Écochard’s first contact with Port-Lyautey, now called Kenitra, in his position as head of urban planning, was the consequence of a fire in 1946 that ravaged slums with up to 20,000 inhabitants. He noticed at that time it was the quickest-growing city in Morocco and could profit from a policy of industrial decentralisation. His plan for the city involved extending westward with a middle-class residential quarter while a district of Moroccan housing was to complement the medina in the East close to industry planned for near the port.