Urban Planning in North Africa

Carlos Nunes Silva

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317003571
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

There has been relatively little written on the history of urban planning in North Africa, despite the wealth of towns and cities in this region which date back to Antiquity. The book explores the history of urban planning in North Africa and the challenges confronting contemporary urban planning in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. It examines the transnational flow of planning ideas during the colonial period, namely through the French, British, and Italian colonial presence, and the Portuguese and Spanish influences as well, and discusses key challenges currently confronting urban planning in the major urban centers in the region. The fifteen chapters that constitute the book offer an informed analysis of the history of urban planning in North Africa, covering the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods.

Chapter 1

Colonial and Postcolonial Urban Planning in North Africa: An Overview

Carlos Nunes Silva

Introduction

Urban planning is influenced by the political, social, and cultural contexts in which it is embedded. It reflects a society’s local culture, its institutional frameworks, its legal traditions, the values and attitudes of its key stakeholders, and the local geography, among other conditions. It is thus difficult to make valid generalizations applicable to long periods¹ or to pinpoint a distinct urban planning culture for the entire region of North Africa,² because despite the intense transnational flow of planning ideas during the modern European colonial period³ and after independence, significant variation is evident. The countries of North Africa differ in their political history, administrative and legal traditions, institutional frameworks, in the level of decentralization, their economic development, in the nature and intensity of their colonial past, and in the uniformity or variability of their urban layouts, to mention just a few of the factors that tend to influence urban planning practice. They also differ in their governance procedures, in the quality of their public administration sectors and public services, in the transparency and accountability of the public sector, and in the levels of citizen participation in the public policy process.

North Africa had varied colonial experiences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and multiple forms of interaction with the European colonizers, with a number of different urban outcomes. The history of each of these countries during the long pre-modern period also varied as did the kinds of cities developed.⁴ The European colonial presence had many faces and produced different impacts on North Africa cities and, as a consequence, an uneven legacy.⁵ It was responsible for rapid urbanization⁶ and the development of modern transport networks as key components of the strategy to link the colony to the colonial metropolis and for their integration in the world economy. If in some cases precolonial urban structures remained unchanged, in numerous other circumstances the juxtaposition of the old city and the new colonial quarters was the rule. Colonial experiences in the territories occupied by France varied from those of Italy in Libya, the British in Egypt, Spain in Ceuta, Melilla,⁷ and Morocco, and those of the old Portuguese settlements in North Africa until the eighteenth century (Matoso, 2010). The French colonial experience in North Africa is distinct in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. For Brown (1973: 189) Tunisia stands between Morocco and Algeria on the colonial intensity spectrum and therefore on the scale of urban transformation during the French colonial presence in North Africa, with Morocco having had the least intense experience and Algeria the most. This had consequences in the structure of the cities in these countries.⁸

Urbanization in North Africa: Trends and Challenges⁹

North Africa has one of the most rapidly expanding urban populations in the world, a trend that is expected to continue until 2050 (UN-HABITAT, 2014; 2010; 2008). Population growth in North Africa is mainly concentrated in cities and, consequently, the urban share of total population grew from 26 per cent in 1950 to close to 51 per cent in 2010 and is expected to exceed 60 per cent by 2050. Africa as a whole, meanwhile, will reach the 50 per cent mark only in the 2030s (Table 1.1). This rapid urban growth in the region was the result both of migration from rural areas and small towns to the major urban agglomerations and of high fertility rates among the population living in urban areas (Ibrahim, 1975), a process that is slowing down due to the already high urbanization rate reached in the recent years in the five countries that we here consider comprise the North Africa region (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia) (Table 1.2). The population in North Africa is unevenly distributed due to the arid and desert conditions. Cities are located mainly along the coast and in the Nile Valley and Delta. With the exception of Morocco, capital cities in these countries are the dominant centres from both demographic and economic points of view.¹⁰ In the five countries there are 36 cities with populations of over 300,000 (Table 1.3). Greater Cairo, which had a population of nearly 2.5 million in 1950, is now a megacity that maintains the dual character it inherited from the colonial period (UN-HABITAT, 2014; Denis, 1996; Abu-Lughod, 1965).

