Copyright by Aicha Lakhssass 2018
The Report Committee for Aicha Lakhssass Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Report:
Assessing the Impacts of Locational Patterns of Affordable Housing in Agadir, Morocco
APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:
Jacob Wegmann, Supervisor
Elizabeth Mueller
Assessing the Impacts of Locational Patterns of Affordable Housing in Agadir, Morocco
by
Aicha Lakhssass
Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science in Community and Regional Planning
The University of Texas at Austin August 2018 Dedication
This research is dedicated to my husband, family, and friends. To my husband, Houssam, because you were a constant source of love and support during challenges of both graduate school and distance in our first year of marriage. To my mom Fatiha, dad Mustapha, aunt Hayat, brothers Ahmed and Ayoub, and sister Fatima because of your support and encouragement that have built and inspired the strong person I am today. To my friends in Austin for providing a sense of close family here. To my friends abroad, for your presence and support from far away. I am very thankful to all of you.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my professors and report advisors Jacob Wegmann and Elizabeth Mueller, for inspiring me through affordable housing related courses and for offering insightful advice and commentaries as I was writing my Professional Report. I also would like to thank people at the Agence Urbaine of Agadir, people at the Direction Régionale de l’Habitat et de l’Urbanisme of Agadir, and people at Al Omrane Agency for providing me with all the necessary documentation that helped me complete this report.
v Abstract
Assessing the Impacts of Locational Patterns of Affordable Housing in Agadir, Morocco
Aicha Lakhssass, M.S.C.R.P. The University of Texas at Austin, 2018
Supervisor: Jacob Wegmann
Although they aim to address the housing needs of low income residents, affordable housing policies are contentious because of the issues that emerge in relation to the residential location, the cluster of poverty, and the lack of an appropriate service infrastructure that lower living quality while affecting affordability. The case study that is the focus of this research is Agadir, Morocco which has been considered a living laboratory for planners and architects since the housing crisis of 1960 in which an earthquake killed nearly a third of the population and displaced the rest. A variety of local and national housing policies and programs have been implemented in the city of Agadir including post-disaster housing, affordable neighborhoods, and satellite towns. It is a city that Le Corbusier called the white table cloth for urbanism which makes it stand out in comparison to other cities in the country.
The report will begin with a literature review about affordable housing measures, which underscores the importance of location for residents since it shapes other aspects of their lives, though the proximity provided to opportunities, transit network, school, health, and open space. This review lays the foundation for the next steps of the research. The second step includes an overview of affordable housing choices in Agadir during the colonial era, in the years after the independence, and in recent years. The third step is a spatial analysis of the Agadir region (Grand Agadir) to identify the way that affordable housing locations relate to overall affordability for residents. Analysis in this step relies on data collected from a variety of sources such as planning reports, housing studies, and the census.
vi The central research question thus, is how does the pattern of affordable housing locations under program implanted in Agadir affect household expenses for residents and how could any challenges resulting be overcome?
vii Table of Content
List of Tables ...... x
List of Figures ...... xi
Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1
Affordable Housing as a Global Issue ...... 1
Affordable Living in Contrast to Affordable Units ...... 2
Affordable Housing in Agadir, Morocco ...... 3
Research Question ...... 3
Scope of Research & Methodology ...... 4
Chapter 2: Literature Review – the Link between Affordability and Location ...... 6
Overview ...... 6
Popular Housing Affordability Measures ...... 7
The Housing Expenditure-to-Income Ratio ...... 7
The Residual Income Approach ...... 9
The Housing + Transportation Index ...... 10
Other Proposed Affordability Measures ...... 11
Amenity-Based Affordability Index ...... 12
The Self-Sufficiency Standard ...... 12
Environmental quality and Health Cost ...... 13
Discussion ...... 14
Chapter 3: Case Study Overview: Agadir, Morocco ...... 16
General Context ...... 16
Traditional Morocco: Before 1912 ...... 16
Colonial Morocco: 1912- 1956 ...... 17
Post-Independence Morocco: After 1956 ...... 17
viii Local Context of Agadir ...... 20
Overview ...... 20
Institutions ...... 22
The Housing Stock Today ...... 23
Future Housing Trends ...... 25
Chapter 4: Spatial Analysis of Grand Agadir ...... 28
Study Area ...... 28
Analysis Objective ...... 29
Data Collection ...... 30
Results ...... 32
Transportation ...... 32
Schools ...... 35
Health ...... 37
Green Space ...... 39
Summary Results ...... 41
Challenges and Limitations ...... 42
Conclusion ...... 45
Research Results ...... 45
Response to the Research Question ...... 47
Other Challenges of Affordable Housing in Agadir ...... 48
Recommendations ...... 50
Future Avenues of Inquiry ...... 54
Bibliography ...... 55
ix
List of Tables
Table 1: Evolution of the Urban Population ...... 18
Table 2: Household Income of Slum Residents ...... 19
Table 3: Summary Results of the OD Transit Analysis in Grand Agadir ...... 33
Table 4: Health Services in the eight Jurisdictions ...... 39
Table 5: Parks in the Grand Agadir (in sqm) ...... 40
Table 6: Overall Ranking of the 8 Jurisdictions in terms of the Provision of Basic Services ...... 42
x List of Figures
Figure 1:Tarik El Kheir Social Housing Apartment Project (left), MMM (Right) ...... 22
Figure 2: Study Area ...... 29
Figure 3: ALSA Bus Network in Grand Agadir ...... 33
Figure 4: Bus Stop Density in the eight Administrative Subdivisions ...... 34
Figure 5: Public Transportation Performance Indicators in Grand Agadir ...... 35
Figure 6: School Distribution in Grand Agadir ...... 36
Figure 7: Education Indicators in Grand Agadir (people/public schools) ...... 37
Figure 8: Health Service Distribution in Grand Agadir ...... 38
Figure 9: Share of Green Space per Capita ...... 41
xi Chapter 1: Introduction
Affordable Housing as a Global Issue
Since the birth of the city, housing has been the central focus of city builders and urban theorists and its relevance originates from early history. From the painted caves in 25,000 B.C. to the skyscrapers, living spaces have always been the main component of human settlements and cities. Housing affordability is a modern issue that was born with the industrial era, global capitalism, the densification of cities, and the emergence of a working class. The stratification of the population led to the creation of new housing types to accommodate the labor force which translated later into affordable housing.
Many philosophers have studied housing over the last century to overcome the growing challenges that emerged in housing urban populations and suggested utopian environments for housing the poor. One of these utopians was Robert Owen, who suggested the creation of a community sharing a large institution where all necessary services are provided such as the kitchen, education, work, and green space. Charles Fourrier suggested the Phalanstary, a similar idea that refers to a palace for the people to underscore the economic inequalities that have emerged with industrialism. Early modern affordable housing appeared during the first two decades of the 20th century and was not utopian but rather a cluster of units in physically segregated urban environments generated by the separation of land uses. As a result, poverty increased in these areas, services and infrastructure were not properly provided, and life quality declined.
The location of affordable housing is a major planning issue and much of the literature currently discusses its implications on different scales -the individual, the household, the
1 community, the city, and the region. As governments make efforts to overcome housing issues through quantity production, conflicts emerge, particularly those related to housing programs’ targeted population and how they are affected by location. The aim of this research is to bridge this gap between the residential location for low-income people and public services accessible to them in order to understand affordability in a more holistic way.
Affordable Living in Contrast to Affordable Units
Governments all over the world try to standardize certain concepts such as poverty and affordable housing in order to be able to strategize housing programs. Many affordability measures have appeared in the literature. Some are considered outdated while others are considered progressive and reflect a better understanding of population needs. Yet, because housing affordability is complex in nature due to the range of social classes facing housing problems and to the intricacy in the urban space, affordability measures suggested by the literature are still open to debate.
Among these measures, there is (1) the housing expenditure-to-income ratio that assumes that there is a proportion of each household’s income to be dedicated to housing costs, (2) the residual income approach that considers income after accounting for housing costs, (3) the housing + transportation index which is the first measure to include a spatial component and to link housing and other household budget items, (4) an amenity-based affordability index which compared affordability of units to the affordability of areas according to amenities provided by the same area, (5) the self-sufficiency standard which reflects the income that would cover all basic living expenses including housing, (6) environmental quality and health costs… etc. Other measures exist, but for the sake of brevity and to respect the objectives of this research, only these six have been taken into consideration.
2 Affordable Housing in Agadir, Morocco
For a long time, Agadir has been a small town anchored around an endless beach in the south of Morocco with one main attraction: Tourism. As opportunities grew in the city during the
1980s and the 1990s, the city limits have been expanded proportionally to accommodate the incoming population. Many neighborhoods have been created with the sole purpose of housing people, particularly the poor, and surrounding jurisdictions have been annexed as part of this planning process. The Grand Agadir, which is the city’s metropolitan area, now contains 8 jurisdictions including Agadir municipality. The other jurisdictions are Dcheira, Inzegane, Ait
Melloul, Lqlia, Temsia, Aourir, and Drarga. Together with Agadir (mun.), these areas are the focus of regional plans and host a substantial amount of affordable housing units created under national affordable housing programs such as 250,000 DH ($25,000) low-income housing,
140,000 DH ($14,000) extremely low-income housing, and fully-serviced plots for auto- construction of Maison Marocaine Moderne (MMM-Modern Moroccan House). The fact that each one of these jurisdictions is unique in terms of demographic characteristics, area, and services reveals some discrepancies as far as housing costs per unit and housing costs per location. To address this, a spatial analysis of these residential locations would be helpful to grasp these differences and therefore assess general housing affordability and affordability programs in these areas.
