Casablanca

The Hassan II Mosque stands on a platform over the Atlantic Ocean, its minaret the tallest religious structure in Africa at 210 metres—a costly signal announcing Casablanca's ambition to be the financial gateway between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. The city barely existed before the French Protectorate. In 1907 Casablanca was a modest port town of perhaps 25,000; French urban planner Henri Prost imposed a radial boulevard system and deepened the harbour, engineering the niche that would attract commerce from across the Maghreb. By independence in 1956, Casablanca had grown forty-fold and never looked back.

The pattern is classical ecological succession: colonial infrastructure laid the substrate, post-independence industrialisation filled the canopy, and the Casablanca Finance City (CFC) free zone now adds the epiphyte layer. CFC offers zero corporate tax for five years and a 8.75% rate thereafter, drawing over 200 financial institutions—including Bank of Africa, Attijariwafa Bank, and several global insurers—seeking a platform to serve francophone West Africa. Morocco processes roughly 75% of the world's phosphate reserves through OCP Group, and Casablanca's port and rail links channel that revenue into a metro area of nearly four million people.

But the city's metabolic scaling reveals strain. Casablanca generates over 50% of Morocco's industrial output and roughly 30% of its GDP, yet its infrastructure creaks under rural-to-urban migration that adds tens of thousands of residents each year. Informal settlements persist alongside luxury developments in a source-sink dynamic where economic opportunity pulls labour faster than housing can absorb it. The 2012-launched tramway and ongoing port expansion at Tanger Med have begun redistributing some pressure, but Casablanca remains the organism through which Morocco's economic metabolism flows—a heart that cannot stop pumping without the whole body feeling it.