21st Century (2000–present)

Casablanca Eco-City Zenata

2012– · Morocco · North Africa · Post-industrial regeneration and waterfront urbanism · Planned by CDG Development
Final master plan of Éco-Cité Zenata by Carta - Reichen et Robert Associés, showing the 3.5 km green axis, garden streets and district blocks between Casablanca and Mohammedia.
Final master plan of Éco-Cité Zenata by Carta - Reichen et Robert Associés, showing the 3.5 km green axis, garden streets and district blocks between Casablanca and Mohammedia. · © Carta - Reichen et Robert Associés — used with credit · Carta - Reichen et Robert Associés, final master plan of the Zenata new town (13/02/2013)

Core idea

Transit-linked eco-district between Casa–Rabat

Why it matters

Large-scale brownfield to mixed-use

Description

Zenata Eco-City is a new-town-scale eco-district planned from 2012 by CDG Development, a subsidiary of Morocco's Caisse de Depot et de Gestion, on a largely industrial and informal coastal site between Casablanca and Rabat, within Casablanca's north-eastern periphery. The plan converts brownfield and under-used land into a mixed-use district structured around commuter-rail and motorway links on the Casa-Rabat corridor, with a green framework of parks and wind corridors, phased housing, retail and logistics quarters, and the relocation and rehousing of existing shanty settlements. It is one of Africa's largest planned eco-city projects and carries an eco-city label certified against international sustainability standards.

Significance

Zenata is significant as a leading African example of state-led eco-city development applied to brownfield regeneration rather than greenfield expansion, and as part of Morocco's wider villes nouvelles programme. It illustrates both the ambitions and the tensions of Global South sustainable urbanism: transit-linked, environmentally certified planning delivered by a state investment arm, alongside debates about resettlement of informal residents and the affordability of the resulting district. It is frequently cited in discussions of how eco-city models translate outside Europe and East Asia.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.