Tangier, Morocco - Visitors brace for the worst when they step off the ferry in Tangier, known for decades as the shady hideout of drug barons, its crumbling old town supposedly swarming with pickpockets and rogue guides.
It's time to rewrite the guidebooks, say the people of a town beginning to rediscover some of the style and sophistication it enjoyed for centuries as a crossroads between the West and the Arab world, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
It's time to rewrite the guidebooks, say the people of a town beginning to rediscover some of the style and sophistication it enjoyed for centuries as a crossroads between the West and the Arab world, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
Residents say petty crime has abated since a new police unit began pacing the narrow streets of the old medina. Pavements have been relaid and neglected open spaces cleaned up and replanted with flowers and elegant palm trees.
Ugly buildings that loomed over the seafront have been bulldozed and replaced by upmarket restaurants serving seafood to well-heeled Spanish day-trippers.
Investors from the Gulf are moving in with projects for coastal resorts with spas, riding centres and marinas. In the old town, growing numbers of Western tourists crowd past the cafes where old men in jellabas snooze over glasses of mint tea.
Residents say Governor Mohamed Hassad recently went for a swim at the city beach, once one of the dirtiest in the world.
He survived.
"People seem a little scared of losing their bearings as things are moving so quickly," said Larbi R'Miki, president of the local cultural association, whose annual music and literature festivals are gaining international renown.
'A nouveau riche that went straight from owning a donkey to a four-wheel-drive' Local officials want to restore some of the lustre of Tangier's interwar years when it was an international zone run by the foreign powers that had coveted and fought over the strategic city for centuries.
Then, it was an island of prosperity in a poor region neglected by colonial master Spain, its lax laws, low taxes and laid-back atmosphere attracting millionaires, shady businessmen and hard-up writers.
After independence in 1956, the Moroccan authorities moved to close down Tangier's brothels, drug dens and gay bars, to the relief of conservative natives fed up with playing host to Europeans seeking an alternative lifestyle.
Economic decline set in as the international banks with offshore operations relocated to Switzerland or Spain.
When foreign owners of small businesses, cinemas, cafes and restaurants were told to take Moroccan business partners, thousands left, the gap they left in the economy filled partly by smugglers and cannabis barons.
"Tangier became practically a town of outlaws who couldn't care less about culture," said R'Miki. "This was a nouveau riche that went straight from owning a donkey to a four-wheel-drive."
Despite a government eradication campaign, Morocco still provides four-fifth's of Europe's cannabis, and hashish remains the Tangier region's biggest industry, experts say.
Fears that some cannabis dealers may be subsidising militant Islamist groups have led to a wave of arrests, but Tangier remains a hub for laundering drug money, say locals, who point out a surprising number of new, empty apartment blocks.
'A whole new middle class is being created' "This construction boom has virtually no relationship with the town's commercial development," said Michel Peraldi, an expert on Morocco's informal economy at France's CNRS research council. "It's all money-laundering."
Tangier government officials say the property sector is driven by market needs and a growing number of big international firms are taking part.
Officials say creating jobs is the best hope for attacking a cannabis industry reliant on cheap, seasonal labour. They hope for a shift in Tangier's economy from next year when ships begin docking at a big new port complex, Tanger-Mediterrannee.
The terminal will slash costs and delivery times, linking up with a chain of free trade zones to attract companies wanting a cheap production base close to European markets.
"This is going to restore Tangier's role as an international crossroads from Asia to Europe and America," said Tajeddine El-Husseini, a Moroccan professor of international economic law.
The terminal will be joined by a new motorway and upgraded rail link south to business hub Casablanca, part of an attempt by King Mohammed's government to revitalise the economy.
"Our volume of activity is doubling every year," said Jelloul Samsseme, a regional investment official. "Everyone's trying to position themselves and grab the opportunities."
The new Tangier may disappoint tourists searching for the edgy, experimental 1950s world of beat generation writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, who wrote his drug-fuelled novel The Naked Lunch in a Tangier hotel room.
