Urban growth and socio-spatial fragmentation: from tolerance to control

Before elaborating in detail on the two phases of urban restructuring in Morocco, I want to sketch briefly the urban backdrop against which neoliberal restructuring took place. Morocco has experienced rapid urban growth in the twentieth century and many

of the current problems, can be related or traced back to earlier periods of urbanization and especially to the years of urban neglect. Decades of uncontrolled urban develop-

ment have generated many of the difficulties urban planners and administrators face today. Different flows of rural migration have radically changed the constitution of the

Moroccan city over the course of the twentieth century. After the independence, the Eu- ropeans have gradually left the Moroccan city. Their places and residences in the ville

Power and control in neoliberal politics 183

nouvelle were taken by the Moroccan elite. These elites, for their part, left the medina and their places were taken by rural migrants and the Moroccan workforces. However, the medina could never provide enough space for the massive influx of the rural poor in search for a better future. Eventually, the poor had to look for other options and install themselves in the numerous shanty towns at the peripheries of the colonial cities.

Already, in the early days of the Protectorate problems arose when the Moroccan population in the cities increased rapidly. To begin with, the enclosure of tribal farming and herding lands for French agricultural and mining interests pushed indigenous people towards the cities. In the cities, new migrants were employed in the construction of the European cities (villes nouvelles) or incorporated as an industrial or domestic labour

force. Consequently, many of the once self-sufficient Moroccan families were obliged to turn to urban wage-labour as their main livelihood strategy (G Wright, 1991). It were, above all, coastal cities such as Casablanca and Rabat, which benefited from increased trade with European cities, that attracted most rural migrants. Especially Casablanca,

thanks to its port, rapidly developed as the industrial centre of the country. Ironically, while many of the new rural migrants were gratefully used as cheap urban workforces, the French administration never really anticipated and planned the demographic growth of the colonial city. Moreover, the original Arab cities (medinas) were often encircled by the French colonial city as the French had appropriated the available land around these cities to built their villes nouvelles. 262 As a result, the increasing afflux of Moroccans towards the cities created enormous housing problems (Ibid.; see also Le Tourneau, 1955). For example in Casablanca, the Moroccan population rose from 20,000 in 1900 to almost 72,000 in 1926 and close to 550,000 in 1952. 263 Most newcomers used to seek

refuge in the medina as a first option. 264 At the same time, many of the rich Moroccan families left the medinas and managed to establish themselves in sumptuous housing at

the edge of the European city. Their places were taken by the newcomers who started to subdivide the former residences of the Moroccan elite into smaller units or apartments. But as the urban population continued to grow, courtyards, little squares and rooftops in the medina were built over and rented or sold.

Little effort was made by the French authorities to improve housing conditions for the Moroccan population. The few modest efforts to foresee in housing facilities for the indigenous people, like for example the new medina (la nouvelle medina) and neighbourhood of Aïn Chock in Casablanca, were quickly saturated and occupied by the petty bourgeoisie – and thus these projects missed their original goal of providing housing for the urban wage-labour force. As a result, the bulk of the Moroccan wage-laboures and lumpenproletariat either stayed in the increasingly overcrowded medinas or settled in vacant areas around the peripheries of the ville nouvelle and built their barracks with everything they could get their hands on (e.g. industrial refuse, tin, scrap wood,

262 Before the Protectorate there were very little private landowning titles in Morocco. Most land was either property of the makhzen (what could be considered as state-property, although not in the European sense) or Habous (religious mortmain property – in the Middle East also known as waqf). 263 These numbers are based on official sources from 1975 (schéma directeur) quoted in Cattedra (2001: 92). Similar estimates are to be found in: Le Tourneau (1955), G Wright (1991), Rivet (2004). 264 There was also an important growth of the European population in the Moroccan coastal cities. How- ever, for them the French administration provided more adequate facilities to assure their settlement in the city.

