Touts at all hours, incessant horns, pedestrians blocked by saturated roads: the daily life of the inhabitants of Aouina, Hay Wahat and Hay Salama turns into a nightmare. In these expanding districts, the construction of brand new buildings multiply … without the road infrastructure following.
In recent years, this former semi-rural area has become one of the hot spots of real estate in the capital and now house tens of thousands of families. Indeed, thousands of new residents have taken up residence there. Result: a population density that explodes, on roads which have not moved one centimeter for decades.
Some double -direction roads do not even have a sidewalk, and it is the only access to get out of the neighborhood. In the morning, the traffic jams start at 7 a.m. and only resolve after 10 a.m. In the evening, it’s worse. To this are added anarchic parking lots, the streets barred by work, and the glaring absence of tricolor lights or well thought out roundabouts.
The dazzling real estate expansion was not accompanied by serious urban planning. Each month, new buildings are emerging, with sometimes more than 40 apartments each … and often, barely ten parking spaces. Where do the remaining cars go? In the street, of course, further aggravating the bottlenecks.
Without rapid intervention, the situation may get worse. Not only for residents, but also for businesses and schools that struggle to operate under these conditions. Aouina and Hay Salama today symbolize a broader Tunisian evil: that of frantic urbanization, where concrete goes faster than common sense.