Research Question
The study brings together patterns of affordable housing location and the issue of affordability for the low-income population and tries to bridge the gap between them. Thus, the research questions are as follows:
3 (1) How does residential location impact affordability for low income households in Agadir?
(2) How can policy overcome location-related affordability challenges?
Scope of Research & Methodology
This study is about recreating a description for affordable housing that does not only include the housing cost but also all other costs associated with the residential location. The idea is to assess housing affordability in the study area that would help local authorities make informed decisions as far as the allocation of the housing units, targeted population, targeted areas, and the provisions of all related public services.
The first chapter of this professional report is a literature review of definitions of housing affordability that compares different measures used globally to define affordable housing and its targeted population. The objective is to underscore the inherent characteristics of residential locations such as transportation, access to opportunities, and the public services provided in the area and the important role they play in ensuring affordability for the low-income population.
The second chapter is an historic overview of the case study of this paper that aims to provide a background for the context for affordable housing policy before engaging in a spatial analysis in the third chapter. The case study city, Agadir, Morocco, is located 550 km south west of the capital city Rabat. Many factors have triggered interest in this particular place. Because of the housing crisis after the earthquake of 1960 that killed nearly a third of the population and displaced the rest, Agadir has been considered a living laboratory for planners and architects from around the world. A variety of local and national housing policies and programs have been implemented in the city of Agadir, including post-disaster housing that necessitated radical use of “eminent domain,” displacement of the city from the seismic zone, and the construction of several new social housing districts. The second phase of the urban experiment was during the
4 1970s, when the city elaborated a comprehensive plan that added new residential districts in order to expand housing stock in the city to keep up with population growth. Lastly, a more recent comprehensive plan was adopted during the 1990s, focused on urban expansion and the creation of satellite towns with new affordable residential districts. Several programs backed the creation of these new towns and districts such as the 200,000 DH (~$20,000) affordable homes program that was replaced during the early 2000s by the very low-income housing 140,000DH
(~$14,000) program and the low-income housing 250,000DH (~$25,000) program. Quantity production in Agadir does not refer to quality production because the city treats quality as an incidental component even though it represents most of the city fabric. Lack of attention to quality also means that new affordable housing has been pushed to the outskirts, away from services and the infrastructure, which are more available near the city center.
The third chapter is a spatial analysis of the Grand Agadir region that includes the city of
Agadir and the 7 adjacent jurisdictions covered by regional plans for the area. This part examines affordability in different residential locations according to characteristics observed in chapter one that include transportation and access to opportunities, education, health, and green space. Next, the analysis will rank the areas according to their performance in each indicator using data collected and combined from the census and other public sources. Lastly, the spatial analysis ranks these areas according to their performance across all indicators in order to identify the areas with the highest service performance that help lower living costs for their residents in contrast to those areas that have fewer services and that host affordable housing projects without considering expenses related to the area’s lack of a proper service infrastructure.
5 Chapter 2: Literature Review – the Link between Affordability and Location
Overview
Affordability and residential location are two housing characteristics that substantially affect each other. Locating in desirable areas increases land costs making housing units unaffordable to low-income people without subsidies. By the same logic, local governments tend to locate affordable housing in areas with cheap land to meet the housing needs of the locality within the available budget. However, other costs associated with residential locations are often ignored by governments. Instead, to measure housing affordability, a popular indicator known as the housing expenditure-to-income ratio is often utilized because of its use simplicity which allows governments to compare the (aggregate) affordability of different regions. The housing expenditure-to-income ratio represents a proportion of the household’s income; in so doing, it not only ignores the residential location but also other factors impacting affordability such as the size of the household, its special needs, and the costs of housing and non-housing necessities.
Also when choosing the location of the housing developments for low-income people, other factors of affordability such as opportunity, amenity, transportation, and environmental costs that are inherent characteristics of that specific location are often ignored.
Because of the ratio’s shortcomings, many studies have been done including a combination of qualitative and quantitative data that have led academics and practitioners to form an understanding of housing affordability and to whom it is affordable through a variety of measures, some of which are currently considered traditional and outdated and others that give housing affordability a better foundation for use in public policy to advance welfare.
This chapter aims to portray the importance of residential location for affordable housing by describing some of the most popular housing affordability measures and how they fail to meet
6 their intended objectives. As previously mentioned, these include the housing expenditure-to- income ratio, the residual income after housing costs, The Housing + Transportation Index, Area affordability index, Self-sufficiency standard, shelter poverty measure, amenity based housing affordability index, and environmental costs.
My first objective in this section is to define these measurements in order to have a certain understanding of the previous literature. Next, I will underscore the comprehensive value of the location of affordable housing as it links housing, non-housing, transportation, opportunity, amenity, and environmental costs, which delineate the term affordability to different ranges of households.
Popular Housing Affordability Measures
The Housing Expenditure-to-Income Ratio
The housing-expenditure-to-income ratio is one of the most widely used measures of housing affordability and the most resilient to debates and critiques because, although it has been used for several decades now, it is still the measure that is used by public governments in different parts of the world to set affordability standards, regulate affordable rents and account for public subsidies. In Canada, the minimal acceptable standard for this ratio has evolved from
20% to 25% in the 1950s to 30% in the late 1980s.1 yet, critics have noted the lack of a clear rationale explaining the choice of the ratio and its change over the years.2 In addition, although the housing expenditure-to-income ratio considers all housing costs including rent or mortgage, utilities, and property taxes, it determines the share of these expenses in relation to the gross income of households which also covers taxes and other expenses. Many researchers have
1 Hulchanski, 1995 2 Ibid
7 critiqued the housing expenditure-to-income ratio because of its lack of broader consideration of what affordability means. This is especially important because a given value of this ratio defining affordability would be experienced differently by different households depending on their specific economic situations and household composition.3
Hulchanski (1995) for instance argues that the housing expenditure-to-income ratio is not valid because of the historic background behind the introduction of the ratio and its contemporary use. According to his research, the housing-expenditure-to-income ratio was introduced in late 19th century and early 20th century by Ernst Angel and Herman Schwabe, who were German statisticians trying to understand the living conditions of the laboring class. Angel concluded that the percent of income spent on housing is constant no matter what the household’s income is while Schwabe’s findings showed that as a household’s income rises, housing expenditures increase at a slower pace, a concern particularly important in the context of rising inequality today.4 However, the ratio used today in measuring housing affordability is closer to what Angel has suggested. Because the ratio of housing affordability is not based on scientific knowledge but rather on experience and observation (using common sense) coming from “Ancient” times, Hulchanski denies its legitimacy.5 Another argument that invalidates the affordability ratio comes from Haffner and Boomeester (2015) according to whom the housing expenditure to income-ratio does not reflect the real ability to pay of households especially for the extremely low-income population. To these people 30% would interfere with other necessary living expenses that are not related to housing leading to unaffordable rents and non-housing needs.6
3 Chapin & Freeman, 1999 4 Hulchanski, 1995 5 Ibid 6 Marietta Haffner, 2015
8
The Residual Income Approach
Taking into account non-housing needs and the ability of households to pay for them after deducting housing expenses has led academia and practitioners to consider another measure of housing affordability--the residual income approach. This approach estimates the revenue left after accounting for housing. Stone (2006) argued that the housing expenditure ratio is inappropriate to measure affordability and the reason for its prevalence is its simplicity and ability to facilitate comparisons across different places, while the residual income approach describes households’ ability to pay for housing after meeting other necessary basic living expenses such as food and clothing.7 According to Tang (2012), the residual income approach draws its strength from the fact that it measures households’ ability to pay for housing according to their characteristics. This recognizes that two families with the same incomes and housing costs, if they have different sizes, will have different residual income levels.8 However, because the residual income approach is hard to determine due to the eclectic aspect of necessary non- housing needs which depend on families’ characteristics, applying it is complicated leading governments to choose simpler affordability measures.9
Other approaches have been used universally but revolve around the same idea of the residual income such as the poverty line standard that stands for the minimum income needed to afford the minimum of living expenses including housing, food, and clothing. The Budget
Standard is also another approach that refers to the minimum expenses in relation to non-housing
7 Stone, 2006 8 Tang, 2012 9 Stone, 2006
9 living necessities to allow housing programs reduce housing expenses to what low-income families could afford after meeting their primary needs.10
The Housing + Transportation Index
Another measure of housing affordability is the Housing + Transportation Index (H+T index) which adds a spatial dimension to households’ ability to pay for housing. The H+T index is a measure developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) to expand the meaning of affordability by combing transportation and housing costs since high transportation costs burden a large portion of the population that does not live near daily destinations. The relevance of this measure comes from the differences in residential locations that affect expenses: if households live in central locations that are well served by transit they can spend less on transportation than households living in further locations with less – or no- public transportation, requiring them to purchase and rely on their private vehicles.11
For Guerra and Kirschen (2016), the H+T index is useful in some ways but also ignores important aspects of housing affordability. They have explained that the H+T index has helped steer public policies away from reliance on the limited housing affordability measures-- especially the housing expenditure-to-income ratio which encouraged housing developments in areas with high land prices and low transportation costs. However, it is still an arbitrary measure relying on non-scientific methods because of its correlation with the housing expenditure-to- income ratio (typically 45% of income in H+T where 30% goes to housing and 15% goes to transportation).12 Another limitation of the H+T index is its disregard of household size, age, and other specific characteristics where households with children are more burdened than couples or
10 Whitehead, 1991 11 The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT): htaindex.cnt.org 12 Guerra & Kirschen, 2016
10 single people.13 Guerra and Kirschen have also pointed out the limitation of applicability of the
H+T index from the US to other countries and the fact that it completely ignores households’ preference in terms of distribution of income.14 For instance some families would like to spend more on transportation, entertainment and food in exchange of cheaper housing, and some other families would rather not. From their part, Tegeler and Chouest (2010) argued that the most important limitation of the Housing + Transportation index is that it does not account for other important expenditures such as schools and food that both need to be added to the housing affordability formula.15
Other Proposed Affordability Measures
When analyzing housing affordability in recent years, new measures have been introduced to research aiming to overcome the shortcomings of traditional affordability measures that ignore the different aspects of families with limited revenue and their access to opportunities. These measures relate to a spatial dimension that describes the location of affordable housing within a spectrum of different housing types and include access to opportunities, the existence of basic amenities, quality environment, healthy practices, and community social interactions. It is good practice to acknowledge that there is a tradeoff between popular affordability measures and others suggested by the literature; while a complete measure for housing affordability is harder to apply because it is sometimes not quantifiable or obscure, ratios and other popular measures are easier to calculate and are more efficient in producing affordable housing.
