Tang­ier is an orphan city, aban­doned by the thou­sands of Euro­pean and Amer­i­can expa­tri­ates who once flocked to the city for its air of eco­nomic and moral license, ignored by the Moroc­can gov­ern­ment for its past asso­ci­a­tion with those same way­ward West­ern­ers. Its pop­u­la­tion has fallen, its land­marks are decay­ing, and its very streets seem to be in dan­ger of tum­bling down its white hills, back into the Mediter­ranean. Only it’s pecu­liar geog­ra­phy, at the very north­ern tip of Africa, per­ilously close to mate­r­ial riches of Europe, insures that it’ll always exist. Only the port and the roads lead­ing from it to the inte­rior of the coun­try, both so vital to the Moroc­can econ­omy, seem to merit any expen­di­ture on the part of the gov­ern­ment. But then Tang­ier has always seemed to be in an advanced state of decay, a vic­tim of inter­mit­tent offi­cial neglect and a sur­plus of foreigners.

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