184 Power and control in neoliberal politics etc.). Hence, the name “bidonville” (oilcan city). The term bidonville refers both to its

particular urban character and the materials that were used to construct the barracks. The term became a synonym for provisional and precarious settlement, despite the very permanent character of the bidonvilles in many of the Third World cities. The bidonvilles – which has become the French term for slum or shantytown – appeared as early as 1907 and can be directly linked to the impact of the European presence (G Wright,

1991; Hauw, 2004). However, the first large Moroccan shanty towns will appear as soon as the early 1920s. The first one, and very famous because of the role its popula-

tion played in the riots of 1952, was Carrières Centrales, situated in an industrial zone in the East of Casablanca, in the neighbourhood of Roches Noires. In the early 1950s an estimated amount of 30,000 people lived in Carrières centrales and another 45,000 in Ben ‘Msik which was a second famous shantytown in Casablanca.

With the rapid expansion of the Moroccan cities, urban government became more and more difficult. Urban policy and planning during the Protectorate was unable to respond to the needs and problems of the bidonvillois (shantytown population). As such,

the urban uprisings of 1952 would not only demonstrate the growing strength of the Moroccan labour movement and its close ties to the nationalist struggle – Moroccan workers staged large demonstrations on May Day of 1951 which was later followed by a general strike in December in 1952 to denounce the assassination by the French of Tunisian trade union leader Farhat Hached (Clément & Paul, 1984) – but the riots

that followed the general strike of 1952 would also demonstrate for the first time, the potential threat of the bidonvilles and its population for the political stability of the Protectorate. Between 6 and 8 December Casablanca was shocked by its first “bidonville-uprisings” . They gave the starting shot for further violence and conflicts all over the country. This violence was usually explained and framed in nationalist terms (i.e. as a struggle against the French). Yet, Jean-François Clément argues that the specific causes and sources for the violence were complex and should not be reduced to merely

nationalistically inspired forms of protest. He claims that little research has been done on the socio-economic background that underpinned the 1952 riots (Clément, 1952).

Nevertheless, the specific responses of the colonial administration actually revealed the underlying socio-economic basis. The French realized that the marginalized urban ar-

eas had to be taken into consideration, and that a change in urban planning strategy was needed. Not coincidentally, around that period the French started to take a real interest in urban programs of mass housing. Numerous plans and initiatives were elaborated by the famous architect Michel Ecochard. 265 The colonial administration initiated, for the

first time, an elaborated social housing policy in an attempt to integrate the urban poor and calm the masses (Rachik, 2002).

The goals set by Ecochard were never realized. Only four years after the 1952 riots Mo- rocco gained its independence. During the first decades of independence, the primary objectives of the public authorities moved away from urban development. The Mo-

roccan monarchy didn’t really proceed with an elaborated and all-round urban policy

265 Although a gradual shift towards a social housing policy for the masses started already in the 1940s, the uprisings of 1952 were a watershed moment that accelerated planned policies and initiatives. This signified a new phase of the politics of French colonial urbanism (for further information see Rachik, 1995; Rachik, 2002; Cohen & Eleb, 2002; Hauw, 2004).

Power and control in neoliberal politics 185

strategy and chose to prioritize the rural areas in accordance with its political coalitions. If there was any formal urban policy and planning vision, it equated essentially with the policies of the French administration of the post-war era (Johnson, 1972). As I men-

tioned in chapter 3, the public authorities attempted, first of all, to halt the rural exodus during the first two decades of independence in order to limit the political weight of

the cities and limit the potential power base of its nationalist bourgeoisie. The king’s political influence was based predominantly on its ties with the rural and tribal elites, the pre-colonial bourgeoisie and the religious leaders of the country. The fast-growing cities and the increasing influence of urban-based political forces – the trade unions and the left-wing intellectuals – were seen as a challenge to the monarchy’s political domi-

nance. Consequently, authorities invested heavily in the agricultural development of the rural areas, and largely ignored the industrialization and planning of Morocco’s urban agglomerates (Naciri, 1984b). Until the mid-1960s the economic policies of the country maintained this particular focus on rural economic growth. Yet, despite the efforts, rural

migration continued and rapid urbanization profoundly modified the structure of the Moroccan society. Casablanca is the most salient example of this trend. Its population more than doubled between the 1950s and the 1970s. Today, officially between 3.7 and

3.8 million people live officially in Casablanca which meant that the city grew with more than 500% since the independence. 266 Casablanca attracted on average more than

35% of all rural migrants (Zriouli, 1998). This rapid expansion constituted new challenges for urban government. Issues that had been neglected in the 1950s and 1960s began to bubble to the surface posing new threats to established patterns of rule (Naciri 1984b). For example, between 1956 and 1974, 42% of all urban expansion was infor-

mal (Bargach, 2008). Additionally, the 1960s were economically very difficult years. There were several successive crop failures (which caused rural migration to increase even more than usual), unemployment rose sharply, inflation increased and price con-

trol over essential commodities became much more difficult. There was also a severe political crisis in which Hassan II saw it necessary to take over the prime ministry and

called upon a state of emergency (after urban riots in Casablanca). This was in the year of 1965. The King would then rule by decree (Waterbury, 1970; Zartman, 1987).

