Une perspective urbaine de la régionalisation du monde : Tanger, métropole (eur)africaine

Abstract

The region of Tangier is considered as Morocco’s dynamic economic corner. It is the receptacle of infrastructure and development projects supported by the Moroccan state and international investors. The most impressive project is the Tanger-Med port with its panoply of free zones. The opening for foreign capital and international exchange notably modified Tangier’s connectivity with the rest of the world and in particular with western Africa. The latter is often also one of the targets of investors’ strategies using Tangier as a transregional hub. The city is (re)developing into an international metropolis, a “gate to Africa”. We formulate the hypothesis that Tangier (a secondary city) is transforming through three interlinked, relatively concomitant, but distinct processes : a metropolisation process that can be read in the diversification and upgrading of Tangier’s economy ; a globalisation process around Tanger-Med, which is relentless, but not unprecedented and inscribes the region in the international division of production processes ; and a regionalisation process that integrates it into transnational and urban economic networks, with links as far as West Africa. These processes under study have to be interpreted in the light of regional and African (re-)orientations exhibited since King Mohamed VI acceded to the throne. The example of Tangier illustrates the interlocking between globalisation and regionalisations serving international and liberal economic development.

Keywords

• Tangier
• Morocco
• Africa
• Europe
• metropolisation
• multi-regionalisation