Marrakech = Pompei

That's the thought I had this year, visiting Marrakech again. On your way from the airport to the city center, you just can't but notice the new developments sprawling along the avenues. They basically come in 2 styles. The first style consists of "luxury residences", 5 to 6-storied Marrakech-pink concrete blocks, complete with shops and swimming pools.

   

The second flavor is deliberately more exclusive. It consists of "luxury villas" swarming inside walled compounds. The difference, apart from the price, is that you get your own precious private swimming pool, and sometimes a patch of precious private green lawn, all fed with the scarce water of that Sahara city. The lush palm groves, by the way, that used to spring from that water bounty, are steadily drying up, from lack of water and care, yielding more precious private space for more extravaganza developments.

I personally feel no appeal at all towards this urban style (is it really a style?) The location has no charm whatsoever, either along lifeless modern boulevards, or along equally lifeless roads outside the city. The quality of construction looks average. Or rather, it looks like it is going to decay from the building phase directly into ruins without enjoying the "new" (let alone the "charmingly old") state.

This is too much. Too much concentration, too much speculation, too much wasted resources.

And also too late.

The (mostly French) tourists that fell in love with Marrakech 30 years ago, refurbishing old houses in the historic city center and rejuvenating some dilapidated areas, sure did have a wonderful idea and had an awesome time. Marrakech is a world wonder, showcasing a civilization of its own. European eyes marvel at the sight of craftsmen MAKING things, from furniture to clothes to ironwork and much more. European minds wonder at the feeling you get from the strength of the tight-knit communities (despite the apparent absolute disorganization of everything.)

But now is too late. The lode is empty. Developers still want to ride the wave one more year, wringing more dollars or euros from enthralled tourists, seducing them into buying their share of the dream, in the form of a "luxury" home they will never inhabit. (Sometimes using the most loathsome manipulation techniques to close their deals, which is no indication of a good product or a healthy business.)

Visiting Marrakech again this year, I predict that we are seeing the end of this Pompei of modern times. Pompei was also a luxury resort down South for foreign gringos, who came there once in a while to unwind. Pompei's end was tragic, Marrakech's decline is gradual, but no less certain. The wave is now going down.

I also predict that in Pompei, archaelogists will one day discover complete housing developments in second-rate areas, off the prestigious neighborhoods that we admire. Those developments will be strangely bare, as though they had never been inhabited. And they never have: they were the latest fantasies from hungry developpers, the ancestors of those that we see at work again today.