13 Belsky, Goodman, & Drew, 2005 14 Guerra & Kirschen, 2016 15 Tegeler & Chouest, 2010
11 Amenity-Based Affordability Index
The Amenity-based affordability Index discussed by Fisher and Pollakowski (2009) makes the case for the spatial cost that is not taken into consideration in other affordability measures and tries to compare the “affordability of units” to the “affordability of areas” in the
Boston Metropolitan Area for households earning between 50% and 80% of the Area Median
Income. The index includes explicit prices of housing and transportation in addition to implicit costs including school quality, jobs accessibility, and safety. These implicit prices are obtained from a hedonic price regression which allows to produce residential location indexes that describe area affordability.
Their argument pushes toward the importance of the location factor that affects the access to opportunity and therefore its cost which is backed with the results of their study (using a hedonic price regression) that shows that there are substantial differences in affordability when accounting for locational characteristics in the form of particular amenities. In other words, many supposedly affordable units are not really affordable because of their inaccessibility to jobs, schools, and safety that also represent additional costs for households living in these units.16
Although it seems ideal to add residential location parameters, the amenity-based affordability index has not gained traction since it is more difficult to apply in comparison to the ratio, residual income, and H+T. These measures are more easily used to create standards that be applied universally to implement affordable housing programs.
The Self-Sufficiency Standard
Another similar measure that accounts for housing costs together with other living expenses –directly related to location- is the Self-Sufficiency Standard (SSS) suggested by Dr.
16 Fisher, Pollakowski, & Zabel, 2009
12 Diana Pearce. The SSS calculates the amount of income that a household needs to cover overall living expenses including housing, medical care, education, food accessibility, etc. This measure aims to set strategies for low-income households in regards to their revenue/expenditure practices to achieve self-sufficiency. Zi Cai17 (a graduate student from UW) analyzed six different affordability measures (H+T, Shelter Poverty, HUD Guideline, NAR Housing
Affordability Index, Amenity-Based Housing Affordability Index, and the Self-Sufficiency
Standard) according to their use standards, their data accuracy, and the comprehensiveness of the living expenses they include and concluded that the SSS is a good measure of affordability because it represents a monetary value that is inclusive of different expenses unlike the housing affordability ratios that are far more vague to determine housing affordability.
Environmental quality and Health Cost
Intuitively, when talking about the residential location, one tends to think about distance and access to amenities as described in the previous paragraphs. Many studies have shown that the issues related to the location of affordable housing are not only tied to accessibility but also to many other factors that affect residents’ lifestyles. If affordable housing is affordable because of distance and the absence of amenities, it may also be affordable because of the presence of certain locational disamenities, such as the negative environmental conditions. Such disamenities can impact individual and family health and behavior. In their study of environmental inequities and risks related to residential location in Germany, Braubach and Fairburn (2010) conclude that housing intended for low-income people is usually located in places with low environmental quality involving air pollution, dampness, lack of sanitary equipment, noise, etc. 18 Another study
17 Cai, 2017 18 Braubach & Fairburn, 2010
13 in the Rijnmond region in the Netherlands reached similar conclusions, finding that low-income people often live in places with low environmental quality and are consistently exposed to rail traffic noise and have no access to green space.19 It is no surprise if both children and adults living in these residential locations have chronic health issues such as asthma and other respiratory diseases or develop some sort of anxiety and stress coming from the surrounding noise. In addition, Ellaway, Macintyre, & Bonnefoy (2005) have noted that affordable housing in environmentally unsound locations diminishes their “perceived safety” because of visual factors. For example, the presence of litter or graffiti in these places in turn discourage any kind of physical activity leading to many more health disorders.20
Discussion
Recent studies of housing have emphasized the role of location in determining affordability for households since locations also embody access to opportunities, health, education, and a good quality environment and reflect expenses that households need to cover besides housing and transportation costs. The rule of thumb of housing affordability that is popular among governments does not express housing affordability but rather housing cost and reveals the lack of concordance with the findings of research on the welfare of disadvantaged populations associated with particular locational attributes. This results in policies that encourage the siting affordable housing projects in what are actually un-affordable areas.
In theory, we might assume that residents know their own preferences and understand the costs associated with particular locations and with moving. Thus, one could think that households are able to choose the location of their housing according to their needs and could
19 Kruize, Driessen, Glasbergen, & Egmond, 2007 20 Ellaway, Macintyre, & Bonnefoy, 2005
14 potentially locate in moderately priced housing in exchange for more amenities and quality of life. Tiebout’s spatial public choice model reflects this idea of the existence of diversified areas that fit within each household’s preferences and that they have the freedom to move to match their preferences and budgets.21 However, his theory is problematic because it assumes that people are fully mobile, have knowledge about other housing areas, and it conveys the idea that there is enough diversity in those areas to serve the population in need which is not universally applicable. In other words, Tiebout’s theory assumes that metro areas have many independent jurisdictions, each with a unique package of public amenities at a certain cost. This idea has been challenged in the case of the United States. Arguably, other parts of the world have often even less diversity in terms of residential locations and the unique package of amenities they offer.
This in turn implies an even more limited set of residential choices for residents.
21 Tiebout, 1956
15 Chapter 3: Case Study Overview: Agadir, Morocco
Before spatially analyzing the case study of Agadir, this chapter provides an historic overview of housing developments in Morocco generally and in Agadir particularly. The first section is a general overview of housing in Morocco in three time periods: traditional Morocco before 1912, colonial Morocco between 1212 and 1956, and post-independence Morocco after
1956. The second section describes how the city of Agadir fits within the Moroccan context, including programs that have guided the development of affordable housing. The last section provides an overview of demographic and housing projections looking towards 2020.
General Context
Traditional Morocco: Before 1912
Before joining the modern urbanist movement, Morocco had a long history of traditionalism and culturalism in relation to architecture and urban planning. Traditionally,
Moroccan cities –also known under the name medina- were built to military standards with defensive walls, observation towers, and controlled access. Inside the city, religious sites were centrally located and served by the main routes that were also where most trade jobs were located. These routes also connected to the city’s few gates. The rest of the urban composition of the city was mainly residential, with Arabic and Islamic tendencies seen in the architecture of houses: large homes with courtyards and fewer windows on the facades to protect privacy and connected through a network of narrow streets. These streets led, within a walking distance, to major amenities that are the mosque and the market. Because of the confined aspect of the medinas and the ease of accessing the main amenities of the city, residential location has always been overlooked because housing was integrated into the compact city rather than separated.
16 Colonial Morocco: 1912- 1956
In 1912, the French and Spanish Protectorates were established in Morocco and
Europeans started coming to the country, which led to a cultural upheaval because Europeans started building their new cities next to medinas. Thus, traditionalism and modernism were juxtaposed in the largest cities and the medina’s walls were the only separation: inside medinas, there was a very dense, low height urban mass with narrow vernacular pedestrian circulation, and large traditional homes that contrasted the new car-oriented, high-rise, and service oriented urbanism emerging beyond the medina’s walls. During these first years of colonialism, Morocco was still an agrarian civilization with only a small proportion of the population living in cities. In
Marrakech, the medina’s 1,107ha22 were enough space for the population to reside close to its primary living needs. After 1912, the rural population of Morocco was tempted by urban growth that created more opportunities for them. However, their migration to cities remained moderate during the first years of colonialism because of the foreign culture associated with cities and the uncertainty of opportunities in the new cities. The “colonial city,” therefore, primarily hosted the
European population; it had no urban boundaries but remained small in size as it had little need for expansion.
Post-Independence Morocco: After 1956
During the 1960s, the first years of independence from the colonial occupation, rural migration became the main driver of urbanization in Moroccan cities.23 During this period, the rural population saw an opportunity to improve its living conditions, especially at a time of drought when industry grew as an employment sector in Morocco. By 1994, 54% of the
22 UNESCO 23 Centre d’Études et de Recherches Démographiques, 2014
17 Moroccan population resided in urban areas, with an average yearly urban growth going from
8% to 51% (table 1), which radically transformed the spatial composition of cities and of urban culture.24 As a result of rising rural-to-urban migration, medinas became overcrowded and a large number of slums appeared everywhere in all the large cities of Morocco. There was a lack of housing choices for people with limited resources, which also reduced many residents’ access to basic infrastructure and services. The most affordable housing choices were usually located far from the urban core and did not meet the needs of the growing population--if people could access them at all.
