Urban Transformation and Social Inequality in Rabat-Salé Between International Ambitions and Local Displacement

This article analyses recent urban development in Rabat–Salé, Morocco, with a focus on displacement and women’s mobilisations against top-down planning. Since the early 2000s, state-led and internationally financed waterfront megaprojects, including tramway extensions, marinas, heritage restorations, and cultural complexes, have profoundly transformed working-class neighborhoods into tourist and elite residential enclaves. Despite official commitments to participation and fair compensation, many residents report demolitions, forced relocations, and limited access to information or legal recourse. Based on qualitative fieldwork conducted between 2022 and 2025, including 30 semi-structured interviews with women from the Ocean District, Saniat Gharbia, and Douar Laskar, as well as press analysis and participant observation, this study examines how women perceive and navigate these transformations. The analysis highlights the unequal impacts of gentrification across social groups, particularly along lines of gender and class. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial urban theories, the article explores how women contest exclusionary urban policies through sit-ins, media campaigns, and legal appeals. The findings show that while the Moroccan state promotes a globalised image of Rabat as a “City of Light,” local populations experience the erasure of historical memory, the loss of housing rights, and deepening spatial injustice. Women, in particular, emerge both as victims and agents of resistance, negotiating complex trade-offs between survival, visibility, and voice in the city. This research contributes to debates on urban inequality, spatial justice, and the role of gender in contested urban governance in the Global South.