The Hidden Costs For Locals Behind Morocco's Urban And Tourist Development
The hidden costs for locals behind Morocco's urban and tourist development
Morocco's heritage is being replaced with a new shiny 'foreigner-friendly' version that displaces communities while perturbing traditional livelihoods and the environment
The beach in the city of Mohammedia, 25 km north of Moroccan capital Casablanca, on 22 May 2019 (Fadel Senna/AFP)
Morocco is a country known for its traditional charm, winding streets full of artisanal crafts, ramshackle beach-style properties and corner shops that have been passed down through the generations.
However, it is becoming more common to see entire towns torn down to make way for new shiny urban development projects, with little mention of what happens to the original communities.
Morocco’s spike in popularity as a tourist destination has been an upward trend since its 2022 World Cup performance, where it left an impression on the pitch and from the pure passion that radiated from Moroccan fans.
Since then, tourists have been flocking to the north African country: recent government data shows Morocco welcomed 17.4 million tourists in 2024, surpassing the goal it set for 2026.
The dramatic growth is adding to the urban pressure thrust upon the country, as the population increased by 8.8 percent from 2014 to 2024, to reach 36.8m, with the number of foreigners living in the country growing to 148,152, up 71.8 percent over the past decade.
Morocco has rapidly worked to re-develop property to align with domestic and foreign demand, especially in preparation for its co-hosting of the World Cup 2030 with Spain and Portugal.
There have been major developments across the kingdom over the past decade, namely a billion-dollar seaside resort focused on eco-tourism in Taghazout Bay, Casablanca Finance City in the economic capital or the Rabat Marina and Bouregreg Valley urban renewal project, to be completed in 2025 with $443m invested to boost economic activity and tourism.
Local businesses paying the price
Normally, tourism and re-development would be warmly welcomed by local businesses. However, local artisans have found themselves competing with new hotels and urban development projects to stay in their original location.
A recent example of this is Oulja, once known as an artisan’s palace, a craft complex on Rabat’s border city of Sale.
Oulja was full of Aladdin's cave-style shops and workshops overflowing with pots, lamps, and mosaic tables, owned by local families, many of which have been there since its establishment in 1983.
Now, all that remains is rubble, awaiting the modern hotels to fill the artisan graveyard.
A Moroccan woman pulls a donkey as she walks in a souk in the region of Shool near the city of Sale in August 2017 (Fadel Senna/AFP)
At the new temporary site where the craftspersons have been relocated further into the city of Sale, the tarpaulin makeshift warehouse has a more sterile appearance, with notably fewer shops and products.
The atmosphere is flat compared with the ambient buzz and sparks from welders one would dodge passing through the maze of art-filled streets in old Oulja.
Sipping his mint tea in a relatively bare stand with his last remaining traditional tajine pots and ceramics for sale, an elderly man declined to make any comment about his new situation.
“Sorry, I don’t wish to talk about it,” he told Middle East Eye, shaking his head. “It upsets me too much,” he added, holding his hand to his chest.
A younger artisan called Younes invited MEE into his ceramics shop.
“We have been here for four months,” he said. “They told us we had to leave the old site about six weeks before, it was not enough time to relocate all our products.”
Old Oulja was promptly barricaded off when the cut-off date arrived and the remains were bulldozed, leaving many without their materials, machinery and products.
‘This is very worrying, as we have no place to make more products. This is all I have left to sell and I don’t think it will last even one year’
- Younes, a displaced artisan
Younes added that their current situation was supposedly temporary with a timeline of about two to three years.
“We understand why the government has done this, all the manufacturing at the old site caused pollution, and they needed the space for hotels,” he said.
However, the new hotel complex will limit the space allocated to the artisans.
“There is not enough room for all of the artisans to return, and those that are permitted will only be allowed to sell products, not to manufacture on site,” he added.
The artisans find themselves in a limbo. They have not been told yet who will be allocated a permanent space in the new site and have not received compensation for the loss of their products and machinery.
Younes estimates he makes around 40 percent fewer profits in the new location. Besides, what the artisans managed to salvage from the old site is insufficient to last the coming years.
“This is very worrying, as we have no place to make more products,” Younes said looking around at his shop. “This is all I have left to sell and I don’t think it will last even one year.”
Rise of the eco-city
Morocco’s urban development is characterised by rapid urbanisation.
Dr. Mohammed Hlal, postdoctoral researcher in urbanism and urban risk disaster management at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University’s Centre of Urban Systems, told MEE that “informal housing, urban governance limitations and rising social inequality remain critical issues” in the kingdom.
According to the expert, Morocco has been “actively addressing the challenges of urban pressure by integrating disaster risk management into urban development and enhancing the resilience of its cities.”
With the push for urban development in Morocco, large plots of land are being completely rebuilt.
The smaller makeshift housing, or “irregular housing”, commonly found in the suburbs of cities and villages is being replaced with more modern structures. Morocco’s statistics office, HCP, said that makeshift dwellings declined from 5.2 to 3.3 percent between 2014 and 2024.
Voici à quoi ressemblera Casablanca Wessal Port après les travaux, la seconde zone attractive après la Casablanca Finance City. pic.twitter.com/yFHNVvUueF
Translation: "This is what Casablanca Wessal Port will look like after the works, the second attractive zone after Casablanca Finance City."
Zenata, located on the coast between Casablanca and Mohammedia, is an example of these re-development efforts. The city has undergone a vast eco-city project through an investment of $2 million, tailored to house 300,000 high-earners who want an easy commute to Casablanca, Morocco’s business hub.
