Oran 1732-1912

Foreword 13 Acknowledgements 19 Introduction The research objective 21 Theoretical and methodological framework 23 Part One: Oran as a model of a Western city. A prelude to urban modernity, 1732–1792 Chapter 1: The physical aspects of the urban site 35 The dominant features of the topography 35 The site and its urban development 39 Chapter 2: The urban structure 45 The urban fabric within the city walls 45 The districts outside the city walls 50 Elements of the urban structure 51 Major urban developments 54 Chapter 3: Oran, a Mediterranean port 73 An Andalusian maritime stronghold until 1509 73 A flashpoint in the Spanish-Ottoman conflict 74 The port of Oran, a major trading centre in the Mediterranean 75 Major port works 79 Conclusion to Part One 82 Part Two: Reconquest and repopulation from 1792 onwards Chapter 4: Origin and formation of the new settlement 87 The political context of the reconquest of Oran by the Algerian-Ottomans 87 The repopulation policy 90 Origins of the influx of people 93 Chapter 5: The new legal status of land and property 99 The city’s status in the aftermath of the reconquest 99 Forms of urban land acquisition 101 Chapter 6: Bey Mohamed-el-Kébir: conqueror and urban planner 113 The urban landscape on the eve of the 1790 earthquake 113 The difficult conditions of settlement 115 The need to create a ‘New Town’ (1792) 117 Chapter 7: The reconstruction of the c

It is from the perspective of a political sociology of urban phenomena that we approached the analysis of the Algerian city of Oran, both as an object and as a category of analysis. This clearly implies questions about the ways in which urban policies are articulated and how collective and individual, institutional or informal political actors are identified within the field of urban political action, in their historical dimension. The spatial recompositions and transformations of the city's urban landscape were thus analyzed through three experiences of urban planning and repopulation policies, spanning a period (in the Braudelian sense of the term) of more than two centuries, from 1732 to 1912, across three historical periods: Spanish, Ottoman, and French.