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During the 1970s, peri-urban areas and the ZHUNs (Zones d’Habitat Urbain Nouvelles, or New Urban Housing Areas) set up there were seen as the ultimate solution to alleviate the housing crisis that the city of Annaba had been experiencing. And since the late 1990s, the ZHUN of El Bouni has experienced major demographic, socio-spatial, and economic dynamics. The promotion of El Bouni to the rank of chief town of a daïra, the expansion and diversification of the housing stock, the explosion of commercial and service activities, and the multiplication of facilities have played a decisive role in its process of socio-spatial recomposition and in the creation of a maturity over time, and therefore of a certain autonomy in relation to Annaba, the mother city. This article attempts to retrace the path taken by the ZHUN since its creation and to identify some of the territorial development mechanisms at work by which the ZHUN has passed from the status of a dormitory town to a territory in the process of maturing. The analysis of the territory’s construction and development process, using a retrospective approach, proceeds from a reconstruction of the spatio-temporal transformations that have occurred since the creation of the ZHUN. It is based on a multi-date quantitative analysis, a qualitative analysis based on a survey of 100 heads of households using semi-structured questionnaires, and a field survey of the sites where the main facilities and services are located.