Original residents received the official notice of the project in 2008 and gradually, houses, farmland, businesses and eventually the whole community were torn down.
Morocco’s state-owned financial institution, CDG Group, owns the re-development project and was granted the right to take the land by the ministry of finance. MEE reached out to Zenata’s communication team for comments but the business could not meet the required deadline.
One CDG employee, who preferred to remain anonymous, told MEE that “while expropriation is typically justified for public benefit projects like schools or roads, using this reasoning for such a large area, around 2,300 hectares, raises legal concerns.”
The employee added that CDG “lacks the authority to declare public benefit or expropriate land under corporate law. To address this, the finance ministry declared the area as serving a ‘public interest,’ enabling the expropriation process to move forward legally.”
‘They have left us with basically nothing’
Rachida is one of the many victims of this expropriation process. She had invested her life earnings into her dream beach house in the area, which she moved into with her husband in 1980. It was their family home, where their three daughters grew up.
Shortly after buying the home, she was informed by the government that all the houses had to be kept to a certain standard to be able to retain the property. Until the early 2000’s, Rachida worked on renovating the home.
In 2003, Rachida tragically lost her husband, who died in attacks claimed by al-Qaeda in Casablanca. Following his death, she received compensation from King Mohammed VI as the wife of a victim of terrorism.
“The money they gave us is not even enough to buy a small house, they violated us”
- Rachida, an expropriated resident
“I decided to put most of that money into renovating my dream home, I spent 800,000 dirhams, [$79,473] and used the rest for my girls' education,” she told MEE.
But in 2019, Rachida and her daughters were given their final eviction notice due to the Zenata project and made to leave their home. They received 290,000 dirhams ($28,809) in compensation, of which 50,000 dirhams ($4,967) went on legal fees to contest the decision.
“The money they gave us is not even enough to buy a small house, they violated us,” she said, her voice full of emotion.
Zenata has known daily protests by displaced people denouncing long wait times for their compensation or payments deemed not proportional to the value of their former property.
“I was already suffering without my husband, and they made me struggle even more, they made me ill to the point I didn’t want to live anymore,” she told MEE.
The house was still standing until around five months ago, when it was demolished to make way for the new sky-rise, homes which will enjoy the beach view Rachida shared with her family.
“I can’t go near the city without getting goosebumps and feeling sick to my stomach,” Rachida added.
Translation: "Zenata Eco-city: real estate developments begin."
Now, all she and her daughters have is their recollections.
“I have memories that I will never forget, with my husband and my children when they were young, but now when I see other people, they’re like they have colonised the area, and they have left us with basically nothing.”
Hlal stressed the importance of using strategies to ensure the effective involvement of local communities in these projects.
“It is essential to adopt a participatory and inclusive approach, through regular community consultations, town hall meetings and online platforms that allow residents to voice their concerns and preferences, ensuring that development plans reflect local needs,” he emphasised.
He noted that residents should also be empowered through education on urban planning, sustainability and their overall property rights.
“Prioritising inclusivity by considering marginalised groups, such as low-income populations and women, and allowing communities to actively contribute” is crucial, he said.
Failed ‘eco’-projects
Morocco is already dealing with the consequences of failed development projects, such as the new city of Tamesna, an initiative launched in 2004 near Rabat to provide affordable housing to low-income people and reset slum residents, which has become a “ghost town with no signs of life”, or the Marchica Lake development project in the northern city of Nador.
Launched in June 2010, the latter aimed to build seven eco-cities and create an “eco-friendly tourist destination in the Mediterranean,” according to the project’s president Said Zarrou.
Originally, the Moroccan government invested $154.5 million, intending to have 100,000 beds by 2025, across 2,000 hectares.
???? Le projet royal d'aménagement du site de la lagune de Marchica fera de Nador ???????? l’une des villes les rayonnantes de la Méditerranée à partir de 2030. pic.twitter.com/fyDnXRj33P
— L'Oriental Marocain ۞ (@OrientaleMaroc) June 2, 2021
Translation: "The royal development project for the Marchica lagoon site will make Nador one of the most radiant cities in the Mediterranean from 2030."
Despite the significant investment and timeframe, not only has the project gone widely unfinished, but apparent signs of pollution from the re-development have become apparent.
For Idir*, who grew up in the area, “the whole project is a disaster.”
“The new builds along the waterfront are dumping waste into the lake, and the sewage system has been poorly designed. To the extent where you can see streaks of sewage across the new manmade beach into the lake when it rains,” he told MEE.
‘The whole project is a disaster. The new builds along the waterfront are dumping waste into the lake’
- Idir, a local resident
“I used to run around the lake before classes, and it was beautiful with many species of birds, now they have mostly disappeared.”
One ecotoxicological study concluded that “the lake is heavily polluted due to human activities such as agriculture, urbanisation, industrial processes and mining. This pollution poses serious threats to its ecological health and biodiversity.”
The damage has been so significant that an environmental agency has been mobilised to try and restore the lake and the surrounding area.
However, other reports claim that Marchica Lake Rehabilitation Agency “stand idly by and see the lake being polluted again after years of efforts to purify the lake water by spending billions wasted".
Another report highlights the significant environmental degradation of Morocco’s coastline, specifically in the northern city of Mohammedia, caused by the construction industry’s demand for sand, which is used in concrete production.
According to the UN Environment Program, 20 million cubic meters of sand are extracted each year in the kingdom, making Morocco one of the countries most affected by intensive sand extraction.