Year 1900 1936 1952 1960 1971 1982 1994 Urban Population 420,000 1,450,000 2,648,000 3,389,613 5,401,971 8,730,399 13,414,560 Cities 27 56 92 117 184 245 318 Growth Rate 8.0% 19.2% 25.0% 29.3% 35.2% 42.6% 51.0% Table 1: Evolution of the Urban Population25
source: Escallier R. Citadins et espace urbain au Maroc Noin D. Population rurale du Maroc, Tome 1, p. 69. Recensements de 1960, 1971, 1982 et 1994.
Morocco’s efforts to overcome the urban conditions that resulted from overcrowding and the lack of accessible services were not effective between 1960 and 1990; during this period the government tried to slow migration to cities through large-scale investments in Agriculture. The fight against the declining urban conditions did not gain momentum until the advent in 2004 of the “Villes sans Bidonvilles” (VSB-- “slum-free cities”) which is a national program aiming to eliminate slums and provide the low-income population with affordable housing.
Providing affordability was a big challenge for the Moroccan government, especially because three quarters of the population could not afford more than $15026 per month in housing expenses
24 El Mansouri, 2000 25 Ibid 26 All figures in dollars are US currency unless otherwise noted
18 and 17% of the households living in slums could not afford any mortgage product (table 2).27
According Martin & Mathema (2008), the VSB program required copious funding sources to meet its objective of providing affordable housing for the urban poor and many international donors supported the program including the World Bank, the European Union (EU), the Agence
Française de Développement (AFD), and the USAID. As a result, the Moroccan government created FOGARIM, a federal loan insurance program to encourage financial institutions to grant home mortgages to the poor population. Loans of up to $25,000 were offered to this group, with a $3,750 down-payment, and could be paid over a 25-year period at a prime interest rate (usually
5%). Meanwhile, the federal government pushed local governments to adopt long-term goals to eradicate slums in Moroccan cities and to provide free land to developers to build affordable housing.28
Households Income ($) <177 <251 <352 <544 >544 Percent Households 16.80% 22.50% 23% 26.80% 11.30% Affor. Mortgage Payment ($) 0 63 88 125 >125 Table 2: Household Income of Slum Residents
Source: Enquête Nationale sur la Consommation et des dépenses des Ménages National Survey for Households’ consumption and Expenses29
One of the largest developers of affordable housing is the public agency “Al Omrane”, which has built more than 52% of the slum-upgrading projects.30 The new housing products that came under the VSB program were mostly the provision of full-serviced plots for auto-construction, followed by apartment units and 3-story homes that could be single family or multi-family dwellings, offered for sale at prices between $14,000 and $25,000. Although it provided a large amount of affordable units to the urban poor, the VSB program had many limitations, including
27 Martin & Mathema, 2008 28 Ibid 29 Ibid 30 Ibid
19 the lack of reliable data as far as households’ income to define affordability and target the very low-income population without access to home mortgages because of their unpredictable incomes.31 The VSB’s limitations also included the inability of residents to afford the costs of construction or maintenance of their homes, leading many to sell their units after the initial five year period of required occupancy had passed, and move to substandard housing conditions.
Finally, the VSB program failed to consider the location of homes, which allowed new affordable housing units to be located far from opportunities and services, thus increasing the costs of transportation, education, health, and utilities for residents.
Local Context of Agadir
Overview
Unlike other Moroccan cities in the pre-colonial period, Agadir was a minor town with only a small fortified community called Qasbah and a harbor counting a little fewer than a 1,000 people.32 Not until a few years after the arrival of the French did the population start to increase due to rural migration which resulted in the construction of two neighborhoods near the harbor to accommodate the incoming population: Talborjt and Yehchach. The first city plan of Agadir made by Henry Prost, a French urbanist, in 1932 resulted in the creation of the administrative district--a centrally located modern neighborhood with public buildings and employee residences—that set the direction of growth through new city plans, fostered the adoption of zoning, and the creation of an industrial district. As a result, Agadir attracted more people looking to work in industry and in 1945 a second plan was crafted by Michel Ecochard, another
French urbanist who aimed to accommodate workers in new districts adjacent to their jobs in the
31 Ibid 32 GRIT, n.d.
20 industrial district. Agadir’s urbanization gained momentum during late 1940s and the 1950s, by which point the population had reached a little less than 50,000 residents.33
The urban growth of the city of Agadir was halted by the earthquake of 1960, which destroyed more than half of the city including the Qasbah, the harbor, and the neighborhoods of
Talborjt and Yehchach, all of them located directly over the fault line. A third of the population died and another third was left homeless just a few years after independence, as the country was recovering from colonialism. In 1962, a new comprehensive plan was released which had two major directives, (1) shifting the city to the south-east of the original location on the fault line, and (2) using eminent domain to acquire land needed to build affordable housing for the population in distress. During the 1960s, the city expanded 3 km to the south of the administrative district, which was still a reasonable distance for people to move for employment purposes. However, the demand for housing exceeded the stock available since housing was needed both for people recovering from the earthquake and the incoming rural population that had started squatting in substandard houses and slums. As a response, the city elaborated the
“Schéma Directeur de l’Aménagement Urban” (SDAU) in 1978-- the regional plan of the city.
The plan focused on creating new residential districts in the far south of the city to increase the housing stock but did not expedite the provision of the basic infrastructure such as roadways and utilities. This resulted in increasing the distance between opportunities and housing, difficulties in traffic circulation, and the lack of affordable units for the low income population. Another
SDAU was created in 1995 to overcome the shortcomings of the 1978 regional plan, particularly the distribution of employment opportunities and the access to infrastructure. The 1995 SDAU created a discontinuous urban spatial pattern, with satellite towns that provide job opportunities
33 (MFD, n.d.)
21 and retail. Despite its optimistic goals, the 1995 SDAU failed to achieve balance in the provision of infrastructure and accessible services to low-income residents, and continued to concentrate poverty in certain parts of the city.
Figure 1:Tarik El Kheir Social Housing Apartment Project (left), MMM (Right) Institutions34
As the city of Agadir has grown over the past four decades, a variety of planning and housing entities have collaborated to overcome the housing shortage. These housing institutions are either in the public sector or the private sector.
The public sector includes three different institutions:
(1) The Agence Urbaine d’Agadir (AUA) that focuses on urban planning and development
through the production of comprehensive plans and other urban documents that
encompass the affordable housing component through the extension of housing zones and
the creation of long-term goals in relation to that.
(2) Al Omrane is the national government’s public developer of affordable housing. Al
Omrane was created in 2004 through the amalgamation of several local housing agencies
to implement the national housing program throughout Morocco. It aims to eradicate
34 BET: Ayad Études, 2012
22 slums under the VSB program through slums’ demolition and the construction of low-
income housing.
(3) The Inspection Régionale de l’Habitat, de l’Urbanisme et de l’Aménagement de l’Espace
(IRHUA) – which translates as the regional inspector for housing, urbanism, and spatial
development. This regional agency performs housing studies and surveys that help the
AUA implement comprehensive and zoning plans. It also provides recommendations for
action plans, maintains housing building standards, etc.
The private sector is represented through small and large scale private developers that benefit from the affordable housing incentives and have a large impact on the affordable housing stock in Agadir. Among the large-scale developers that operate on a national level and have produced a large amount of affordable units: Chaabi Liliskane, Dial Al Mansour, Groupe Addoha, Groupe
Alliances, Les Espaces Saada, etc.
The Housing Stock Today
The affordable housing programs operating today include a variety of products targeted to households with different incomes. These programs are the $25,000 units for low-income people (figure 1, left), $14,000 units for very low-income people, and full serviced plots for auto- construction. According to the Recensement Général de la Population et de l’Habitat (RGPH) – translated as the general census of the population and housing-, the housing stock in the Agadir region today comprises about 250,000 housing units, 42% of which is located in Agadir municipality. The most popular housing type is the Maison Marocaine Moderne (MMM) which is the economical modern house that is built over the fully serviced plots provided under the affordability programs and is generally a two or three story building accommodating one household or more in each floor (figure 1, right). The MMM represents 72% of all housing units.
23 Apartments, in larger residential complexes, make up 20% of the total stock. The combination of the MMM and the apartment units represents the vast majority of the housing landscape in the city of Agadir (92%) where single family houses form a very small part of the housing stock
(5%). As far as housing tenure, the city of Agadir is dominated by homeownership; homeowners represent 61.50% of all households.35
Though the production of affordable housing has increased intensely during the last decades, along with a high rate of homeownership, it is still a matter of concern for Agadir.
According to a housing study36 the affordable housing shortfall for the city is about 9,109 units, a figure that reflects the housing deficit derived from both population growth in excess of available units and the presence of substandard housing including slums, informal housing units, and deteriorated housing units. The need to produce new affordable units seems vital to the city especially since more than 45% of residents have incomes that place them below the poverty line
(determined as $220 per month) and many localities have excessively high poverty rates: while
Drarga’s poverty rate is 28%, the rate in Agadir city is only 3.8% in Agadir city--below the national poverty rate (4.2%), suggesting a certain concentration of wealth and high-paying jobs in the municipality.37
Another challenge to affordable housing provision in the region is the small amount of available land in desirable urban areas such as Agadir municipality, currently estimated to comprise only 220 Ha.38 The impact of the scarcity of land has led the authorities to expand the construction of affordable units to adjacent jurisdictions (within the Grand Agadir39 Region and
35 RGPH, 2014 36 IRHUAE, HCP, RGPH, 2004 37 IRHUAE, 2008 38 SDAU, 2015 39 The Grand Agadir is the 8 jurisdiction area that includes Agadir City and other adjacent localities that are: Inzegane, Dcheira, Ait Melloul, Drarga, Aourir, Lqlia, and Temsia.
