ACTORS' CONTROVERSIES AND TERRITORIAL GOVERNANCE IN THE SOUTHERN VICINITY OF FEZ (MOROCCO)

Abstract

This article discusses the actors' controversies on the suburban development in the southern vicinity of Fez (the commune of Ain Chkef, Morocco). These controversies are heavily affecting the local development and impose costly burdens in terms of impacts on local systems. They were analyzed in this article using a synthetic spatial methodology based on socio-spatial data and cartography by ArcGis. The role of terrestrial property on actors' intense controversies in the area is discussed in terms of the opportunities it offers for investment and as conflicts' factor between rights' holders, operators and other developing actors. Controversies are sometimes linked to issues of land value, the development of activities (gentrification, activity zones and actors contesting positions), and to the location of major equipment or environmental resources. The governance and steering of local development under these conditions is complex, because the decision-maker should assimilate the actors' needs and all influencing parameters in the suburbs, to develop the convergent governance suggested as a solution. It includes clear visions, a further knowledge of territorial stakes, the key factors of the territorial management and the causes and motivations of the actors' controversies to find adapted solutions and answers to their questions. Convergent governance must be anticipative, communicative and able to create the actors' convergences. Suburbs' complex realities may therefore be best understood using the convergent governance approach with a further consideration of relationality and territoriality that integrate the local, regional and external contextual influencing factors.