Fatmah Behbehani

Life in the New Town: The Planning and Social Implications of Morocco’s New Towns Experiment

Fatmah Behbehani is a graduate of the Ph.D. in the Constructed Environment program, housed in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning. Her dissertation examined the return of the new town planning model as a solution to urban and informal growth in Morocco.

Since the early 20th century, the new town model has been persistently offered up by planners and policy makers as the panacea for all urban ills from rapid population growth to environmental degradation. As a result, new town developments continue to affect the lives and livelihoods of millions around the world. Yet scholarship on planning and developing new towns is predominantly approached from a technical perspective, dominated by the view point of elite professionals, program evaluators and political actors involved. The lived experiences and the voices of those inhabiting a newly built environment are seldom considered. 

Utilizing Morocco’s 2004 New Towns Program as a case study, Fatmah’s dissertation examines the new town as an urbanization strategy by focusing on how new town dwellers adapt and contribute to a newly constructed environment. She suggests that an understanding of the lived experiences of new town residents in two Moroccan new towns (Tamesna and Tamansourt) can provide valuable data for understanding the effects of rational planning on everyday life. A central question to her work asks: what constitutes a new town (medina jadida) in contemporary Morocco based on the perspectives of its everyday residents?

The dissertation identifies a clear mismatch between what elite professionals and local residents expect from a contemporary new town in the Moroccan context—a phenomenon that has led to significant challenges in the planning, development and occupation of new towns Tamesna and Tamansourt. Moreover, the dissertation highlights how personal and collective adaptations and the emergence of an effective informal economy have contributed to the progress and development of the two studied new towns. Finally, in relation to policy, the work offers five key principles and strategies for effectively planning and managing contemporary new towns in Morocco now and in the future. 

Committee

Primary Advisor and Chair: Ellen M. Bassett, Ph.D.

Committee Members: Hassan Radoine, Ph.D. and Sheila Crane, Ph.D.

Former Education 

University of Virginia, Masters of Urban and Environmental Planning (2015)

Kuwait University; Bachelors in Architecture (2013)