24 also covered by the SDAU). This raises concerns about whether current urban practices and governmental residential location choices are congruent with the population’s needs not only in terms of the provisions of affordable units but also the social and economic impact of location.
Other challenges to meeting affordable housing needs in Agadir include the growing population, the high unemployment rate, the persistence of slums in some parts of metropolitan Agadir, the persistence of other types of substandard housing, and land prices that are now a lot higher than they were ten years ago.
Future Housing Trends
To meet this growing housing need, the 2012 regional housing study focused on affordable housing needs projected for the year 2020 in order to set goals for production of affordable units. Because of the uncertainties of projecting population growth and migratory tendencies, three hypotheses have been elaborated to address the housing needs in metropolitan
Agadir: (1) an aggressive-growth scenario that assumes an increasing urban and demographic growth (1,397,032 by 2020), (2) a steady-state growth scenario which assumes that current growth will continue with a mild increase in population (1,355,531 by 2020), and (3) a weak- growth scenario that assumes that the growth is not substantial within the next 8 years (1,315,527 by 2020).40
Following the demographic projections under these three scenarios defined by the housing study, housing needs would be as follows in 2020: 148,790 in the aggressive growth scenario with a yearly need of 12,399 new units; 140,338 in the steady-state growth scenario
40 BET: Ayad Études, 2012
25 with a yearly need of 11,695 new units; and 130,011 in the weak growth scenario with a yearly need of 10,834 new units, most of which would be located in the Agadir municipality.41
Most of the housing need projected by the housing study is for social housing (costing
$25,000) at 31% of the total, economic housing on fully serviced plots at 22%, and very-low income housing (costing $14,000) at 29%. The remaining 18% would be mostly high-end apartment units and single family housing.42
According to the 2012 regional housing study, the land required by 2020 to build affordable housing is also projected to increase as follows:
(1) 2,228 hectares in the Grand Agadir according to the aggressive growth scenario, of
which 873 hectares would be needed within Agadir municipality.
(2) 2,100 hectares in the Grand Agadir according to the trend scenario, of which 830
hectares would be needed within Agadir municipality.
(3) 1,944 hectares in the Grand Agadir according to the weak growth scenario, of which 778
hectares would be needed within Agadir municipality.
The three scenarios lead to the conclusion that affordable housing in the Grand Agadir is a challenging matter even under the weak growth scenario. There are several reasons for concern: First, new affordable units are needed primarily within the Agadir municipality, an area characterized by its density and lack of available land. This poses challenges given the need to balance different aspects of affordability that are related to location. Secondly, expanding the jurisdiction’s area, creating new residential zones, and ensuring easy mobility within Grand
Agadir are sensitive issues that the housing study does not entirely cover. Another challenge for the region is the provision of services and basic infrastructure that go in tandem with the new
41 Ibid 42 Ibid
26 units and their accessibility to all income brackets. Lastly, it is unclear how the city would find the resources to meet its housing goals, whether through public funds, subsidies, tax incentives to developers, or some combination of the three.
27 Chapter 4: Spatial Analysis of Grand Agadir
Study Area
The selected area of the analysis is Grand Agadir, which is the metropolitan area of the
Souss Massa Daraa region. As shown in Figure 2, Grand Agadir encompasses two prefectures:
(1) Prefecture of Agadir Ida Ou Tanane that includes the municipality of Agadir and the
urban centers of Drarga and Aourir.
(2) Prefecture of Inzegane Ait Melloul which includes the municipality of Dcheira, the
municipality of Inzegane, the municipality of Ait Melloul and the urban centers of
Temsia and Lqlia.
The choice of this study area is consistent with the administrative boundaries of urban studies and research done by governmental entities to produce the regional plans – Schéma Directeur d’Aménagement Urbain (SDAU)- since 1995. The total area of this territory is 170 sq km of which only 151 sq km is analyzed in this chapter to limit the spatial analysis to the most urbanized area of Grand Agadir.
Many reasons have led me to the selection of this area for analysis, including its unprecedented population growth from about 121,000 in 1960 to over 1.06 million in 2014.43
Currently, Grand Agadir hosts around 40% of the total population of the Souss Massa Daraa
Region.44 Other reasons for the selection of this study area include its changing urban landscape over the last two decades, the achievement of the VSB program’s objective of eliminating slums from the city core, and the adoption of the new SDAU 2015.
43 RGPH 1960, RGPH 2014 44 RGPH 2014
28 Aourir
Agadir
Drarga Dcheira Temsia Inzegane
Ait Melloul
Lqlia
Figure 2: Study Area
Analysis Objective
The objective of this chapter is to present the results of a spatial analysis of Grand Agadir that encompasses the region’s housing characteristics in relation to residential areas. This includes the demographic characteristics of the population living in the area, housing characteristics, transportation availability and performance, education accessibility, and the proximity of residences to health services and open green space. This spatial analysis will compare the eight municipalities and urban centers in the region and assess the affordability of residential locations in the region and the impact of these patterns on residents with limited incomes and housing choices in the region. The objective of this comparison is to normalize the findings according to the total population in each municipality and/or urban center (in terms of transportation accessibility, access to education, health, and green space) and rank the jurisdictions according to their performance in each indicator. A final comparison will compile
29 the ranks of jurisdictions across all indicators to see how they differ from the common belief that
“further areas from the city core are more affordable”.
Data Collection
Because of the limited data sources for the spatial analysis of affordable housing in
Grand Agadir, a variety of sources have been compiled, some more reliable than others, in order to obtain a more practical dataset that would help achieve better results.
The Recensement Général de la Population et de l’Habitat (RGPH) is the census data for the population and housing in Morocco. The RGPH is used to obtain the overall population data in Grand Agadir and in the eight jurisdictions under study. This dataset also includes housing information such as the relative supply of each unit type in each specific jurisdiction which will help identify the affordable housing supply in each area. This combined with the housing tenure ratio will allow for a better understanding of the housing environment in Grand Agadir.
The public transit provider in the Souss Massa Daraa Region is the private Spanish transportation agency ALSA Automóviles Luarca SA which has operated in Agadir since 2010.45
To perform an origin-destination (OD) transportation accessibility analysis, GIS data was needed to achieve realistic results. However, because of the non-existence of a platform that provides this information whether from the transportation agency or the city of Agadir, a compilation of data coming from a variety of sources was used in order to obtain a much closer-to-reality analysis. OpenStreetMap (OSM), ALSA’s website, and Google Maps were the main sources used. OSM provided the majority of the bus lines operating in Agadir but failed to provide accurate data about bus stops. ALSA’s website helped collect all the bus stop locations in Grand
45 Rial, 2010
30 Agadir using diagrams provided by the company that did not use any spatial reference. Google
Maps (in addition to common sense and knowledge about the area) helped determine the location of every bus stop in every line in Grand Agadir. The analysis aimed to determine the level of service of each of the 8 jurisdictions in Grand Agadir in terms of the total number of trips, total number of pick-ups per day, total number of destinations, and the total number of drop-offs per day. The analysis encountered two limitations, (1) bus frequency was defined by a time range that extends to 30 minutes which increases in turn the margin of error, and (2) the destination results did not account for bus transfers because of the lack of these data.
The school supply information was found under the Données Ouvertes de l’Administration Marocaine46 which is a Moroccan open data source. Unlike the US Census where it is possible to select geographic locations, the dataset used included data for each of the regions in Morocco and was subdivided according to institutions’ types: public primary schools, public high-schools, and private schools. The final dataset used merged all the schools’ types and selected the targeted study areas.
Finding health indicators in Grand Agadir was challenging because there is no up-to-date comprehensive dataset. Thus, to simplify the health accessibility analysis for the population, a combination of the governmental open source data, with OpenStreetMap (OSM), and Google
Maps was used to determine the number of health institutions according to categories in each jurisdiction. Five types of health institutions were identified: (1) Regional Hospital (RH), (2)
Prefectural hospitals (PH), (3) CNSS Polyclinics (CNSS) which is a semi-public health institution, (4) Community scale dispensaries, and (5) private clinics.
46 data.gov.ma
31 Green space locations were obtained from OSM and their size was calculated manually using the same data source. Because the provision of green spaces in Grand Agadir is limited, it was feasible to use OSM for this task. However, because Agadir municipality represents the central urban area in Grand Agadir where the total population and green space density are high, I used my personal knowledge about the area to locate all the green spaces in the area.
Results
Transportation
Figure 3 shows how the bus network is spatially distributed over Grand Agadir.
According to the same figure, the network serves most of Agadir (mun.) and its adjacent jurisdictions with a few exceptions that include the harbor in the north-west of Agadir (mun.), the stadium east of Agadir (mun.), west of Inzegane, the royal palace, south-east Ait Melloul and some parts of Lqlia that are not sufficiently urbanized to have a bus stop.
32 Aourir
Agadir
Dcheira Drarga Temsia Inzegane
Ait Melloul
Bus lines Lqlia 1/2 mile of bus stop 1/4 mile of bus stop
0 5 km N Figure 3: ALSA Bus Network in Grand Agadir As shown is figure 4, Agadir municipality represents the highest density in terms of the number of bus stops in Grand Agadir area (278) followed by Ait Melloul (64), Dcheira (62),
Inzegane (50), Lqlia (11), Drarga (9), Aourir (2) and Temsia (2).