The urban riots of 1965 in Casablanca marked a first turning point within a gradual but significant shift in government: a shift from a focus primarily on rural development to a

focus directed more on urban planning and urban development. 267 This didn’t mean that the urban centres were completely ignored before the riots. 268 Only, urban government was basically limited to surveillance, authoritarian control and the problem of security – not in the Foucauldian sense – and not so much on development and planning. The riots of 1965 were brutally suppressed by the army, and little mercy was shown to those suspected to be the instigators (Johnson, 1972). Again, the slum population was involved in violent confrontations with security forces. It were the inhabitants of Car-

266 Unofficially the population of Casablanca is often estimated much higher. 267 Interview with Abdelghani Abouhani, former lecturer at the National Institute for Urban Planning (INAU), currently the General Director of Urbanism and Architecture within the Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and Spatial Planning (MHUAE) (Rabat – 21/04/2009, conducted together with Sami Zemni). 268 The 1965 riots could also viewed as a “bidonville-uprising”. The immediate provocation was the pro- hibition of the education ministry for older students (older then 17) to go to school. In March 1965 rioting students joined the inhabitants of the bidonvilles to set Casablanca on fire (Pennell, 2000: 323; see also Clément, 1992).

186 Power and control in neoliberal politics rières Centrales who played a leading part, just as in 1952 (Clément, 1992). Addition-

ally, the census of 1971 revealed a chaotic urban situation and showed that an urban policy based solely on surveillance and harassment was not tenable anymore. Half of the houses in the cities were deemed inadequate (Rachik, 2002: 93). These develop- ments rendered the government of the urban space instable and called for new policy

initiatives. With regard to the social problems of urbanization some specific measures were taken. In 1967, the government installed an urban planning and housing department within the Ministry of Interior. This is significant. The Ministry of Interior was the power base of the monarchy, especially during the reign of Hassan II. This transfer

thus meant that there was now a stronger political potential for effective urban policy. All matters of urban planning and housing were now supervised by the Ministry of

Interior. The extended role of the Ministry of Interior therefore clearly reflected the increasing importance given to urban policy by central powers. Also, in the same year,

the establishment of a research and formation centre (CERF), under the direction of the French architect Alain Masson, had to develop new knowledge and strategies related to urban planning and social and low-cost housing. 269 The CERF was incorporated in the department of Urban Planning and Housing at the Ministry of Interior.

In 1972, however, urban policy was detached from the Ministry of Interior and an autonomous and technocratic Ministry of Urbanism, Housing, Tourism and Environ- ment (MUHTE) was created. Only a year later, 7 regional agencies (the ERACs) were created to coordinate regional housing policies together with a national fund (FNEAT) to ensure access to property for housing projects. 270 With regard to housing projects for the slum population, the Moroccan authorities received the support of the World Bank from the mid-1960s onwards (Naciri, 1987). 271 Also, during the 1970s, there were several attempts to elaborate a new Schéma Directeur d’Aménagement Urbain (SDAU) or master plan for the city of Casablanca, a general urban planning strategy which had to determine a coherent vision for the future of the city. A SDAU had to provide a general development plan for the metropolitan area, including a general scheme for land use, zoning provisions, transportation network designs and proposed new public facilities (Johnson, 1972: 86). The master plan had to follow up on the previous SDAU that was elaborated under the coordination of Michel Ecochard and dated back to the early 1950s. However, it was not until after the riots of 1981 that a new SDAU would be put into action.

