State and Territorial Restructuring in the Globalizing City-Region of Tangier, Morocco

In 1982, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led structural adjustment of the Moroccan state; the culmination of prolonged war in the Western Sahara, unstable agricultural productivity and unstable debt inflation. Since then, deep political economic reorganization has transformed the institutional, practical and physical articulation of urban management in the state. This study situates managerial shifts within an urban globalization context, with specific reference to Tangier. While Tangier's urban development parallels many studies from the developing and less-developed world, its place-specific formation diverges because globalizing urban management is undertaken within the context of historically and geographically specific socio-economic development initiatives and constraints. My work provides a conceptual overview of globalizing management since Moroccan independence in 1956. Then, a spatially sensitive political economic lens is employed to analyze new urban managerial transformations emerging since 1983 adjustments. Finally, I take an in-depth case study of Tangier City Center project to question how Tangier's current globalization effectively responds to both state and local urban social and economic development.