of the VSB program. Another reason for the failure of the rehousing program was the lack of consideration of the bidonville resident’s social needs, such as education and sanitation equipments, transportations, retail stores, Hammams (bathhouses), etc. It’s basically only about building housing. The social component is relegated to the background.

In addition to this, the bidonville dwellers were unsatisfied and disappointed by the apartments they were sold, proclaiming that they were too small, poorly built and ill-equipped. Thus, many residents rejected them. Despite their vulnerability, the population vigorously contested and resisted their administration, financing and relocation. (Atia, 2019).

Fig 3.12

Resettlement (Recasement) as

an alternative to the preceding solution that was about requiring inhabitants to take up loans and live in five-story housing buildings constructed by private-public-partnerships. policy entails the development of entirely or partially serviced economic housing plots (between 64 and 70 m² for singlefamily lots and 80 m² for two-family lots) ) in order to encourage assisted self-construction by households (with specific parameters) in which they are permitted to create a commercially zoned ground floor unit as well as a three-story apartment building (figure 3.13). The on-site facilities will be provided progressively while completing their plots. (ZAP: Zone d’Aménagement Progressif).

In the beginning, the initiative counted 32 percent of households affected by restructuring, 23 percent by rehousing and 45 percent by resettlement (including 10% by resorting to ZAPs).

Nonetheless, the majority of the current trend favors resettlement over the other two modes of intervention, which are more complex and less accepted by the affected communities (UNHabitat – VSP evaluation, 2011). The resettlement strategy was developed in response to previous policies and was well-received by bidonville residents due to its affordability, the opportunity to own property, and a potential source of profits. The program’s greatest flaw is that very few slum dwellers had the financial means to build their new homes.

In most cases, the new residents turned to third-party developers to take charge of the construction costs. In return, the dwellers owe the developer the ground floor or third apartment (Toutain, Rachmuhl, 2014).

Fig 3.13

Fig 3.12. Apartments offered in the new Lahraouiyine urban zone in the outskirts of Casablanca within the framework of Karyan Central’s households rehousing.

Source: aujourdhui.ma Fig 3.13. Resettlement site allowing the inhabitants to build their own houses (R+3) in the outskirts of the city.

Source: Hatem Chakroun

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1.5 Villes Sans Bidonvilles: Critical review As mentioned before, the program Villes Sans Bidonvilles aims to create cities without shantytowns, not to develop “slum-free cities”, as explained by one of the key stakeholders Al Omrane (Al Omrane, 2010). The VSB scheme does not aim to improve conditions in all types of “slums,” including medinas, run-down public housing estates, overcrowded tenements, and non-regulatory housing (habitat non-réglementaire). Instead, some VSB scholars fear that the program simply displaces residents out of slowly progressing neighborhoods (Beier, 2019, p: 104). In reality, the VSBP is dedicated to the abolition of bidonvilles, which King Mohammed VI believes are incompatible with Morocco’s modern picture.

As long as the emphasis is solely on the bidonvilles and the words ‘reduction’ and ‘eradication’ are prominently used, Huchzermeyer is concerned about the slogan’s misleading consequences (Huchzermeyer 2011). The VSB’s preference for resettlement and relocation policies that are not aligned with upgrading policies recommended

by UN-Habitat, the Cities Alliance, and, later, the SDGs, further strengthen these impressions. As a result, there are serious questions about whether the program’s main goal is to improve the lives of bidonville inhabitants or to clear inhabited sites to make way for speculative investment opportunities (Navez-Bouchanine, 2003; Erroudi, 2019). Doubts also arise since the VSB report highlights that the main goal is

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to “eradicate all shantytowns, which account for approximately 362,327 households [...] in 85 cities and urban areas’’ (MHUPV 2012, 14). Furthermore, program administrators assess the program’s success using basic statistical data, such as the number of cities declared bidonville-free and the number of people displaced. The social and economic impacts of the program are left to the second plan.

Despite this concern, the VSB program has received widespread international acclaim. UN Habitat and other multilateral organizations, including the World Bank, have hailed the VSB initiative as a huge achievement, declaring it as a replicable and flexible model for other governments in the region (World Bank, 2006). Tunisia and Egypt’s Minister of Housing have also started to replicate the strategy, and UN Habitat dubbed the initiative “the best of its kind in Africa awarding Morocco second place after Indonesia in delivering “one of the world’s most effective and systematic slum reduction and improvement program(s)” (UN Habitat, 2010). Despite UN Habitat’s praise for VSB, the program has been criticized and did not meet the satisfaction of the bidonville communities for diverse reasons:

Fig 3.14

Fig 3.14. Selected Resettlement projects in Casablanca since 2004.

Source: Rafael Beier, 2019. Map adapted by author.

Expulsion from the city Chouiki (1997) argues that public authorities, especially in Casablanca, have always favored the displacement strategy to get rid of poor population groups inside the city. He sees it as a process of social selection that encourages “planned segregation at the urban periphery” based on housing.

Given the location of resettlement sites (figure 3.14), many slum dwellers interested in rehousing or resettlement view these policies as a massive exclusion mechanism implemented to drive them from the city to the desert, leading to the lack of social networks, urbanity, and centrality (Beier,2019).

The forced displacement to the periphery of the city goes hand in hand with a threat to lifestyle, work and mobility habits. An important portion of the inhabitants are reliant on their original living location for small-scale trading practices and jobs in the informal economy. As a result of being moved out of the city centre to an area that is often less dynamic and economically interesting, the bidonville residents face significant jobs and professional integration challenges (Guessous, 2020). Moreover, one of the main causes that exacerbates socio-spatial and economic segregation from which the displaced population suffers are spatial problems that restrict mobility and transportation (Bartoli, 2011)

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Resettlement is expensive

Resettlement causes Urban sparwl

The resettlement program adds additional expenses to an already tight family budget such as new taxes, water, electricity, and public transportation (if available) (Ibrahim, 2011). Hence, the transfer is often accompanied by a drop in revenues and a rise in expenses because of the loss of jobs. As a result, it is common that families are obliged to cut expenses, for example their children’s schooling (Bogaert, 2011).

