More mobile, less common? The transit sociality of Rabat’s Central train station

ABSTRACT

Over the past few years, Rabat has been undergoing a double-process of modernisation and transformation into a heritage site. Its central railway station, which is currently being transformed into a large interchange hub, reflects the city’s aspiration to become a global metropolis. Previously, this place functioned as an urban magnet where people also came to stroll and socialise. The article explores how the refurbishment is affecting its functional and symbolic uses. Official sources promise that the renewed infrastructure will be a great new ‘milieu de vie’, a notion that summons up a vision of togetherness and an aspiration to metropolitan high life. But will the future project still welcome everyone and every type of sociality? Structured as a before-and-after comparison, the article describes ethnographic observations conducted at the station’s successive entrances. It shows that the new entrance layout may make the infrastructure more functional, but that it offers less opportunity for social activities. Causal interpretations concerning the role of design in facilitating or preventing social practices are proposed. The article concludes that the capacity of transit infrastructures to become a ‘common’ place depends on the connection between physical features and cultural skills. Since Rabat Central Station has become an arena of conflict between tradition and modernity, the paper’s contribution aims to reposition the controversy within a broader perspective, which connects the architectural and social dimensions of a local culture of transit (im)mobility.

KEYWORDS:

• Transit infrastructure
• railway station
• public space
• social interaction
• Rabat

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the students who studied Rabat Central station during the EUP-INAU workshop. Our thanks go also to colleagues and scientific editors for their help in improving the first version of this work during the symposium on ‘Urban space and the common good’, held on 22nd and 23rd November 2018 at the Netherlands Institute in Morocco.

Declaration of interest statement

We confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and that there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In the original:

Rabat ville est un véritable lieu de vie, au cœur d’une zone de chalandise dense – Station de tramways – arrêt de bus – station de taxis – un nouveau lieu de vie, une opportunité à ne pas rater – 60 locaux commerciaux – parking souterrain 170 places – 6000 m carrés de surface commerciale – mode – cafés journaux, services financiers beauté accessoires.