ABSTRACT
The urban process in Algeria continues to be confronted in the postcolonial period with enormous challenges, such as increasing housing demand and the expansion of informal settlements in the fringe-belts. The existing housing stock was excluded from the priorities of the urban policy, in the first decades after independence, except some private self-built houses. In fact, the rapid demographic growth, during the last 40 years, made housing a major concern and led to rapid urban expansion through the creation of new allotments and collective housing areas, and recently through the development of public and private estates. Due to these factors, urban development in Algeria took mainly the form of new urban extensions in the postcolonial period. New legislation was issued in the 1990s and the state stopped being a provider of social goods becoming instead mainly a regulator of economic and social relations. In this context, housing was no longer seen as a social product but as an economic product for rent or sale. For that reason the private sector took a larger share in the housing sector.