This is a major stumbling block for Casablanca’s relocation efforts. Not only the supply of land, but also the building of flats and the idea of a “new town” with all the required new facilities could no longer be subsidized by governments and did not address the social and economic challenges that the urban poor were facing (Boudouaya, 2020).

Aside from that, the people affected by the resettlement projects often have to find a transit home to bridge the gap between the mandatory demolition of their barrack and the building of their new apartment (Le Tellier, 2009). In a lot of cases, people resell their plots and seek shelter in another bidonville because of the extra costs.

The forced displacement to the periphery of the city goes hand in hand with a threat to lifestyle, work and mobility habits. An important portion of the inhabitants are reliant on their original living location for small-scale trading practices and jobs in the informal economy. As a result of being moved out of the city centre to an area that is often less dynamic and economically interesting, the bidonville residents face significant jobs and professional integration challenges (Guessous, 2020). Moreover, one of the main causes that exacerbates sociospatial and economic segregation from which the displaced population suffers are spatial problems that restrict mobility and transportation (Bartoli, 2011)

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Resettlement strategy of inner-city communities acted as a catalyst for the growth and development of “new cities” or “satellite towns”. The map shows how far apart and scattered the displacement sites are. 600 hectares of public space have been made available for mobilization and planning at the detriment of fertile and productive agricultural land. However, this land supply is insufficient to displace all bidonville inhabitants which represents a major stumbling block for Casablanca’s relocation efforts (Boudouaya, 2020, p:27).

Lack of participation of slum dwellers Residents of Bidonville complained that the program was top-down, that they were consulted in an advanced stage of the decision-making phase, that they were not part of the plan but rather seen as an obstacle, and that they were seen as one more component of the program rather than being the main target. Furthermore, they were not ready for the resettlement and considered the conditions to be intolerable.

Exclusiveness of VSP programme Many scholars believe the VSBP is a narrow understanding of the right to proper housing and reflects a huge gap between the product offered and social practices, since it stresses physical housing requirements while lacking facets of socio-spatial inclusion.

Nonetheless, it is the VSBP’s ability to turn slum tenants into land owners and “self-responsible” citizens that should be applauded, not its ability to create bidonville-free neighborhoods.

CONCLUSION: In 2004, 270,000 families were among the first to benefit from the VSB scheme, which was set to expire in 2010, before expanding to more than 472,000 families in 2018. This obviously demonstrates a significant increase in the population density of slums. Taking into consideration the annual increases in the number of families residing in bidonvilles, which are projected to be 10,600 per year, the program has only reached 60% of its target after eight years of the first set up deadline (Jettou, 2020).

The spread of bidonvilles and informal settlements isn’t just an “urban” problem. Rural-to-urban migration, as well as the country’s uneven distribution of income and capital, are at the core of the crisis, driving too many people to the cities in search of better living conditions. In June 2020, the report

presented by the president of the House of Auditors, Driss Jettou, concluded that the phenomenon of bidonvilles will prevail as long as rural-to-urban migration grows yearly and as long as the practice of bidonville inhabitants as a dishonest way to obtain housing continues (Belkacem, 2020).

In order to bring the phenomena into focus, responsibles must consider the long term and provide solutions such as enhancing the livelihood of both urban and rural communities to break the inflow of inhabitants to bidonvilles, placing the resident at the center of the problem.

A social justice-oriented strategy and the combinision of top-dow and bottom-up strategies would not attempt to limit slum residents’ visibility, but rather to increase their creativity and contribution to urban life (Semlali, 2021).

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2. Casablanc: Between activity and fragility 2.1 Urban morphology a. Infrastructure and mobility

Casablanca and its region have occupied a central place in Morocco’s development for over a century, both economically and culturally. Over the years, they have conquered the status of Morocco’s economic powerhouse, the main center of innovation and creation, the main place of commercial trades, and the figure of modernity and the country’s global openness.

Fig 3.15

Fig 3.15. Casablanca population density. Source: SOFA, 2004

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Casablanca has the attributes of a great metropolis. Its urban context is in constant mutation with a rapid evolution of the socio-economic framework.

With a population of over 3.5 million inhabitants of whom 30% are less than 15 years old, Morocco’s largest port representing 55% of national trade, an airport developing 51% of the country’s fly traffic, Casablanca produces 30% of the national GDP.

Casablanca’s road network is 644 kilometers long, split into motorways (64 kilometers), national roads (103 kilometers), regional roads (70 kilometers), and provincial roads (404 km). These routes allow for the fluidity of economic supplies and the mobility of inhabitants who frequently dwell outside of the metropolis, in surrounding towns (Mohammedia, Had Soualem, Berrechid, Deroua, Mediouna, etc.) .The traffic recorded on this network is 30 to 35,000 vehicles per day on national roads and 25 to 30,000 on highways (Casablanca City, 2020).

Initiated in 2004, the technical studies of the Urban Travel Plan (Plan de Déplacements Urbains (PDU)) showed that the streets of Casablanca are blocked every hour by vehicles of every kind which reflect inadequate urban mobility. Indeed, the movements are mainly on foot (53%). There is insufficient supply of public transport (one bus per 3600 inhabitants in 2004) to propose an efficient service and reduce the congestion of streets: buses represent only 13% of the city trade while taxis represent 15% of it (fiigure 3.17). In parallel, an increase in individual motorization is seen (19%). (Casablanca Transport, N.A).

Fig 3.16

Fig 3.17

Besides, the urban environment of the Grand Casablanca Region is experiencing a significant development of informal transport (figure 3.18). This involves transport by carts or Koutchi. This type of transport is widely used in outlying districts (Lissasfa, Sidi Maarouf, Moulay Rachid, Ain Harrouda ...) but also in districts not far from the city center (Al Fida, Ben Msik, Ain Chok ...).

Fig 3.16. Infrastructure and Mobility plan for 2025. Source:SDAU 2008.

Adapted by author.

Fig 3.17. Diagram of Transport Modes in Casablanca. By author.

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With the installation of many kilometers of tracks, the drilling of multiple subterranean passageways, the construction of a massive cable-stayed bridge at the city’s entry, improved signage, parking spaces, and parking spots, traffic in the city has become considerably more fluid in recent years.