The rapid urban demographic expansion, specifically in the 1970s, also witnessed the emergence of new pressures and forces at the urban scale. Urban growth brought forth the emergence of new commercial elites who benefited from the economic boom, but

269 In Cattedra (2001:81) CERF is the abbreviation for Centre d’Experimentation, de Recherche et de For- mation. The same reference can be found in Johnson (1972:71). However, in Naciri (1989:239) CERF is the abbreviation for Centre d’Etude, de Recherche et de Formation. The CERF was made up primarily of foreign (French) researchers, trained as architects and planners. Certainly in the beginning there was very little mingling with other disciplines such as sociology and economy. In general the plans of the CERF were too ambitious and took little into account the political and economic reality of the country (Johnson, 1972). 270 ERAC: Etablissements Régionaux d’Aménagement et de Construction. FNEAT: Fonds Nationale d’Equipements et d’Achats de Terrains. 271 UNESCO will provide foreign support for the restructuring and renovation of that other typically impoverished urban space: the medina (Naciri, 1987).

Power and control in neoliberal politics 187

also the growth of a lower urban middle class with considerably more means than the urban poor living in the slums. These growing segments of the urban population would become the new political clientele of the Moroccan monarchy and this partly ex- plains the gradual shift in governmental focus from the rural to the urban areas (Naciri, 1984b). The Moroccanization of the economy was one measure to answer to the needs

of the first group. The second group (the lower urban middle class), who had mainly benefited from government initiatives to provide mass education, also profited from

the economic growth in some ways. For example, many of them were incorporated in the public sector. However, the general growth of this lower middle class was at the same time putting pressure on available public services and recourses in the cities. Fur- thermore, their growth also exposed pressing challenges for Moroccan housing policies. There was a real shortage of affordable housing in the city-centre for these lower middle classes due to limited availability of building lots and a rise in housing prices. Only about 20,000 social houses were built in Morocco between 1956 and 1965, and virtually all of them still formed part of projects designed by the colonial administration (Johnson, 1972). Although, the government increased their efforts to supply social housing in the 1970s, the shortfall in housing was put at 390,000 units in 1973 and was estimated at 800,000 in 1977. In order to meet the demand, approximately 70,000 new housing units were needed each year to avoid the overcrowding of existing housing and the deterioration of the then present urban living conditions (World Bank, 1981).

As a result of failing efforts to meet these pressing demands, many of the lower middle class residents sought refuge in informal housing and purchased agricultural land in the peripheries of the cities to built their apartments. 272 This gave rise to a phenomenon that would be even stronger than the growth of the slums: the growth of the Habitats Clandestins (HC) or the informal housing neighbourhoods. 273 This was a typical (lower middle class) phenomenon related to more favourable economic times and urban demographic expansion not only in Morocco, but also in other parts of the region like for example Egypt (Ismail, 2006), Tunisia (Navez-Bouchanine, 2002a), or Lebanon (Fawaz, 2009). Adequate housing was one of the most visible and pressing problems of both the increased number of urban residents and their governments in the Arab region (Richards & Waterbury, 2008: 270). Just like the slums, the HC are originally built on lots without public facilities such as electricity connections, paved roads and

sewer systems. They are also built illegally, without official public authorization. The big difference is that the HC are built “en dur”, in brick and wood, and, as such, they

look a lot like formal and legalized apartments. A lot of the informal houses count two, three or even four flours. Additionally, the owners of the informal houses are also owner of the land – albeit not legally recognized (Lehzam, 1995). This is another difference

with the bidonvilles where the inhabitants at best only own their barrack. The land they occupy illegally.

272 It was also the official policy to prioritize public servants’ access to low-cost housing projects imple- mented by the state. But state efforts never succeeded in meeting these demands either. 273 This distinction is rather important because Moroccan government strategies differed when dealing with either slums or HC. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize the difference because there is a tenden- cy in some literature to classify all forms of informal, dilapidated and precarious housing as ‘slums’. Con- sequently, the concept of slums remains vague in some of the literature (Milbert, 2006). As a result, some have denounced the use of the concept slum as a container concept (Gilbert, 2007). I, nevertheless, wish to keep using the term ‘slum’ or ‘bidonville’ to distinguish it from other forms of informal housing.