# of # # of Administrative Area total # of pick- destination drop- subdivisions (sqkm) population stops ups s offs Agadir (Mun.) 63.80 421,844 278 10,740 6,535 255,863 Drarga 2.89 70,793 9 228 198 6,245 Aourir 6.32 36,948 2 16 5 40 Ait Melloul (Mun.) 32.22 171,847 64 2,355 1,160 48,642 Dcheira El Jihadia (Mun.) 10.66 100,336 62 2,387 1,327 50,289 Inezgane (Mun.) 14.33 130,333 50 1,715 693 28,441 Lqliaa (Mun.) 10.30 83,235 11 608 242 14,416 Temsia 9.69 40,780 2 16 9 72 Table 3: Summary Results of the OD Transit Analysis in Grand Agadir
33 The analysis of the bus stop density according to the area of the administrative subdivisions (figure 4) shows that Dcheira has the highest bus density per sqkm (5.8) followed by Agadir (4.4), Inzegane (3.5), Drarga (3.1), Ait Melloul (2.0), Lqlia (1.1), Aourir (0.3), and
Temsia (0.2).
Density of stops (per sqkm)
Temsia 0.2
Lqliaa (Mun.) 1.1
Inezgane (Mun.) 3.5
Dcheira El Jihadia (Mun.) 5.8
Ait Melloul (Mun.) 2.0
Aourir 0.3
Drargua 3.1
Agadir (Mun.) 4.4
Figure 4: Bus Stop Density in the eight Administrative Subdivisions The study of the total bus stops and density of bus stops per jurisdictions seems not to be representative of the opportunities that each jurisdiction has access to. To have a better understanding of the accessibility performance of jurisdictions via transit, a total number of drop- offs is calculated based on the total number of destinations per day for all the stops within the same jurisdiction in function of the daily frequency of the buses. This number symbolizes the total number of destinations that can be reached per day in every jurisdiction. Because the total population in each area is different, the number of drop-offs represented in table 3 requires a normalization per capita. Figure 5 represents this performance indicator for each jurisdiction in
Grand Agadir. Thus, Agadir represents the jurisdiction with the highest performance indicator, followed by Dcheira, Ait Melloul, Inzegane, Lqlia, Drarga, Temsia, and Aourir.
34 0.700 0.607 0.600 0.501 0.500
0.400 0.283 0.300 0.218 0.173 0.200 0.088 0.100 0.001 0.002 0.000 Agadir Drargua Aourir Ait Dcheira El Inezgane Lqliaa Temsia (Mun.) Melloul Jihadia (Mun.) (Mun.) (Mun.) (Mun.)
Figure 5: Public Transportation Performance Indicators in Grand Agadir47 Schools
The provision of education for the young generation in Morocco boomed after independence in the 1960s when school attendance rose from 18% in 1956 to 53% in 1965. Yet not until the 1990s did this ratio reach over 90% of the young population (under the age of 18) attending an educational institution.48 Though the education ratio in Morocco has been rising over the years, the issue of accessibility to schools—based on the supply of free and close-to- home schools--seems to be relevant to determine equity of education in the country.
In the eight jurisdictions in the study area, the spatial analysis looked into the distribution of public schools (elementary and high-schools) and private schools. The results show that
Agadir municipality has only 32% of elementary public schools for its 40% of the population of
Grand Agadir while monopolizing the private education sector with 59% of the supply. The high private school supply might act as a buffer for the discrepancy between the share of the population and the share of the public elementary schools particularly because the socio-
47 Total Destinations (drop-offs in other jurisdictions) per capita 48 Tawil, Cerbelle & Alama, 2010
35 economic indicators (particularly salaries) are higher in Agadir municipality. As far as public high-schools, Agadir municipality has about half of the supply of public high-schools (46%).
Drarga, Aourir, Ait Melloul, Inzegane, and Temsia have a higher share of public primary schools than the share of their population while lqlia has a lower supply of public elementary schools. As of the public high schools, Inzegane and Temsia have a high supply whereas Drarga,
Aourir, Ait Melloul, and Lqlia have a low supply. Dcheira on the other hand seems to have a balance between its share of regional population (10%), public elementary school supply (10%), and public high school supply (11%). Regarding private schools, Drarga, Aourir, Lqlia, and
Temsia seem to have a low supply while Inzegane, Ait Melloul, and Dcheira have a supply roughly equivalent to their population distribution.
Share of population Public Elementary Schools Public High-schools Private Schools 59% 46% 40% 32% 20% 16% 16% 14% 14% 14% 12% 12% 12% 11% 10% 10% 9% 8% 7% 5% 5% 4% 4% 4% 4% 4% 3% 2% 1% 1% 0% 0%
AGADIR DRARGUA AOURIR AIT DCHEIRA EL INEZGANE LQLIAA TEMSIA (MUN.) MELLOUL JIHADIA (MUN.) (MUN.) (MUN.) (MUN.)
Figure 6: School Distribution in Grand Agadir Assessing access to education was challenging in Agadir particularly since it depends on both spatial accessibility and the quality of education. These two challenges are embodied in the issues of accessibility to close public schools that low-income people could afford and overcrowding which lowers the quality of the educational experience for students and therefore leads to bad school performance. The following analysis looked into the number of public
36 schools within each of the eight jurisdictions and how these schools serve the population of the jurisdiction. For this purpose, the total population within each jurisdiction was divided by the total number of public schools within the same jurisdiction. The results are shown in Figure 7 in which Aourir has the best proportion of schools for their intended population, followed by
Inzegane, Temsia, Drarga, Ait Melloul, Dcheira, Agadir, and Lqlia.
This indicator is limited because it uses total population instead of total schooled children to measure the performance of each area. The total number of students was unavailable to this research but it was assumed that total student population would be correlated with total population.
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0 Agadir Drargua Aourir Ait Dcheira Inezgane Lqliaa Temsia (Mun.) Melloul El Jihadia (Mun.) (Mun.) (Mun.) (Mun.)
Figure 7: Education Indicators in Grand Agadir (people/public schools) Health
The hospital network in Morocco is a combination of different public health providers, including public, semi-public, and private clinics. The public health system includes 3 layers of services: (1) the prefectural hospitals (PH) that act on the level of municipalities and urban centers, (2) the regional hospitals (RH) that have a larger area of service and offer a better medical expertise and more specializations, and (3) the interregional hospitals (IRH) that have a
37 multi-region and national vocation; these are generally university medical centers. Small scale health centers are also part of the public health system and offer day-to-day medical consultations and maternity care if they have a delivery unit. The Caisse Nationale de la sécurité
Social (CNSS), which is the social security of Morocco, also provides medical service through a network of CNSS polyclinics that metropolitan areas have access to. The health system also operates in the private sector and includes private clinics.
The health service distribution shows that Agadir municipality has the highest service level among the eight jurisdictions of Grand Agadir with a one Regional Hospital (RH) that also serves the whole region, one semi-public CNSS polyclinic, and 14 health centers that cover most of the neighborhoods in Agadir municipality, and 12 private full-service clinics. The other jurisdictions have lower health service levels with Dcheira having one prefectural hospital (PH), two health centers, and one private clinic, followed by Inzegane with one prefectural hospital and two health centers, Drarga and Lqlia with one health center each, and Temsia and Aourir with no health service facilities.
RH PH CNSS Polyclinic Health Center Private Clinics 14 12 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
AGADIR DRARGUA AOURIR AIT DCHEIRA INEZGANE LQLIAA TEMSIA (MUN.) MELLOUL EL (MUN.) (MUN.) (MUN.) JIHADIA (MUN.)
Figure 8: Health Service Distribution in Grand Agadir
38 Because of the lack of data as far as the number of doctors and hospital beds for every
1,000 people the analysis focused on a qualitative reading of the provision of health services in each of the eight jurisdictions within Grand Agadir. Agadir seems to have the better health service because it has a regional hospital and a CNSS polyclinic (in addition to a University
Health Center that is projected to open at the end of 2018 and that was not included in the analysis because it is still not operating). Although these health services are intended to serve the population of Grand Agadir region, they are still closer to the people living in Agadir (mun.) lowering therefore expenses related to accessing of these services. Agadir also has the highest number of neighborhood health centers and private clinics. Dcheira surpasses the other jurisdictions with one provincial hospital, two neighborhood health centers, and one private clinic followed by Inzegane. Drarga, Lqlia and Ait Melloul have the same health service but differ in terms of their total population; once population is taken into account, Lqlia appears to be better served than Ait Melloul and Drarga. Temsia and Aourir have no health services within their jurisdiction (table 4).
Administrative subdivision Population # health services Agadir (Mun.) 421844 28 Drarga 100336 1 Aourir 130333 0 Ait Melloul (Mun.) 70793 1 Dcheira El Jihadia (Mun.) 83235 4 Inzegane (Mun.) 171847 3 Lqlia (Mun.) 36948 1 Temsia 40780 0 Table 4: Health Services in the eight Jurisdictions Green Space
According to the spatial analysis of the green spaces across the eight jurisdictions of Grand
Agadir, the distribution seems to be uneven with Agadir (mun.) being the area with most of the
39 parks in terms of number and area. OSM data showed the existence of 11 parks and site visits revealed that these parks are in good shape and are well maintained by the city. The total area of these parks is 363,200 sq m. Inzegane and Ait Melloul have fewer parks and therefore a smaller area of green space within their jurisdiction with respectively 28,600 sq m and 17,900 sq m.