However, traffic congestion remains one of the major issues plaguing Casablanca’s streets (figure 3.19 ).

Fig 3.19

The most notable shortcomings identified by the PDU studies were: Low use of public transport: The transport companies are not coordinated. In addition, they are not adapted to the travel demand of metropolitan communities due to a very low availability, insufficient coverage of urban centers, and weak service efficiency (figure 3.20). ●

Fig 3.18

Fig 3.18. Tramway line versus artisanal transport in Casablanca.

Fig 3.19. Congestion automobilein Casablanca. Source: https://www. lodj.ma/Casablanca-Un-rond-point-qui-ne-sert-a-rien_a960.html

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A significant development of automobile trips Today there are about 11 million trips per day. By 2030, this number will increase to 13 to 15 million trips per day (2.9 trips per person and per day). This increase will be reflected in car use with the number ●

of cars quadrupling by 2030 (0.9 cars per household expected by 2030).

The growing number of car traffic and urban population (5.1 million inhabitants predicted by 2030) means even more congestion, accidents, air pollution, noise, and more lack of parking.

Moreover, citizens’ access to services and economic activities was drastically reduced.

Walking: Despite the city’s continuing sprawl, walking now accounts for more than half (53%) of all urban mobility, including some very long journeys. ●

Fig 3.20

Casa Transports SA, a Local Development Company, including among its shareholders the State, local authorities and large institutions, has been entrusted with a set of structuring decisive projects for the development of the city of Casablanca. Casa Transport has noticed that the urban mobility was reduced to a simple technical dimension of “transport”. Thereupon, one of the first steps in enriching the urban mobility approach recommended by the PDU was to make the following observation: to design future urban mobility in Casablanca, we must understand the city and its development trends.

This consideration of the urban dimension of mobility makes it possible to bring together transport issues with urban issues through an effort of transversality. Therefore, three main factors are taken into account in the overall scheme of public transport on a dedicated site: ●

Mobility for all;

●

Qualification of mobility spaces;

The favored development of multi and inter modality. ●

Fig 3.121

Fig 3.20. Passengers sitting on the top of an overcrowded bus. Source: The Arab weekly https://thearabweekly. com/traffic-jams-filthy-streetsdecaying-buses-turn-life-casablancadaily-nightmare Fig 3.21. Overcrowded bus in Casablanca. Source: H24 https://www. h24info.ma/maroc/les-casablancaisne-sont-pas-prets-de-circuler-dans-denouveaux-bus/

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b. Green system The city of Casablanca has several central urban parks (figure 3.22), the main ones being those of the Arab League (28 ha) (figure 3.23), the Hermitage (15 ha), and Murdoch (6 ha). Surrounded by residential areas, they serve as local green spaces.

Some have specific equipment: play parks, closed and paying, sports equipment or botanical collections. In addition to these green urban spots, there are forest areas outside the city, in particular the northwest entrance to the Bouskoura forest, considered as the “green lung” of Casablanca, and, with much less frequentation for several years, the part the most accessible of the Echellalate forest, with the site of the waterfalls, formerly developed but today abandoned.

Casablanca has less than 1 m² of public green space per inhabitant (excluding the two forests), compared to the standard of 10 m² of the World Health Organization. Above all, the distribution of green spaces is unbalanced: the center of Casablanca is well served, the peripheral districts show serious deficiencies (SDAU, 2008).

Casa Aménagement SA, is a public limited company (S.A) under private law responsible for carrying out major urbanization and development projects (economic, cultural, environmental and social) for the Region of Casablanca Settat. The company was created in October 2008 after the presentation of the SDAU: Master Plan for Urban Development

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of Grand Casablanca (Casablanca Amenagement, N.A). The company is engaged with: Improvement of the three largest existing parks; ●

Creation of new urban parks (Sidi Moumen and Anfa) ●

●

Improving Casablanca’s green belt

The availability of green spaces in a large city, especially in densely populated areas, has a significant impact on the quality of life. The new large urban parks -complementing the existing ones- would constitute a network which, together with forests, natural preserved areas, flood-prone areas and other non-urbanized open spaces, would form a real green network on a regional scale (SDAU, 2008, p: 77). Although, among the obstacles facing these projects is the non-availability of land. In this sense, a tactical urbanism approach could be a good alternative.

Fig 3.22

Fig 3.22. Green structure distribution in Casablanca and future strategies. Source: SDAU 2008.

Adapted by author.

Fig 3.23. Park La Ligue Arab, Casablanca. Source: https://jardinessinfronteras. com/2021/01/16/casablanca-larestauracion-del-parque-de-la-ligaarabe/ Fig 3.23

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2.2 Social indicators

Casablanca, being the economic heart of the country, is experiencing an accelerated annual growth rate distributed in an unbalanced way over the city. Despite its economic evolution, Casablanca often seems more advanced on the road to human development than the rest of Morocco, however, the margins for progress remain large: Illiteracy is less prevalent there than elsewhere, yet it still affects a quarter of the overall population, including a third of women (figure 3.25). Because there are no educational institutions, it is considerably more concentrated in the periphery. These ones are located only in the city(figure 3.26) (one of the reasons why the bidonvilles dwellers refuse resettlement projects) - The participation of women in economic activity is greater there than elsewhere but remains moderate: they represent less than a third of the working population, while they form half of the population; - Social inequalities are also greater

Fig 3.25

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there than elsewhere as evidenced by the size of households living in precarious housing (16% in the region of Grand Casablanca against 7% on average in Morocco).

The SDAU cannot provide the expected answers to all these challenges on its own.

However, it can make a major contribution to this through spatial policies aimed at correcting disparities, distributing functions and equipment, and creating a balance between territories.

The SDAU proposes rebalancing policies between territories: On the one hand, an East-West rebalancing is planned since the economic dynamism tends to focus on the Anfa - Sidi Maarouf axis (West side) and it is necessary to prevent the eastern districts from becoming dormitory cities for low-income populations. On the other hand, the SDAU is aiming to rebalance the center – Periphery to avoid the glaring differences between a dynamic and well-equipped center and peripheral poles economically dependent and deprived in terms of urban services and equipment.