Table 1.1 Urban population in North Africa, 1950–2050

	Urban population North Africa^* (000s)	Urban population North Africa (% of total)	Urban population Africa (% of total)
1950	12,806	26.0	14.0
1960	20,339	31.5	18.6
1970	31,284	37.1	22.6
1980	44,687	41.3	26.7
1990	63,952	45.7	31.3
2000	81,901	48.4	34.5
2010	100,776	50.5	38.3
2020	124,073	52.9	42.6
2030	148,692	55.9	47.1
2040	174,967	59.5	51.5
2050	201,744	63.3	55.9

Source: UN, World Urbanization Prospects, 2014; World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision.

* The UN includes Western Sahara and Sudan in its definition of North Africa.

Table 1.2 Urban population in North Africa countries, 1950–2050 (% of total)

Source: UN, World Urbanization Prospects, 2014; World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision.

Table 1.3 North Africa: number of cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants

Source: UN, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision.

All five countries are highly urbanized despite some inter-country variations (Ibrahim, 1975; UNHABITAT, 2014; 2010; 2008). The average annual growth rate of the urban population was higher than the world average in 2010–2015 in Algeria and Morocco and lower in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. According to the UN, with the exception of Egypt, the urban population in each of the countries in the region exceeds 50 per cent of the country’s total population. Egypt will reach this threshold only in the 2030s, and will continue to be the country with the lowest urban population percentage in the region until 2050. Cairo and Alexandria are the two main urban centres and economic poles in the country. In Libya, the most urbanized country in the subregion, nearly 40 per cent of its population is concentrated in Tripoli and Benghazi, and nearly 86 per cent of its population is expected to live in urban areas by 2050, the highest percentage in North Africa. It is followed by Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. In Algeria, urban growth occurred to a large extent as urban sprawl in the Algiers agglomeration, raising challenges for urban management in this capital city, which have been largely unmet as is shown in Chapter 6. In Tunisia, urban growth took place mainly in the coastal areas around Tunis and Sousse, and in Morocco also in the coastal areas and around major urban centres, for example Casablanca (UN-HABITAT, 2012; 2014; Zaimeche, 1994).

This growth in urban areas has not always been followed by a proportional growth in basic urban infrastructures, such as for drinking water and sanitation, despite efforts and public investment made in recent decades in some of these countries.¹¹ Electricity seems to be the exception – most of the territory is already covered, making this the least problematic basic urban infrastructure in North Africa. Nonetheless, even access to improved water service provision and sanitation (wastewater and solid waste collection and treatment) is high in the region, particularly in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, when compared to other sub-regions of Africa. However, even though improved water service provision covers, in most countries in the region, 100 per cent of all cities and nearly the same percentage of villages, as reported in the case of Egypt, sanitation services – sewerage, solid waste collection and disposal – still need substantial public investment.¹²

With the population growth experienced in the past and projected for the future, mostly in urban areas, the shortage of water and of improved drinking water in some parts of the region is certainly a major challenge for urban policies in these countries. Similarly, urban transport is now a major challenge (UN-HABITAT, 2014). Traffic congestion and air pollution are also issues confronting urban planning, particularly in the major urban agglomerations in the region. Pollution levels in Cairo, for example, frequently exceed the World Health Organization standards and recommendations.

With this urban transition, other challenges besides those linked to basic urban infrastructures will also have to be faced by urban planning and policy.¹³ For example, the growth of the elderly population will require the creation of new provisions.¹⁴ Furthermore, while some of these countries experienced economic growth in recent years, others registered economic downturn or fragile growth associated with political unrest and insecurity.¹⁵ The excessive public debt, the fiscal deficit, the lack of economic diversification, a poorly developed private sector and infrastructure limitations are some of the constraints with which urban policy in the region is confronted (ADB, OECD and UNDP, 2014a; 2014b; 2014c; 2014d; 2014e). Increases in the size of the labour force, youth unemployment, and the persistently high rate of illiteracy – despite efforts made in education – raise complex challenges for future urban policy in some of these countries.

All these issues, whether already present or likely to emerge in the near future, raise new challenges for urban governance in the region, and for urban planning in particular, different from those experienced during the colonial and pre-colonial periods.