188 Power and control in neoliberal politics

Picture of an informal neigbourhood (habitat clan- Picture of a slum (Douar Skouila in Casablanca) destin) (May 2008)

(May 2008)

While the increase of slums characterized urbanization in Morocco until the late 1960s, the increase of HC dominated the urban process since the 1970s (Abouhani, 1995c; Ameur, 1995). All large cities will experience a growth of their peripheries largely due to the increase of HC. Surprisingly, this phenomenon was relatively limited to Casa- blanca. Yet, it applied all the more to cities as Salé (thanks to the proximity of Rabat and the increase of the public sector) and Tétouan (thanks to the increase of the informal sector) (Lhezam, 1995; see also Iraki & Rachik, 2005). 274 Not all inhabitants of the HC came from the rural areas. There was also a lot of internal urban migration. The new owners were often people who came from the city-centre and wanted to escape either the uncertainty of not having a property of their own or the duty of having to pay rent. In general, the population of the HC differs from the population of the slums. Although we should avoid the homogenization of both populations an important distinction can

be made. 275 The population in the HC are there to stay. In contrast, the inhabitants of the bidonvilles always maintained a temporary and informal status due to the fact that they did not own their land and thus occupied a terrain illegally. The population of the HC are not living in the same uncertain situation. They do not occupy the land illegally

but own it informally, which is a significant difference. As a result, they are not as vulnerable to relocation or expropriation as are the inhabitants of the slums. Addition-

ally, the HC population will also often revert to all kinds of agency in order to provide their informal neighbourhoods with the necessary (urban) services and facilities. This occurs in two ways. First, they themselves will try to organize and establish the further integration of their quarter into the urban fabric. The owners will arrange their own collection of garbage, pave their own streets, connect electricity, build sewer systems, etc… In addition, they will fall back on social neighbourhood networks to help each other (Navez-Bouchanine, 1995; 2002a; Ameur, 2000; Iraki, 2006a). 276 The mosque, for

274 In the beginning of the 1980s more than 45% of the population of Salé lived in HC, 35% in Oujda, 26% in Fez and 25% in Tétouan (Ameur, 1995: 58). 275 Numerous studies emphasize the enormous heterogeneity of both the slum population and the inhabitants of the HC (e.g. Navez-Bouchanine, 1995; 2002c; Abouhani, 1995b; Ameur; 1995; Zaki, 2005; Iraki, 2006a) 276 In many ways the slum population has done the same. Especially in the older slums, barracks were for- tified and made more permanent. Dwellers have also tapped electricity and water from the public networks, built sewer systems, etc. Especially the tapping of electricity in Casablanca has resulted in a battle between the private consortium Suez (lydec), the public authorities and the population during the 1990s. In the end,

Power and control in neoliberal politics 189

example, will play a crucial role in the establishment of these social networks (Naciri, 1987; Iraki, 2006b). These activities and networks are some of the particular ways by which inhabitants re-appropriate the urban space and give a political dimension to their everyday life. 277

Secondly, the particular relationship between the informal buyers of HC-land and the official landowners can serve as a lever once the latter has the political power and

influence to advocate the reconstruction, formalization and integration of the informal neighbourhood. Many of the landowners who parcelled their agricultural lands

and sold them to the inhabitants of HC, would also use the loyalty of their ‘clients’ to get elected in the municipal councils. As such, for this landowning elite, the lower urban middle class became an important social base for a political career. In return,

the elected officials could lobby for certain public investments or start the necessary administrative procedures to formalize the HC. These new clientilist relations and the increasing influence of a local urban landowning class will eventually bring forth a new municipal reform in 1976 (Chartre Communal) which will transfer a considerable

amount of executive power from central government representatives at the local scale (e.g. the qaids and other agents that are directly related to the Ministry of Interior) to the locally elected government bodies. Thanks to the new municipal reform, the municipal council received more competences in social, economic and administrative

affairs. As such, the reform of 1976 transferred significant executive power from the traditional elite structures to the municipal council and increased political competition

at the urban scale. This decentralization of political power marked another important rupture with the former patronage system based on rural elites and further integrated the emerging urban elites into the realm of decision-making (Abouhani, 1995b; 2006; Iraki, 2006a). According to Abdelghani Abouhani, this reform was a crucial development to explain the governmental shift that occurred in the 1970s. Again, it symbolized the increasing attention given to the urban space and its main actors. Although central power in Morocco (the makhzen ) still largely retained its influence and dominance over the future of urban development, Abouhani argued that mainstream accounts on

the Moroccan political system have neglected the very real political influence of these local elites (landowners). 278 Mainstream accounts had focused too much, according to