Fig 3.24

Fig 3.24. Households evolution map and annual rate of population change between 1994 and 2004. SDAU 2008.

Adapted by author.

Fig 3.26

Fig 3.25. Illitracy mapin Casablanca. Source: SDAU 2008.

Adapted by author.

Fig 3.26. Education equipments in Casablanca. Source: SDAU 2008.

Adapted by author.

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2.3 Economy a. Formal / informal commerce Casablanca is one of the most commercial cities in Morocco, it has a very dense commercial offer in which traditional networks remain largely predominant. Since the 1980s, modern distribution have been developed in Casablanca, with the opening of several hypermarkets, supermarkets and franchised outlets.

The trade is established in three zones of strong concentrations: the medina, the boulevards and the city center.

Other trade centers play an important role, such as Habous or Derb Ghallef.

Large stores - hypermarkets and specialized stores also form poles in their own right (SDAU, 2008).

The informal economy holds an important place in the economies of developing countries, Morocco and the Grand Casablanca are no exception. A survey carried out by the High Commission for Planning in 1999-2000 showed that the informal sector represented - at the time at the national level 20% of total employment (including agriculture and administration) and less than 1% of GDP.

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A great example of an informal economy is the Derb Ghallef bidonville(figure 3.28): a very well known informal market at the national level as a creative intellect and important IT knowledge centre that attracts annually almost half of the country’s population. The market is located in the city center and it is well connected to the other parts of the city thanks to the tramway. It is known by the reparation and reuse of the e-waste (Boudouaya, 2020). Derb Ghallef represents a good illustration of how economic activities can be the basis of vulnerable areas upgrading.

Fig 3.27

Fig 3.27. Commercial ares in Casablanca. Source: SDAU 2008.

Adapted by author.

Fig 3.28. The informal market of Derb ghallef bidonville. Source: https:// www.ecoactu.ma/lutte-contre-le-cashet-linformel-la-lf-2020-fait-elle-lepoids-face-aux-bas-de-laine/ Fig 3.28

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b. Industrial hold and main nuisances 70% of industrial jobs in Morocco are concentrated on 130 km of coastline on the Casablanca - Kenitra urban axis. About half of these jobs are allocated to the textile and agro-food sectors, which are characterized by an abundant and unskilled labor force and underdeveloped means of production.

In this economic space, Grand Casablanca occupies an important place, with half of the country’s exports and industrial jobs. The industry is undergoing major changes in Casablanca, both in terms of branches of activity, geographic deployment and the quality of establishments.

Spatially, the oldest industrial zones are located close to the center of Casablanca while new industrial ones are developing on the outskirts (SDAU, 2008, p: 12).

Today’s industry in Casablanca has a terrible environmental image due to the countless pollutants and nuisances caused directly or indirectly by the operations, especially because many enterprises are in close proximity to housing zones and thus to the inhabitants. In fact, a first analysis of the land use around these industrial areas reveals the importance of human issues and the sensitivity of many sites.

While land use is generally dominated in a nearby perimeter by activity zones, habitat is not absent.

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It is a known fact that informal settlements are often developed in close proximity to the work areas.

Thereupon, industrial areas are much related to the bidonvilles in a sense that initially, these settlements were a result of the industrialization of the city since colonial times in Casablanca.

Many bidonvilles can be observed in the map at the immediate limit of several hydrocarbon deposits or the SNEP chemical complex.

Fig 3.29

CONCLUSION: The city of Casablanca is a major attraction point of Morocco. In consequence, the government puts a lot of effort into its developments and progress. Nevertheless, Casablanca, like many other Global South metropolises, is suffering from various contrasts that damage its modern image.

Through the analysis presented, we cannot help but notice the contradictions and imbalances in all aspects between the east and west side in the one hand, and between the centre and the periphery of the city in the other hand: While the western districts reflect activity through their developed economic activity and wealthy

Fig 3.29. Industries and main nuisances in Casablanca. Source: SDAU 2008. Adapted by author.

population, the eastern and peripheral neighborhoods reveal the other face of Casablanca that shows its fragility with a deficit of equipments, services, green spaces as well as a strong industrial activity that is often a source of nuisance.

Thus, we notice that Casablanca does not succeed in going against the direction taken from its beginnings following a process of divisions by zones. It remains a fragmented city that generates segregation, incapable of ensuring equal access to the ‘urban advantages’ mentioned before.

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Fig 4.1. Erhamna bidonville. Source: Don Bigg, 2020

“This is Karyane1 Rhamna, when most of people hear the word “KARYANE” they believe its residents live there just to survive, they don’t have hobbies or even dreams. The truth is really the opposite, real artists get born and raised between its walls , they have dreams and maybe more than the average person and that is because they want to change their lives, they can and they will.”

Karim Chater, from the forgotten town, the shantytown.

1 Karyan means bidonville in Moroccan dialect; literally derived from the French word carrière (quarry), the location of Casablanca’s first bidonvilles.

04. Erhamna Bidonville This chapter will introduce Erhamna, a bidonville located in Sidi Moumen district in Casablanca.The area will be described through three concepts: space, activities and social relationships. These three variables were chosen for their capacity to create and portrait a sense of place ( Montgomery,1998).

This description is essential to understand the bidonville’s spatial and social structure and dynamics.

Due to the pandemic and its limitations, , it was not possible to visit the site. However, online interviews with inhabitants and local authorities were conducted to get a grasp on the dynamic of the bidonville. The data was collected for this study mainly through structured questionnaires including concrete and open questions and pictures analysis. The questionnaire was divided into three parts corresponding to the three concepts mentioned above. Finally, the analysis was completed with cartographic methods in order to visualize differences in the spatial structures of the settlement.

Sections : 1. Erhamna : one of the biggest Casablanca’s bidonvilles 2. Future vision of Sidi Moumen 3. Spatial planning

Fig 4.2

Fig 4.2. Location map of Erhamna bidonville in the city of Casablanca.

Map by author.