That world is long gone, said Thor Kuniholm of the American Legation Museum in the city's old town. "What's really exciting is this city is changing. Factories are opening, schools are getting better, a whole new middle class is being created."
However, the growth has left central Tangier ringed with tatty suburbs where scant social services and high unemployment have fed into support for radical Islamist groups.
"This town is growing fast," said R'Miki. "We must be very careful not to allow the suburbs to degenerate into favelas with no rule of law."
Ugly buildings that loomed over the seafront have been bulldozed and replaced by upmarket restaurants serving seafood to well-heeled Spanish day-trippers.
Investors from the Gulf are moving in with projects for coastal resorts with spas, riding centres and marinas. In the old town, growing numbers of Western tourists crowd past the cafes where old men in jellabas snooze over glasses of mint tea.
Residents say Governor Mohamed Hassad recently went for a swim at the city beach, once one of the dirtiest in the world.
He survived.
"People seem a little scared of losing their bearings as things are moving so quickly," said Larbi R'Miki, president of the local cultural association, whose annual music and literature festivals are gaining international renown.
'A nouveau riche that went straight from owning a donkey to a four-wheel-drive' Local officials want to restore some of the lustre of Tangier's interwar years when it was an international zone run by the foreign powers that had coveted and fought over the strategic city for centuries.
Then, it was an island of prosperity in a poor region neglected by colonial master Spain, its lax laws, low taxes and laid-back atmosphere attracting millionaires, shady businessmen and hard-up writers.
After independence in 1956, the Moroccan authorities moved to close down Tangier's brothels, drug dens and gay bars, to the relief of conservative natives fed up with playing host to Europeans seeking an alternative lifestyle.
Economic decline set in as the international banks with offshore operations relocated to Switzerland or Spain.
When foreign owners of small businesses, cinemas, cafes and restaurants were told to take Moroccan business partners, thousands left, the gap they left in the economy filled partly by smugglers and cannabis barons.
"Tangier became practically a town of outlaws who couldn't care less about culture," said R'Miki. "This was a nouveau riche that went straight from owning a donkey to a four-wheel-drive."
Despite a government eradication campaign, Morocco still provides four-fifth's of Europe's cannabis, and hashish remains the Tangier region's biggest industry, experts say.
Fears that some cannabis dealers may be subsidising militant Islamist groups have led to a wave of arrests, but Tangier remains a hub for laundering drug money, say locals, who point out a surprising number of new, empty apartment blocks.
'A whole new middle class is being created' "This construction boom has virtually no relationship with the town's commercial development," said Michel Peraldi, an expert on Morocco's informal economy at France's CNRS research council. "It's all money-laundering."
Tangier government officials say the property sector is driven by market needs and a growing number of big international firms are taking part.
Officials say creating jobs is the best hope for attacking a cannabis industry reliant on cheap, seasonal labour. They hope for a shift in Tangier's economy from next year when ships begin docking at a big new port complex, Tanger-Mediterrannee.
The terminal will slash costs and delivery times, linking up with a chain of free trade zones to attract companies wanting a cheap production base close to European markets.
"This is going to restore Tangier's role as an international crossroads from Asia to Europe and America," said Tajeddine El-Husseini, a Moroccan professor of international economic law.
The terminal will be joined by a new motorway and upgraded rail link south to business hub Casablanca, part of an attempt by King Mohammed's government to revitalise the economy.
"Our volume of activity is doubling every year," said Jelloul Samsseme, a regional investment official. "Everyone's trying to position themselves and grab the opportunities."
The new Tangier may disappoint tourists searching for the edgy, experimental 1950s world of beat generation writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, who wrote his drug-fuelled novel The Naked Lunch in a Tangier hotel room.
That world is long gone, said Thor Kuniholm of the American Legation Museum in the city's old town. "What's really exciting is this city is changing. Factories are opening, schools are getting better, a whole new middle class is being created."
However, the growth has left central Tangier ringed with tatty suburbs where scant social services and high unemployment have fed into support for radical Islamist groups.
"This town is growing fast," said R'Miki. "We must be very careful not to allow the suburbs to degenerate into favelas with no rule of law."
By Tom Pfeiffer