Urban Planning in North Africa

Diversity in urban morphology and a complex urban network, continuously reshaped over the centuries, have been characteristics of North Africa since Antiquity (Stambouli and Zghal, 1976; Mabogunje, 1990; Boone and Benco, 1999; Van der Meerschen, 1987). The existence of ‘planned’ human settlements and the building of new towns before modern European colonization are two other characteristics of this region (Cowgill, 2004; Stambouli and Zghal, 1976; Boone and Benco, 1999).¹⁶ Furthermore, urban regulations were extensively applied during the Ottoman period,¹⁷ which was not, as is sometimes thought, a period of urban disorder in the region. Indeed, an overall coherent system of administrative regulations applied to the built environment during the Ottoman Old Regime, as well as specific autochthonous Ottoman regulations during the Tanzimat era (Lafi, 2001; 2006), are important characteristics that marked urban life in the region, as Nora Lafi shows in Chapter 2. Notwithstanding this vigorous old local urban culture, contemporary formal planning systems and planning instruments in North African countries seem to reflect primarily the influence of the different European planning cultures applied in the region since the late nineteenth century. The example of Cairo in the nineteenth century illustrates the impact new urban developments in European cities had on North African cities, namely the influence that plans for Paris by Haussmann had on the political leaders of Egypt at that time (Abu-Lughod, 1965). The urban history of Tunis also provides ample evidence of these influences (Coslett, 2009). Later, new ideas, first inspired in the concept of the Garden City (Jelidi, 2014) and afterwards the CIAM discourse of modern urbanism and architecture, left an enduring mark on the region. Colonial expositions, in particular those focused on architecture and urban planning, played a key role in the dissemination of urban planning ideas across empires and colonies in Africa (McLaren, 2002a; 2002b).

However, this was not simply diffusion or a hierarchical process, from the centre of the European colonial power to the colonies or protectorates, but one of reciprocal influence between the metropole and the colony (MacLaren, 2002a), as well as a process of mutual influence among colonial empires,¹⁸ despite the intense international colonial rivalry during most of the post-Berlin Conference period, and among colonies of the same colonial power.¹⁹ As Fuller (1988) and Henneberg (1996) note, Libyan vernacular architecture was seen as a possible source of inspiration by Italian modern architects during the fascist regime,²⁰ even if for some of these protagonists the Arab city and Arab architecture was no more than a mere legacy of the presence in North Africa of ancient Rome. At the same time, within the same European colonial power, colonies were treated differently in North Africa and in Sub-Saharan Africa, as Fuller (1988) and Henneberg (1996) show in the case of Libya and the Italian colonies in East Africa.²¹ The differences and similarities found in Europe among the different planning cultures are also reflected in North Africa, as in the case of the urban policy propounded by the Italian fascist regime compared to that of French colonial urbanism.²² Multiple commonalities are also evident due to the professional exchanges among planners and architects from different European countries, as shown in the case of César Cort Botí, a pioneering planner in Spain and author of the 1930 plan for Ceuta (González, 2013).²³

Although functional zoning in North Africa’s cities seems to have been f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Colonial and Postcolonial Urban Planning in North Africa: An Overview
• 2 Well-managed Cities: Old Regime Urban Planning Practices in Ottoman North Africa and Their Reform during the Tanzimat Era
• 3 The ‘Oldest Modern’ Colonization in Africa
• 4 Ceuta Circa 1930: The Construction of a Functional City in the North of Africa
• 5 Urban Planning in Morocco: Historical Legacy, Approaches to Urban Policies, and Changes in Urban Planners’ Roles and Practices, 1960–2010
• 6 Urban Planning in Algiers in the Postcolonial Period: The Failure of Planning Instruments
• 7 The Making of the Urban Environment in Constantine
• 8 Urban Changes in the City of Setif, Algeria: Colonial and Postcolonial Periods
• 9 Postcolonial Urban Changes of a Colonial Village: Ain Arnat, Algeria
• 10 Broadening the Study of North Africa’s Planning History: Urban Development and Heritage Preservation in Protectorate-era and Postcolonial Tunis
• 11 Heritage Preservation and Contemporary Production in Northern Africa Towns
• 12 Maritime Ports as the Testing Field for a New Urbanity: Centroprojekt Zagreb Design for Naval Base Homs, Libya, 1976
• 13 Chase Over the Nile: The Social Evolution of the Riverine Landscape in Urban Egypt
• 14 Compromising Spatial Quality: Modernity in the Era of National State Building in Cairo
• 15 British Planning Schemes for Alexandria and Its Region, 1834–1958
• Index