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Erhamna is a bidonville located in Sidi Moumen (figure 4.1), a district in the east of Casablanca, located on the edge of the Rabat-Casablanca highway (A3) which is part of the prefecture of Sidi Bernoussi. Erhamna is home to approximately 6,000 households living in 4994 barracks spread over 28 hectares (Fig 1.). The bidonville is limited in the north part by Houcine Assoussi Boulevard, a relatively active urban axis. The south limit of the bidonville is a non-urbanized natural area that used to be a quarry. From both east and west sides, Erhamna is contiguous to apartment buildings of 5 floors with which it has a lot of interactions.

The settlement was established in the 1960s by the first arrivals from Rhamna province in the region of Marrakech. In the northeast of Casablanca, the Rhamna migrants purchased a few pieces of vacant land near a quarry abandoned by the French. Sidi Moumen has experienced a significant expansion in the 1980s due to three major events that have influenced its urban landscape and have impacted Erhamna bidonville also.

The first one was the establishment of Ain Sbaa industrial zone -one of the most important industrial structures in Morocco- that has contributed to the densification of the neighborhood.

Fig 4.3

The inauguration of a quarry was the second key event that had impacted the expansion of the bidonville due to the gradual construction of simple shanty houses to house the laborers needed to work in the quarry. Finally, the landfill’s placement in the heart of Sidi Moumen has negatively impacted the environment of the neighborhood and the future of the whole region (Luthander & Gustavsson, 2014, p: 31).

In addition to this, the suicide bombings of 2003 whose responsible came from a bidonville of Sidi Moumen, lead to more repression and stigmatization of the bidonville dwellers and reinforced the image of the bidonville as an isolated dangerous territory in the city.

If we take a quick glance at the aerial picture (figure 4.3), we can easily distinguish the bidonville contrasting the rest of the city’s built-up area. The

bidonville is inserted in its surroundings drawing sharp edges between the formal and the informal city (figure 4.4). Mehdi, an inhabitant of Erhamna, was shocked to see how the bidonville looks from the perspective of an aerial top-down image. His comment was that the urban fabric is so dense that it resembles more a ‘cemetery’ rather than a neighborhood. Indeed, the visible aspect of the bidonville leaves a negative impression and reinforces the idea of its exclusion from urban society. Beier (2019) argues that the stigma of the bidonville as an ugly ‘rural alien’ conjures up images of a backward and oppressed community where residents do not share the same values as ‘ordinary’ city dwellers.

According to Wasserman and Clair (1998), such visions are the result of a deep disconnection between the «us» and «them».

Fig 4.3. Aerial view of Erhamna bidonville and its surroundings.

Source: ETAFAT

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Fig 4.4

Bidonville Erhamna has grown over the years. A large part of its population had moved there to escape the high prices of rent in other parts of Casablanca.

The rent used to cause them problems of regular payments given their irregular sources of income. According to Beier’s interviews (2019) with Erhamna’s inhabitants in 2017, a percentage of 63% of the population actually living in Erhamna has moved from formal neighborhoods of Casablanca, and only 22.2% has arrived at Erhamna straight from the countryside escaping from the droughts.

Fig 4.4. Ehramna bidonville in contrast with the formal city.

Source: Mehdi Sahih.

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The bidonville faces different kinds of problems, among which the overcrowding issue due to the continuous population growth. In Erhamna, approximately 36.000 dwellers are spread over only 28 hectares of land which results in a high population density of 128.000 persons/ km². The actual population growth in Erhamna bidonville is rather a result of growth in the number of households.

According to the SDAU 2008, Sidi

Moumen is one of Casablanca’s districts that are experiencing the biggest annual rate of population change (See figure 3.24 in chapter 3, p:71). As a result, residents split plots and built additional expansions to their houses, thereby densifying Erhamna.

The unusually high population density in bidonville and its continuous growth has a direct impact on the settlement’s dynamics, spatially, socially, and economically.

A third of Erhamna’s population was born and raised in the neighborhood and the average time spent living in Erhamna is 26.5 years (Beier, 2019, p: 152). The fact that they have comparable backgrounds and experiences, allowed them to develop strong relationships within eachother.

This is reflected clearly in the communal solidarity in the bidonville. Hence, intensive social connections, as well as low levels of anonymity and individualism, characterize social life in Erhamna. By way of illustration, it is very common that the inhabitants of the bidonville leave their house doors open as a sign of the special helpfulness and friendliness among the inhabitants of the block (figure 4.6). The ‘open doors’ phenomenon represents another argument against the Villes Sans Bidonvilles modes of intervention when we contrast it with the closed doors in apartment buildings, a different lifestyle from that of the bidonville population.

Fig 4.5

This same phenomenon of open doors demonstrates that the limit between the public and private space in the bidonville is blurred. The streets are considered as part of the house. The activities inside the house usually extend to the street due to the lack of spacein the one hand, and the strong sens of appropiation in the other hand (figure 4.5).

Although, some interviewed inhabitants of Erhamna reported the risk of being mugged or aggressed in block 15 and 9 which were described as insecure. The common conclusion from all the interviews was that people are more secure and nothing will happen to them as long as they are in their block. Moreover, women avoid completely leaving home after sunset because riskier and dangerous for them.

Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Erhamna have noticed a remarkable decrease in crime rate since two years ago thanks to the addition of streetlights.

Fig 4.5. Picture of a random street in Erhamna in the middle of the day that shows the open doors of shanty houses. The inhabitants use only curtains for some privacy. Source: Mehdi Sahih.

Fig 4.6. Public square in Erhamna used to hang laundry to dry . Source: Mehdi Sahih.

Fig 4.6

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1. Erhamna : one of the biggest Casablanca’s bidonvilles 1.1 The bidonville and the urban space: a. Spatial typologies The high density of the bidonville Erhamna has resulted spatially in intriguing spatial structures (figure 4.8). Erhamna is organized according to seven blocks (figure 4.7) that are also divided into various social entities to help inhabitants to find their way around the bidonville. Given the large size of Erhamna, this division has been established for several reasons. Firstly, it helps the residents to spatially orient themselves within a large labyrinthic urban fabric. Secondly, it allows them to be part of a smaller social group where every inhabitant is recognizable

within its surroundings. This feeling of belonging guarantees the construction of solid social relationships which are the basis of mutual help practices when it comes to facilities such as water supply, wastewater, and waste management. The blocks’ limits are recognized by the inhabitants through simple tracking points: It could be a mosque, a small grocery shop, or even a tree. In some cases, the inhabitants of a block opt for physical separation like the use of curtains or the arrangement of buildings in space, in order to “mark their territory”.