Dcheira have one 4,000sqm park and Drarga, Lqlia, Aourir, and Temsia have no city managed parks within their boundaries.
Agadir Inzegane 1 Olhao 33,000 1 Jardin 20 Aout 4,000 2 Place Al Amal 48,300 2 Jardin Rmel 15,300 3 Vallée des oiseaux 10,500 3 Jardin Amal 9,300 4 Ibn Zaidoun 52,000 Total Area 28,600 5 Jardin d'enfant les Amicales 4,000 6 Skate Park 78,200 Dcheira 7 Parc Taddart 15,000 1 Jardin Amougay 4,000 8 20 Aout 42,500 Total Area 4,000 9 Jardin Lalla Meryem 15,500 10 Jardin Dakhla 57,200 Ait Melloul 11 Jardin Amzil 7,000 1 Jardin Argana 4,150 Total Area 363,200 2 Jardin Agdal 10,700 3 Jardin Hay Moulay Omar3,050 Total Area 17,900 Table 5: Parks in the Grand Agadir (in sqm) As far as the share of green space per capita in the 8 jurisdictions, Agadir tops the list with
0.80sqm per capita followed by Inzegane (0.21sqm), Ait Melloul (0.10sqm), Dcheira (0.04sqm), and Drarga, Aourir, Lqlia, and Temsia with 0sqm per capita of green space.
40 SHARE OF GREEN SPACE PER CAPITA 0.860981785 0.219437901 0.104162424 0.03986605 0 0 0 0
AGADIR DRARGUA AOURIR AIT DCHEIRA INEZGANE LQLIAA TEMSIA (MUN.) MELLOUL EL (MUN.) (MUN.) (MUN.) JIHADIA (MUN.)
Figure 9: Share of Green Space per Capita
Summary Results
Table 6 sums the results of the spatial analysis with different rankings in the provision of basic services according to each jurisdiction and the overall ranking for all services. Agadir seems to provide its residents with better services which is reasonable due to the municipality’s status as the main city of the Souss Massa Draa Region and the touristic pole of the kingdom.
Because land prices are high within it and land stock is scare in recent years, many affordable housing projects have been built using public subsidies in extension zones through the Zones
Urbaines Nouvelles (ZUN) or new urban zones. Agadir’s (mun.) objective in extending its boundaries was to address the housing deficit which is the reason the 60-ha ZUN (located in the north of the municipality and called Hay Mohammadi) is mainly high-density residential. The creation of an affordable housing area within the boundaries of Agadir (mun.) that is served by the city’s public transportation network, has ensured the affordability of access to basic services and therefore might have lowered the costs of living for households in this area.
41 Dcheira, Ait Melloul, and Inzegane were created as early as the city of Agadir and were small urban centers for a long time before expanding in population and boundaries which led the local government to provide some services which explains their high rankings. Drarga, Aourir,
Lqlia, and Temsia are still considered small towns with much lower service provision even though they host a large low-income population and many units of affordable housing.
The importance of services comes from the fact that the affordable housing programs distributed across Grand Agadir are similar and the provision of services is not. Thus, though the city ensures a certain horizontal equity in terms of the provision of affordable housing, it neglects the vertical equity which considers affordability to include factors beyond the housing unit itself.
Administrative subdivision Schools Health Green Space Transportation Overal Ranking Agadir (Mun.) 7 1 1 1 1 Dcheira El Jihadia (Mun.) 6 2 2 2 2 Inezgane (Mun.) 2 3 4 4 3 Ait Melloul (Mun.) 5 5 3 3 4 Drargua 4 6 5 6 5 Aourir 1 7 5 8 5 Lqliaa (Mun.) 8 4 5 5 7 Temsia 3 7 5 7 7 Table 6: Overall Ranking of the 8 Jurisdictions in terms of the Provision of Basic Services
Challenges and Limitations
The spatial analysis presented in this chapter suffers from some limitations due to problems with data collection and the inexistence of advanced data sources which might have slightly impacted the accuracy of results. The idea behind this spatial analysis is to provide a general idea of the different administrative subdivisions within Grand Agadir and how their differences in the services impact the provision of affordable housing and the people living in it.
42 Transportation data that was collected was limited because of the unreliability of the bus network and its lack of concordance with the schedule provided by ALSA. Also, the frequency of buses provided by the transportation company and that was used to calculated the accessibility performance was represented through a range going from 10 to 30 minutes which is a wide range to predict the bus frequency and therefore the performance. In addition, many people choose to use other transportation alternatives to circulate in Grand Agadir such as carpooling and shared cabs that are both as cheap as the bus and are more reliable. If data related to this alternative means of transportation were available, transportation accessibility analysis might lead to different outcomes.
The analysis of education services is also limited because it was measured primarily based on the number of schools within each administrative jurisdiction. Other measures that are relevant to this analysis, such as the quality of schools and the performance of students, are not available.
Also, the issue of education is very sensitive because quality shifted to private schools that affluent residents rely on and which low-income people cannot necessarily afford. However, there are a few public schools that have the reputation of quality and high performance but because of the inexistence of reliable data about them, I cannot assess this.
My analysis of health services in Agadir also has some limitations since I am unable to assess differences in the quality of service particularly in public facilities which may lack equipment and sometimes a sufficiently qualified workforce. Thus, the presence of health care facilities in a given jurisdiction does not necessarily reflect the provision of good health services to the low- income population. Also, private health institutions were not included in the final results due to the lack of data on the access to health insurance and social security. People with financial abilities tend to use private health providers due to the issue of quality and apply for refunds
43 through their health insurance or social security which low-income people do not necessarily have.
Due to the large scale of this spatial analysis, not all the green spaces in Grand Agadir were visited to provide more detailed description of their conditions. Only spaces in Agadir (mun.) were visited. It is assumed that because of the small number and size of green spaces within the other jurisdictions, the final results would not change. Another limitation of the green space analysis is the lack of data related to safety and crime rates around public parks. Use of green space for the recreation in Grand Agadir is strongly related to safety. The absence of safety in certain areas, even in Agadir (mun.), leads people to avoid using them which makes the green space analysis in some places irrelevant. Finally, there are some green spaces that people cannot not use because of the city’s prohibition to walk on the grass leading therefore to empty green spaces.
44 Conclusion
Research Results
Housing affordability is a complex concept as revealed in the literature regarding appropriate measures. As a result, the methods used by governments to define it can sometimes be misleading and not reflective of a more holistic understanding of what affordable is for different types of households. These methods generally include measures devoid of spatial context and households’ characteristics which makes their implementation challenging and unlikely to reach its objectives. The housing expenditure-to-income ratio is one of these measures that is widely applied despite its shortcoming due to its simplicity. Other housing measures do a little better, recognizing that there are facets of affordability other than housing costs and that these also relate to household income such as the residual income approach and the housing + transportation ratio. Measures inspiring this research because of their progressive perception of housing affordability, include the amenity based index and the self-sufficiency standard. Both consider housing costs more holistically, in order to understand the conditions faced by the majority of low-income households, particularly those who live distantly from food resources, job opportunities, educational institutions, and health facilities. These locational factors add to their living expenses and render many locations unviable options. As a result, housing affordability measures should be correlated with those residential location characteristics that are part of the daily living needs: the housing unit, access to opportunities using transit, the availability of schools and health care facilities, and the availability of green space (for mental and physical health).
Application of these broader measures to the research case study Agadir, it was revealed that there is a discrepancy between the distribution of affordable housing units across the region
45 and the residential location characteristics described in the previous chapter. Historically, Agadir was a small town where all the population lived in proximity to each other and to their main basic living needs. The schools were in every neighborhood. Health care, jobs, and green space were within walking distance and transit connected Agadir to adjacent towns before they were annexed to the Grand Agadir. The urban growth went beyond city limits and resulted in an urban dispersion formed by residential neighborhoods that co-existed with the service neighborhood (Agadir Downtown at that time). Affordable units were clustered, resulting in poverty concentration and difficulties accessing remote job opportunities. During the 1970s, local government, in an impulse to bring jobs and services closer created self-autonomous neighborhoods and new towns to absorb the need that pressured Downtown. However, the services are too meager compared to the population in those newly created towns, and they still are today.
The Grand Agadir is now composed of 8 jurisdictions (Agadir, Dcheira, Inzegane, Ait
Melloul, Lqlia, Aourir, Temsia, and Drarga) and covers now nearly 170sqkm. The Grand Agadir has a large stock of affordable units created under the national housing programs such as the
250,000dh ($25,000) for the low income population, the 140,000dh ($14,000) for the extremely low-income population, and the fully-serviced plot for auto-construction at no more than
250,000dh ($25,000). These housing units are located in all of the 8 jurisdictions and are intended for homeownership. Agadir City center started having fewer new affordable housing projects (compared to other jurisdictions in the metro region) because of the scarcity of land, the high price of land, and the city’s decision to revitalize and expand downtown to include more high-end apartment buildings, office spaces, and retail. As a result, the city enlarged its boundaries to host new urban zones (Zones d’ubanisation nouvelles ZUN) that allowed for the
46 construction of more affordable units within the municipality’s limits. On the other hand, services were not equally provided in all of the jurisdictions, not even proportionally to each jurisdiction’s total population or other demographic characteristics. Thus, the housing units that cost the same across the Grand Agadir boundaries lead to different living expenses in every jurisdiction. The spatial analysis of affordable units and service provision in Grand Agadir revealed the following results that support this assumption:
(1) Agadir municipality provides its residents with better services in addition to the
proximity to the touristic area and the beach with affordable units costing the same as
in other locations.
