Morocco's World Cup redevelopment drive is erasing old neighbourhoods, residents say

Over the past year, hundreds of buildings in Rabat have been demolished as part of a large-scale redevelopment of the city's coastline, and similar scenes have played out in Casablanca, Marrakech and Fez as neighbourhoods are cleared to make way for new development. Residents and researchers say the speed and scale point to something bigger than safety inspections, with redevelopment plans that stalled for decades suddenly being pushed through as Morocco prepares to co-host the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal.

The government's justification is in part a matter of public safety. Collapsing buildings are a real and sometimes lethal problem in Morocco: 22 people were killed in Fez last December when two adjacent houses collapsed, and at least nine more died in a later incident. Ahead of the tournament, the government has allocated 18.6 billion dirhams (about $2 billion) to build 62,000 homes and clear informal settlements in and around Casablanca, building on an initiative called Villes Sans Bidonvilles (Cities Without Slums) launched more than two decades ago.

In Rabat's L'Ocean neighbourhood, residents say there was little meaningful consultation or involvement over the redevelopment plans. Mohamed Achaari, Morocco's former minister of culture and a writer who lives in the newer part of L'Ocean, said the authorities simply tell residents their house will be demolished, they will receive compensation and they must leave. For officially registered properties, compensation is around $130 per square foot, which residents argue falls far short of market value; one family's independent valuation came back at nearly $220 per square foot. Residents say apartment prices across the city have climbed sharply, driven in part by the demolitions themselves.

In Casablanca, an analysis by New Lines of satellite imagery taken between August 2025 and May 2026 shows that more than 35 acres, roughly the size of 26 football fields, have been demolished within the footprint of the Royal Avenue project. The megaproject, conceived in the early 1990s after King Hassan II began building his eponymous mosque outside the walls of the medina, was originally slated to affect roughly 12,000 households; three decades on, that number may be double, though advocates do not have concrete figures.

Around 16,550 apartments in the suburb of Nassim, about six miles from the project area, are supposed to be sold to displaced residents, and until then the government has promised affected families 9,000 dirhams ($964) to cover six months of rent. But Yasmine Zaki, a lawyer and provincial representative of the Party of Progress and Socialism, said the new housing on offer is often financially out of reach: subsidised apartments built roughly 19 miles from central Casablanca cost around 100,000 dirhams plus another 20,000 dirhams in notary and registration fees. Homes declared unsafe, such as that of event planner Saad Mosleh, do not qualify for compensation at all.

Kenza Chraibi, president of the Sidi Belyout district council where the Royal Avenue project is located, rejects the idea that the safety inspections are pretextual, saying the project is primarily intended to protect human lives and that 1,910 households currently living in officially unsafe buildings are registered under it. Stefano Portelli, a researcher in urban anthropology at Spain's UNED University who has studied redevelopment for more than 20 years, said decades under threat of demolition become a self-fulfilling prophecy because banks stop issuing mortgages and homeowners stop renovating. In Casablanca's medina, the demolition of a cultural centre dedicated to Gnawa music, founded in the 1980s and housed in a family home for 60 years, illustrates what residents say is being lost.