Fig 4.7 Fig 4.7. Blocks division map in Erhamna. By author.

Fig 4.8. Spatial typologies in Erhamna. By author.

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Fig 4.8

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b. Materials Vertical limits:

Fig 4.9. Roof structure in Erhamna. Source: AFP. Fig 4.10. Two-storey houses in Erhamna. Source: Mehdi Sahih.

Fig 4.11. Wall painting by Erhamna young inhabitants and artists. Source: Video done by Mehdi Sahih.

Fig 4.12. Flooded bidonville streets, January 2021. Source : https://static.kifache.com/

Generally speaking, almost all the inhabitants of Erhamna bidonville live in one-storey high houses and use materials such as bricks and cement to build them (figure 4.10), sometimes they combine them with some additional material for specific structures such as wood or plastic or corrugated iron.

Regarding the roof, the majority of dwellers use the primary material of the bidonville: the corrugated metal sheets and add to it all kinds of objects (stones, water cans, car tires and boards) to stabilize the metal sheet and to protect against wind and rain damage (figure 4.9). Depending on the household incomes, the quality of the barrack structure varies. The differences may concern the number of floors which often depends on the number of inhabitants living in a house, or also the esthetic of the facade.

Fig 4.11

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During the first lockdown in response to the Covid-19, young inhabitants of Erhamna took the initiative to freshly paint a big part of the bidonville walls with unified colors. A group of talented artists from the bidonville completed this action adding creative personalized paintings with flashy colors representing natural landscapes, the portrait of his majesty the king of Morocco and some abstract artistic compositions, etc. (figure 4.11)

Horizontal limits: Horizontal limits: A lot of Erhamna inhabitants complain about the quality of their neighborhood streets that are made of gravel. Initially, the streets were made out of concrete or asphalt, but due to the complete absence of maintenance, the streets have been deteriorated. In the middle of the streets gullies (water channels) were built by

inhabitants to channel rainwater as well as wastewater away from their houses.

This water is driven to subterranean tanks that should be emptied once they are full (this operation is done collectively by the inhabitants of each street or small pocket themselves).

Even with this wastewater management technique, some streets get very muddy, and some even become water channels when it rains (figure 4.12).

Vegetation: The presence of green spaces is quite limited in settlements of urban poverty, where there is often no access to private green areas. It is the case of Erhamna: the green element is almost completely absent in the bidonville except for some trees planted by the inhabitants in their house’s entrance.

These trees are not numerous.

Although, we can also find vegetation

located within the enclosure of the barrack; decorating the courtyard (around which revolves more than two huts) initially established to meet the needs of overcrowding. Moreover, some other small plants are also present like ivy, small flowering shrubs, mint, and Chiba needed to make tea. Altogether, the presence of vegetation remains minimal in Erhamna. Nevertheless, in the framework of the beautification of the neighborhood, the new garden of Sidi Moumen across the Houcine Assoussi Boulevard -the northern limit of Erhamna- was the only green space in the area, hence it represents an escape for the bidonville population to get fresh air and access to green.

Findings

- The shape of the streets impacts directly activity and conception, and it helps to create a feeling of the place.

-The streets are very similar in character, material, and spatial organization.

Potential

-Local initiative to the beautification of their bidonville.

-Self-organisation and maintenance of the bidonville.

Challenges

-Poor quality of street.

Fig 4.12

-Absence of vegetation.

-Absence of street pavement.

-The street narrowness does not favorise activity development.

Fig 4.9

Fig 4.10

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1.2 The bidonville and the activities: a. Equipment & services According to Beier’s survey data (2019), a big portion of the active population of Erhamna works as market and mobile traders, as well as artisans, manufacturing employees, and service providers. Thanks to its location within a walking distance from active commercial areas like Jawhara and Saada districts, as well as large industrial zones such as Ain Sbaa and Sidi el Bernoussi, inhabitants of Erhamna have easy access to job opportunities.

Besides, Erhamna has its own daily shopping facilities spread all over the bidonville. In fact, Erhamna houses a wide range of stores, like grocery shops, hairdressers, public ovens, hardware stores and car mechanic stores, some cafes and brunch stores, etc (figure 4.14). Furthermore, the inhabitants have established three permanent food markets that operate every day from 8 am to 5 pm. Each market takes the name of the block it belongs to. The markets attract a lot of customers from outside the bidonville. Two of

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them are found on the edge between the bidonville and the formal city, thus marking two of the main entrances to the neighborhood (East and west side), while the largest one is in the center of Erhamna creating one on the major axis with a high level of activity. The amount of people increases during the market’s operation hours owing to the fact that the markets directly impact both capital and pedestrian flows since the majority of them are located along the market roads. Moreover, there are two private football fields in the west limit with the formal city. However, the bidonville youth prefer to play in a large abandoned land in the southeastern part of the bidonville since they don’t have to pay anything (figure 4.15). In the east entrance of the bidonville, there is a private urban farm managed by a family from the neighborhood. A lot of interviewed inhabitants mentioned it as a nice place, but unfortunately framed with walls, and that they would like to have a similar accessible place in the bidonville.

Fig 4.13

Fig 4.13. Map of equipment in Erhamna. By author.

Fig 4.14. Public-oven of Erhamna.

Source: Karim Chater.

Fig 4.15. An abandoned terrain used as a football field. Source: Karim Chater.

Fig 4.14

Fig 4.15

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Fig 4.16 Fig 4.16. Men pray outside the overcrowded Bani Hamdani mosque in Erhamna. Source: Abdelhak Senna Fig 4.17. The cattle eating from the inhabitants’ garbage in an open space in Erhamna. Source: Mehdi Sahih.

Fig 4.18. Map of attraction points in Erhamna. By author.

In addition to the few ‘public squares’ in the bidonville, there are also some large empty pieces of land that are used only as garbage dump.