(2) The other jurisdictions score way below in terms of services but some better than
others. Dcheira, Ait Melloul, Inzegane, and Lqlia are as old as the new Agadir after
the reconstruction in the 1960s. Their historic significance and population density that
persisted over the years led them to have slightly more services per capita than
Temsia and Aourir, that were mainly rural areas until their incorporation.
(3) Newly built towns (Drarga) and annexed rural town (Temsia and Aourir) have few
services and their population usually commute to adjacent jurisdictions for basic
needs.
Response to the Research Question
The residential location of affordable housing is a determinant factor of affordability because housing choices are correlated with living expenses, particularly those related to education, health, entertainment, transportation, and access to other opportunities such as jobs, food sources, etc. Most often, local governments consider these expenses only slightly, or not at all, when implementing housing programs. As a result, such programs negatively affect
47 neighborhoods with low services, and are especially detrimental for neighborhoods with the lowest accessibility. In Morocco, the issue is even more challenging because the affordable units cost households the same amount according to the national housing programs ($25,000 and
$14,000) and do not take into account the unequal distribution of services among affordable housing neighborhoods. To overcome this pressing issue, the government should take substantial measures that either balance these inequities through the provision of services or by offsetting the cost of inequities that result from equally implementing housing programs.
Other Challenges of Affordable Housing in Agadir
The affordable housing stock in Agadir is exposed to many challenges that diminish the housing stock or hinder low-income people from accessing it. These challenges are:
- Agadir municipality is a very attractive location for people because it has all services in
proximity to the majority of neighborhoods in addition to the easy accessibility to the
beach and all the touristic zones (which are important work locations). If not for
permanent living, people would rather buy property as a secondary home for holidays or
for business, typically a non-expensive unit which they have access to due to the lack of
enforcement of affordable housing regulations related to income brackets, that protect the
low-income population. As a result, non-eligible people “the rich” could compete with
“the poor” on the affordable housing market pushing them elsewhere, generally outside
of Agadir municipality where the service level are generally lower.
- Maintenance is an issue for most of the affordable housing stock, especially for apartment
units. After selling units, maintenance is not required from the government, housing
agencies, and developers. For people who are struggling to meet their daily living
expenses, maintenance is a luxury they cannot afford which leads to the degradation of
48 housing and sometimes the increase of expenses related to necessary maintenance such as
plumbing.
- In jurisdictions with the lowest service level, other issues emerge. In public schools for
instance, overcrowding is prevalent leading to low quality education that affects students’
current performance and therefore long-term achievements. This case represents a vicious
circle where education that aims to improve families’ lives does not meet its objectives
with impacts that are compounded over generations.
- Jurisdictions in Agadir are not equal in the provision of services and public transportation
is the mean by which these differences could be offset. However, because in Agadir
public transportation is unreliable due to time inaccuracies and bad frequencies, those
inequalities are emphasized, leading to further isolation from surrounding areas and their
services.
- The main form of housing tenure is ownership, even for the low-income population.
There exists a rental market that is led by individual housing owners that either have
secondary apartment units or own economic housing (MMM) which is a three-story
house in which the owner household could live in one floor and rent the remaining ones.
The idea of a small scale rental market seems ideal to enlarge the targeted population
spectrum covered by the governmental affordable housing market, yet it is far from being
a reality. The first reason is that the MMM is mainly used as a way for families to co-live
with their extended families rather than strangers. Secondly, people who would rent units
to others would rather choose young single people with no long term commitments, such
as students that occupy the house for a couple of years and leave. This is because
49 landlords prefer to have freedom terminating leases which is harder when the renter is a
household with children who lived in the units for several years.
Recommendations
1. Bringing services closer
Often in Agadir, the construction of affordable housing precedes the provision of service infrastructure, sometimes even including roads. This occurred in several neighborhoods during the 1970s under the new SDAU and it is still happening in some new developments. It is necessary that the strategies tailored by the government in partnership with private institutions acknowledge the sequence of investments to foster long term improvements for the population and the built environment. Housing development must go hand in hand with infrastructure and services and national housing programs should consider them simultaneously or at least with insignificant temporal gaps that would not impact the investment in affordable housing and low- income people. In addition, the idea of enhancing the jurisdictions around Agadir municipality would also help depressurize the demand on the region’s central area because it would make them more attractive to new developments which might in turn stabilize the non-subsidized housing prices in Agadir municipality.
While common sense dictates that housing is as important as the presence of services, the lack of governmental funds for the region of Agadir is a reality that should be acknowledged.
However, because Agadir retains the status of the capital of tourism in Morocco, it seems logical to have the tourism industry contribute to the creation of complete environments for the low- income population. Large hotels, high-end restaurants and boutique shops could be taxed proportionally to their impact on their surroundings. This would be justified because they create low-income jobs (which creates the link to affordable housing), therefore, they should contribute
50 to the construction of affordable housing and support the creation of proper services in low- income neighborhoods.
2. Are unique housing prices necessary?
As mentioned earlier in the report, there are two types of affordable housing programs: the
$25,000 and the $14,000 (in addition to the fully serviced plots for auto-construction at no more than $25,000). These housing programs are equally implemented across Agadir region which makes some residential locations more attractive than others, appealing not only to low-income people but also predators who are mostly middle class looking for secondary homes or investments in units that they could sell after few years at market prices. The national housing program is thus regressive as far as equity, because while they ensure access to affordable units in all jurisdictions, they fail to address vertical equity by creating housing units in further areas not served by proper transit and not containing proper services, which adds expenses to the low- income population in comparison to other social classes.
Equal implementation in terms of housing prices might not be the ultimate solution as residential locations are different. Household income and poverty lines should be reassessed as affordability measures because they are not representative of affordability. Creating a spatial measure that takes into consideration the characteristics of the jurisdiction (even at the neighborhood scale) that could determine affordable housing prices while respecting the spectrum of limited incomes is necessary. This measure could act as a price coefficient and would balance living costs for low-income households while removing pressure on areas with high demand. Ultimately, low-income people at the high end of the income spectrum could reside in highly serviced areas for a higher price while extremely low-income people could
51 reside in area with less services but the non-housing costs would be offset by the cheaper housing units they have access to.
3. Rental housing
In Morocco, like everywhere else in the world, homeownership is the form of tenure sought by most of the population. In Agadir, homeowners represent 61% of all household. The rental market is mainly represented in households renting their secondary apartment units or a floor in their MMMs. While it is agreed that this form of rental housing absorbs some of the need in housing, it fails to distribute the rental stock fairly on the population in need. The reason behind this is the people’s willingness to rent their units to family member, acquaintances, or at least the highest bidder. They are also reluctant to long-term leases that families with children need. As a result, very low-income people, who cannot rent these units, are left with very poor quality housing. A subsidized rental market that is more regulated and that enlarges the beneficiaries’ spectrum might be an alternative to homeownership for households that cannot afford to own and that resolves the renting issues related to poor quality living conditions experienced by the same population.
Publicly owned rental housing is far from perfect due to quality and management issues it could face. A private third party that uses public subsidies to build rental housing and manage it may be more appropriate to ensure good housing conditions with affordable rents.
4. Density bonus programs
So far, publically subsidized housing complexes and subdivisions are the main mechanism to produce affordable housing. There are many other opportunities in the real estate market to boost production such as high-end complexes that could participate in creating affordable units.
Density bonus programs have a lot of benefits including: (1) the creation of economically diverse
52 neighborhoods in prime areas with access to good quality services which would have a positive long-term impact on households benefiting from it, and (2) the ability to approve density bonuses in exchange of monetary contribution to the local government to enhance services in some areas of the region such as the creation of neighborhood health centers, green spaces, and better transit with sheltered bus stops.
Some parts of Agadir are densifying with new high-end developments that are threatening affordability in that area and pushing low-income people further away. Incentivizing developers to include affordable units is necessary to maintain affordability in the center of Agadir. In return, developers could benefit from tax breaks and increase their returns with the density program.
5. Strengthening census data and open source information
Census data, particularly aggregate data at the level of the block or block group, is something that the state should focus on, publish, and update regularly. This data is necessary for many uses for different entities including:
- Planning agencies that could use the data to better understand the built environment and
come up with reasonable planning solution that benefits the community.
- Transportation agencies that could use the data to detect areas of need for transit and
better serve them.
- City and State that could create budgets that correlate with the need concluded from the
advanced data available.
- Academic and professional researchers that could help local government have a better
knowledge of the population, trends, and future projections.
53 Future Avenues of Inquiry
There are many avenues that could be considered in the future to enhance the results of this study among which:
1. Spatial analysis of housing sites and related factors using Geographic Information
Systems (GIS)
In this report, the results of the analysis were not represented geographically in maps because of the lack of a GIS database that could be used for that purpose. Creating a region’s dataset using tables and shapefiles that could be combined would advance spatial analyses. These datasets could include demographics, housing data, economic data, services, employment information, and transportation data in the region that would facilitate future research in the area.
2. Job accessibility
Because the report lacked sources to inquire about access to employment and used instead the drop-off rates in each area, research about accessibility to jobs in Grand Agadir would be appropriate to better understand transit service level and performance. It would also help identify areas where housing –in relation to employment and income- makes more sense.
3. Affordable housing for workers with unstable earnings
The government uses poverty line and/or minimum wage to identify people with limited income. Yet there many workers with unstable incomes (mainly construction workers, hourly temporarily public employee, etc.) that currently do not have access to existing housing products.
Examining this population, identifying its needs and providing a housing strategy for them is something to think about for future research.
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