Paper short abstract:

In recent years, large-scale housing programmes have been on the rise again. To avoid past mistakes of social housing, small-scale private construction, as practiced in Casablanca’s slum resettlement projects, could be an alternative. However, divergent policy interests risk the success.

Paper long abstract:

Authors such as Buckley et al. (2016) have warned that the recent rise of large-scale housing programmes, aiming to solve the problem of affordable housing, will rather profit the middle classes and may reproduce problematic aspects of earlier social housing programmes and resettlement. Inadequate housing locations, people's deprivation from sources of income, and increased living costs may be the most prominent ones among them. In Casablanca, Morocco, authorities are practicing an innovative approach, facilitating shantytown resettlement through land subsidies and investment of small-scale private constructors. The programme could be successful in avoiding some of the above-mentioned problems. The specific modalities have enabled even most vulnerable families to move from their shacks into new, more comfortable flats. However, more could have been reached if there were no conflictual political interest. Urban modernisation plans, security policies and profit interest in land were the main drivers behind the prohibition of in-situ solutions. Instead people were forced to move to the urban peripheries. Although many households appreciate the increase of living comfort and the fact that they have become owners of a formal apartment, they also report a feeling of isolation, a loss of job opportunities, higher transport costs and a lack of public services. The split results underline the heterogeneity within the judgement of resettled households and call for an abandonment of single-solution-strategies. The paper builds on four months of field research in Casablanca. It uses own empirical household data and draws from participatory observation as well as qualitative interviews.