Residents take their cattle to these spaces to feed them with their own garbage.

This provokes a bad smell Six mosques of the bidonville were built by the inhabitants themselves. They are found in the edges between the different blocks and within the city limits to facilitate access for people coming from other neighborhoods. Mosques communally have a ‘public square’ in the main entrance, this is the case for three mosques in Erhamna that are of a larger size than the others.

The mosques squares are major attraction points as they are actively used for social activities, for example children playing with other children of the block, praying during the hot summer days and when the mosque is full (figure 4.16), or also hanging out.

These open spaces comfort the density of the area and are also considered as a stage for economic activities for mobile traders, especially during prayer times.

Fig 4.17

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that bothers the inhabitants and prevents the development of any kind of activity.

Such urban spaces, which I will refer to 2 by the French expression ‘terrain vague’ represent a great potential of reconversion since they are the only large open space available inside the bidonville (figure 4.17).

b. Attraction points The mapping of activities and attraction points (figure 4.18) revealed that activity levels and diversity were frequently high in wider streets (especially the main entry routes to the bidonville where cars can access), and in the few public squares where there is a concentration of street vending and leisure activities. The west and east entrances house a diverse range of activities, including both permanent markets and temporary vending structures.

In the northern entrance, there is a large lot used as a car and trucks parking. From there we can access the bidonville and find ourselves in the square of the Lagsab mosque (Erhamna’s largest mosque) with a variety of small shops including a butcher. This square represents an important gathering space for all inhabitants of Erhamna, not only the ones belonging to that block (9).

2 Terrain vague is a concept that was first theorized by Ignasi de Sola-Morales in the mid-1990s as a contemporary space of project and design that includes the marginal wastelands and vacant lots.

Fig 4.18

Findings

-The majority of attraction points are located within the equipment: markets and mosques.

-Mobile traders were found in any relatively wide space.

-The majority of the activities were found in bidonville entrances.

Potential

-Presence of Urban Agriculture & Social gardens.

-Equipment’s location in the edge between the BV and the formal city.

-Availability of Terrains vague.

Challenges

-Lack of openness.

-Lack of access to green spaces.

-Lack of diversity in the activities.

-Poor equipment structure.

-The pedestrians represent the majority of the flow in Erhamna.

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1.3. Mobility and connectivity: a. The bidonville and the city Thanks to the tramway project of 2012, the connectivity of Sidi Moumen to the rest of the city has increased in a remarkable way. Moreover, a system of shared taxis and buses connects the bidonville to popular commercial centers such as Hay Mohammadi, Derb Sultan as well as the city center. According to Beier’s survey (2019), a large part of Erhamna inhabitants does not feel isolated where they live (figure 4.20).

b. The movement inside Erhamna Several years ago, cars and delivery trucks could pass through the streets of Erhamna. However, due to the densification of the bidonville throughout the years, the streets got so narrow that it is impossible for cars to go inside. Given the big size of Erhamna, a lot of its inhabitants use bicycles or motorbikes to move. In some cases, due to a lack of means, a group of people decides to buy, in co-ownership, a motorcycle to be used alternatively according to daily needs (figure 4.22).

This is one of the social cooperation and solidarity aspects in the bidonville.

Moreover, one of the commonly used transport modes is Donkey-cart for items transportation (figure 4.19).

Fig 4.19. Transporting fruits in a donkey-cart to the market. Source: Karim Chater.

Fig 4.20. Mobility Map on Sidi Moumen scale. By author.

Fig 4.21. Erhamna streets hierarchy. By author.

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The character of the streets in Bidonville changes constantly, shifting from public to private depending on the time, form, and usage. It is fairly usual to see residents loitering on the streets, chatting with their neighbors as their children play.

The street network does not follow any formal grid. The hierarchy map categorizes different types of streets according to their importance on the basis of the width, the level of activity and the number of connections they allow (figure 4.22). In most cases, primary roads draw the limits between the blocks and regroup the equipments of Erhamna. A large part of the street in Erhamna are short streets leading to culs-de-sac. This might be seen by the inhabitants as a key factor protecting their privacy, nevertheless, it contributes to more exclusion.

Furthermore, the areas with direct connections have a simpler transition from private to public space. However, the areas with a more complex hierarchy between the streets have a more gradual transition. As a result, the urban fabric becomes more varied, enabling subtle transitions between semi-private and semi-public spaces.

Fig 4.19

Fig 4.20

Fig 4.21

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Fig 4.22 Fig 4.22. Children sharing a bicycle in Erhamna.

Source: Karim Chater.

Findings

-The pedestrians represent the majority of the flow in Erhamna.

-The cars cannot access to the bidonville because of the narrowness of the streets.

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Potential

-Shared mobility spirit.

-Goog connection with the city thanks to the diversity of trasportation modes.

-Existing walking culture.

Challenges

- Disconnected and discontinuous streets.

- No differentiation between sidewalks and car roads.

- Abcense of street paving.

2. Future vision of Sidi Moumen The territory of Sidi Moumen carries major challenges for the harmonious development of Casablanca. Indeed, this district in the east of the city concentrates a set of social, housing, service and equipment difficulties, which contrasts sharply with the standing of the districts in the west and in the heart of Casablanca. Sidi Moumen is certainly not the only district in the city that is experiencing this type of difficulties, but it has become emblematic of the global imbalance that has been established between the western districts which host the wealthy populations and the most advanced economic activities, and more popular eastern neighborhoods with often degraded housing, a lack of equipment and services, and an industrial environment that is often a source of nuisance.

To avoid a dual development of the city, it is necessary to initiate strong actions in favor of the eastern districts. The program to be considered will therefore include the district of Sidi Moumen, which should be the subject of various additional actions: - Reduction of bidonvilles and unsanitary housing, with quality housing programs to accommodate local populations; - The absorption of sites of harmful activities embedded in residential areas; - The construction of the Great Urban Park on the land of the royal donation provided for this purpose;

- The construction of the Grand Stade de Casablanca on part of this land, which will create a regional or even international centrality in the heart of Eastern Casablanca; - Serving Sidi Moumen and the Grand Stade by high-capacity public transport, first the tramway and eventually the metro which will link it to the Casablanca hypercentre; - Substantial improvement of roads and local equipment; - An extension of the industrial zone of Sidi Moumen towards the east offering new jobs for the population, notably within the framework of a city of the automobile project.