Abouhani, on institutions and national political forces, while ignoring the particular relation between political power and land property at the urban scale and its influence on the production of the urban space (Abouhani, 1999). 279

all parties worked out a system to provide the slums with electricity which was a politically delicate matter because it could mean that the temporary status of the bidonvilles was put into question (for a discussion on this particular case see Zaki, 2005; 2008). 277 This resonates with what Asef Bayat has termed the “quiet encroachment of the ordinary”, i.e. “the silent, protracted, and pervasive advancement of ordinary people [e.g. squatters and informal property owners] on the propertied and powerful in a quest for survival and improvement of their lives” (Bayat, 2002: 19). 278 He specifically refers to the works of Remy Leveau (1985) and John Waterbury (1970). However, in their defense, both works were based on research largely conducted before the shift was really observable (the first edition of Leveau’s book dates from 1976). Nevertheless, I do think that Abouhani’s statement is still a valid critique on many other studies that were conducted afterwards (Abouhani, 1999: 6). 279 Abouhani has dedicated most of his academic career on the study of these local urban elites and their political influence on the development of the Moroccan city, more specifically the city of Salé.

190 Power and control in neoliberal politics Both the slums and the HC were/are forms of spontaneous urbanization. This is one of

the crucial differences between processes of urbanization in the Third World and those in Europe or the US. Cities in Third World countries display different spatial patterns

which constitute their specific dynamics of socio-spatial fragmentation. In contrast to European or American cities – where access to the city is normally guaranteed by an

access to work – the access to the Third World city is mainly established by an access to property – in the form of land and/or housing (Navez-Bouchanine, 2002a). The majority of the Moroccan population owns their house – whether formally, informally or even illegally. Spontaneous urbanization is therefore the real motor behind urban expansion in countries like Morocco and the Arab region more generally. As such, in those countries, there is a real divergence between ‘planned’ urbanization and ‘actual’ urbanization. The latter is a process driven both from above and below, and directed by both formal and informal social and spatial practices (Navez-Bouchanine, 2005). Access to informal housing was in many cases much easier because complex, often untransparent and very slow administrative procedures could be avoided that way. The informal market could respond much faster to the demands of the urban population, especially in times of scarcity on the formal market. Additionally, fast growth of cities like Casablanca, Salé, Tangiers, Tetouan, etc. also demonstrated that urban growth and economic development were not necessarily related (Balbo & Navez-Bouchanine, 1995; see also M Davis, 2006a). It was often poverty that drove new migrants to the cities and not necessarily the need for new labour forces. The Third World city was/is to

a large extent an illegal, informal and in many ways disconnected city. And it has been tolerated as well by public authorities.

To conclude, despite the fact that more government attention was paid to the Moroccan urban regions since the 1970s, particularly in Casablanca, there was still a lack of an overall and coherent urban political vision at the national level (Kaioua, 1996). More- over, public authorities in Morocco, but also elsewhere, still largely tolerated spontaneous urbanization until the late 1970s – not in the least because of a lack of resources and public services to foresee in the need of a growing urban population. Toleration was a strategy to keep social peace and political stability. Besides toleration, repression was the only other means to keep the city under control. Until the late 1970s government ‘solutions’ were still more based on the premise that “a good repression [meant] ten years of social peace” than on a profound strategy for city-restructuring and planning (Clément, 1992: 402, own translation). Moroccan urban policy was still ad hoc and

insufficient to deal with the complexity of increasing urbanization. It failed to provide sustainable solutions for a growing lower middle class looking for affordable housing outside the expensive ville nouvelle . As a result, state officials continued to tolerate the

disorganized, chaotic and impoverished informal expansion of its urban peripheries until the “shock” of 1981 urged central power to take a radical turn (Naciri, 1984b; 1989; Abouhani, 1995a; Rachik 2002). Since then, the perception that the informal – thus less controlled – expansion of the urban peripheries could pose a serious threat for the political stability of the country prevailed. After what happened in 1981, the informal urban area’s became the primary focus of a general political urban restructuring strategy which symbolized the transition from an urbanism of tolerance towards an “urbanism of control” (urbanisme de contrôle) (Abouhani, 1995a) or an “urbanism of urgency” (urbanisme de l’urgence) (Rachik, 2002).

Power and control in neoliberal politics 191

Urban growth and socio-spatial fragmentation: from tolerance to control