ABSTRACT
The individuality of the Arab West, or more properly Djezira el Maghreb, within the Middle East region owes much to the marked impress of European colonialism and more particularly to the intense settler colonization experienced by Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. French colonization of the Maghreb produced dramatic changes in economic structures, spatial patterns and social organization. In the countryside agricultural colonization transformed many rural landscapes, but the European settlers were always a strong urban minority and their impact on cities and city life was profound.
