Urban Sprawl Vs Urban Renewal: What Role for Town and Country Planning Instruments in Ensuring Sustainable Cities? Case of Algeria

It is currently admitted that developping countries (in particular those of Africa) are witnessing an unprecedented movement of concentration (populations and activities) in urban zones. Although the tendency for population gathering is secular, this movement surprises at the same time by its scale and its rate: the cities have reached dimensions never equalized before while the rhythm of concentration continue to accelerate. The quality of life and the local ecosystems are the first to suffer. This situation has been accompanied by some acute problems like a forte consumption of space and misuse of natural resources. Actually, and with the new researchs that have been conducted within the last decade, it has been proven that the idea of city is contradictory with dispersion. The current tendency stresses the concept of ‘compacte city’. This concept refers ineluctably to the notion of urban renewal which points up as a primary objective to ‘rebuild the city on the city’. This urban policy comes exactly to stand against two logics: the non-controlled expansion of the cities and the deepening of social inequalities within a spatial segregation. It also stands as a new model for the development of the city aiming at saving space and energy, regenerating the degraded urban territories and increasing social diversity. In Algeria, it seems that the urban situation of big cities (especially those occupying the coastal fringe of the country) obeys to the same criteria that are enumerated above: flagrant concentration of people and activities, limitless sprawl of agglomerations invading whole agricultural zones, exhaustion and bad exploitation of natural resources… etc. This paper focuses on the impact that the newly launched instruments of town and country planning in Algeria will perhaps have to adjust a critical urban situation. It also emphasises on the role they must play to allow the emergence of real sustainable cities with regard to protecting the environemet and natural resources.