Belghit Derouiche: Urban Development Strategies in Tunisia: Continuities and Breaks in Urban Planning Approaches. A comparative analysis of four strategies from before and after the ‘Tunisian Spring’.

Urbanisation in Tunisia has continued to grow at a rapid pace, resulting in territorial imbalances and the establishment of a planning system whose limitations have been the subject of several studies. It is against this backdrop that, over the past two decades, strategic planning has begun to be introduced into urban policy in Tunisia under the banner of the ‘City Development Strategy’ (CDS). The aim is to define a vision for the city, broken down into strategic objectives, the implementation of which will be ensured through concrete actions. The development of these SDVs involves various stakeholders (public sector actors, civil society, experts, etc.) and takes an integrated approach to different dimensions (spatial, economic, social, etc.).
Drawing on the cases of Tunis, Sfax, Sousse and Jendouba—two of which were developed before the Tunisian Spring and the other two after—this thesis aims to test hypotheses treating these SDVs as reflections of changes in governance.
We examined the four strategic planning processes in Tunis, Sfax, Sousse and Jendouba through five lines of inquiry: the international dimension of the SDVs, their development methods, the study of representations, organisational structures and, finally, practices.
This work has led us to three main findings. Firstly, our analyses led us to conclude that the four processes studied reveal continuities with certain approaches to urban planning that already exist in Tunisia, thereby putting the impact of the ‘Tunisian Spring’ on urban planning practices into perspective. Secondly, our analyses also led us to conclude that the four case studies reflect transformations that have concerned only specific aspects of urban planning and apply to very specific fields. Finally, the third finding of our research showed that the four case studies (including those conceived before the ‘Tunisian Spring’) brought about a renewal of urban planning in Tunisia and were the catalyst for changes at several levels of urban governance.