The environmental dimension of the project is not limited to the transformation of the rehabilitated landfill into a recreational space. Indeed, the local development company Casablanca Baia plans to optimize the energy for the operation of this park. It opts for the use of renewable energies for lighting, the establishment of a storage system for collected rainwater while saving irrigation water. Finally, the purpose behind this project would be to create a place open to its immediate environment including pedestrian circuits and cycle paths.

From the 4994 shanty houses of Erhamna, only 151 ones were demolished. This operation involved the resettlement of 154 households in 2014. Since then, no resettlement practices have occurred in Erhamna.

However, the administration is planning to eradicate the bidonville of Erhamna and replace it with private residential lots besides some public equipment like a school, a mosque, a qualification center and a market. Unfortunately, none consideration was taken by the designers nor the administration of the existing urban fabric and market structures.

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Fig 4.23. Erhamna bidonville. Source: Adil Daaji

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CONCLUSION: The bidonville could be a better place to live, and several experiences of slum upgrading around the world have proved so. Casablanca’s future vision is to create a more inclusive society that prioritizes human development. In order to build these principles, there must be a fundamental shift in the perception of the bidonvilles to deal with the social stigma they are suffering from. The process of de-stigmatisation could be long and complex. Thereupon, the point is not only upgrading on the bidonvilles scale, but also bringing the informal to the formal by blurring the edges between the two of them. As a result, this reduces inequalities when it comes to the access to city development.

Furthermore, the future Casablanca must prioritize strengthening general openness by actively engaging on the porosity of critical boundaries that express the formal/ informal divide.

Gifford (2002) studied environmental psychology and explained that people wish to stay and enhance their area if they have a strong sense of community that contains confidence. All the interviewed inhabitants of Erhamna confirmed that the painting of the neighborhood’s facades has increased confidence among the residents and gave them a feeling of pride (see section 5.A.1). In order to achieve long-term, community-driven reforms, Jacobs (1991) discusses the importance of strengthening the inhabitants’ attachment to their neighborhood. Therefore, and based on the city and bidonville analysis and the raised challenges and potentialities from it, some strategies of street upgrading for the integration of the bidonville in the city system will be presented in the next section through three layers: Connect, Create and Reinforce.

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CONCLUSION Al Omrane, the main stakeholders of The Villes Sans Bidonvilles program uses this as its slogan: “Le droit au logement, le droit au Bonheur”, which literally means ‘The right to housing, the right to happiness’. Al Omrane relates directly and exclusively the happiness of people to better housing conditions. The current resettlement projects have shown the un-satisfaction of the displaced population and even though there was a considerable improvement on their shelter conditions, it did not reflect the ‘happiness’ that Al Omrane referred to in its slogan. Moreover, various scholars have expressed their concerns and doubts about whether the predominant focus of the VSB program on housing provision will be capable of solving the problem of the bidonvilles and improve the living conditions of its inhabitants. In fact, shelter conditions might be a crucial element in the improvement of living conditions. However, the question remains: what about the other social, spatial and economic factors such as location, social network, and economic activities?

Gifford (2002) studied environmental psychology and explained in his book that people wish to stay and enhance their area if they have a strong sense of community that contains confidence. Thereupon, urban transformation of bidonvilles could be an alternative to resettlement strategies as long as it reveals an incremental and inclusive development process through which formality and informality intermingle and coexist by gradually integrating the bidonville into the city system seeking social and spatial inclusion, better access to infrastructure, as well as a general improvement in the quality of life for its residents.

It is crucial to recognize that streets in densely populated areas such as slums are unquestionably one of the most significant features (Montgomery, 1998). Indeed, Erhamna’s streets are the vital urban entities that sustain the public domain, carry the residents’ identities, and represent a stage for economic activities. They are corridors for movement for people, carts, and goods that maintain the urban economy and keep the bidonville dynamic alive.

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The street-led approach of slum upgrading has been widely utilized over the world without being referred to as such. Beyond their infrastructural role, this approach considers streets as a path for incremental urban transformation that pursue the spatial, social and economic integration of slums into the overall city development. In order to create an urban configuration that ensures this integration, fosters spatial connectivity and enhances the economy of the area, the intervention on the bidonville’s streets and accesses is a sinequa-non condition (Carracedo García-Villalba, 2021).

Unlike the actual strategies adopted by governments to tackle the urban phenomenon of bidonvilles, residents must be included in the improvement process to achieve social sustainability. Since the streets in bidonville contexts are generally residential, participatory techniques are crucial to the development and implementation of sustainable solutions. It is also important to consider gender and age since the streets are utilized differently. Street upgrading is an opportunity to involve the community in the participation process thus shifting from top-down to bottom-up strategies.

UN-Habitat considers that a street-led approach for slum upgrading develops spatial patterns that mainly reconnect slums through a physical integration process with the formal city where streets and public space serve as the main support of social and economic transformation. As a result of this urban transformation: ·

The bidonville inhabitant turns into a citizen;

·

The barrack turns into a house;

·

The bidonville settlement turns into a neighborhood.

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Each year, nearly 240,000 people migrate from the countryside to Moroccan cities. As a result, the urban population has reached more than 57% of the total population and the number of inhabitants of cities doubles every 17 years. Like many other North-African cities, Casablanca experienced explosive population growth during the last century. Its population raised from 625 thousand people in 1950 to nearly 3.4 million people nowadays (United Nations, 2019). This rapid evolution makes some of the arrivals reside in the various avatars of the unsanitary housing of which the slums are the dominant version. These areas are found in various cities of the Global South.

This thesis questions the current strategies to tackle the slum phenomenon in Morocco and explores other alternative inclusive approaches to deal with it through the intervention on the street.

Focusing on the city of Casablanca, Morocco, this graduation project analyses the case of Erhamna slum which will lead to better comprehension of spatial and social dynamics of the bidonville and therefore to develop contextualized street-led approach guidelines.