ABSTRACT
In 2004, the Moroccan government launched the ambitious “Villes sans Bidonvilles” (Cities Without Slums) program (VSBP) following the dramatic events of 16 May 2003, when fourteen suicide bombers struck the city center of Casablanca, killing more than thirty people. The perpetrators all came from two large bidonvilles (slums) in Sidi Moumen, a district in the prefecture of Sidi Bernoussi on the eastern periphery of Casablanca. The events had raised awareness about the problem of slums as a threat to the security and political stability of the Moroccan city and strengthened the stigmatization of the slums as a breeding ground for radical Islamists (Zaki 2005; on the specific connection between the bombings, slum upgrading and social control, see Bogaert 2011). Poverty and the degraded living conditions in the slums were considered to be the main seedbeds for frustration and eventually radicalization. VSBP aims to eradicate all slums in Moroccan cities by 2013 (the first deadline was 2010 but this has been postponed due to several delays). This most recent slum-upgrading initiative of the Moroccan government was embedded within a discourse displaying a strong commitment towards poverty alleviation, good governance and participatory development, thereby reflecting more global shifts in neoliberal governmentality promoted by the World Bank and inscribed in the Millennium Development Goals.
