In 1984, Algiers itself throbbed with vast and apparently insoluble traffic jams, that Western index of prosperity. The young were well clothed, and there were no signs of the terrible malnutrition rampant south of the Sahara. But, in a nation with bursting population explosion where the average age was 19, economic problems remained menacing.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1681