From Rehabilitation to Urban Integration: An Evaluation of Tunisian Policies Addressing Informal Housing (1960–2025)

Abstract

Informal housing has become a structuring component of the Tunisian urban landscape, despite decades of public interventions aimed at reducing or integrating it. This article offers an assessment of the effectiveness of Tunisian policies addressing informal housing, combining a diachronic analysis of national programmes implemented since the 1960s with a field study conducted in the recent neighbourhood of El Oued in Bhar Lazreg. At the national scale, the review of resettlement, rehabilitation and urban integration policies highlights significant progress but also persistent limitations related to design modes, governance mechanisms and funding arrangements. At the local level, observations in El Oued and interviews with residents reveal a gap between institutional intentions and the actual conditions of access to networks, services, sanitation and a safe living environment. The cross-scale analysis shows that current policies still struggle to keep pace with the rapid densification of informal neighbourhoods and to incorporate residents’ knowledge and skills into intervention processes. The article concludes by emphasising the need to rethink public approaches towards participatory, incremental and context-sensitive strategies that are better aligned with the socio-spatial dynamics of these neighbourhoods and with contemporary environmental challenges.