Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
INFORMATION TO USERS<br />
This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI<br />
films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some<br />
thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may<br />
be from any type of computer printer.<br />
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the<br />
copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality<br />
illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins,<br />
and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.<br />
In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete<br />
manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if<br />
unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate<br />
the deletion.<br />
Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by<br />
sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and<br />
continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each<br />
original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in<br />
reduced form at the back of the book.<br />
Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced<br />
xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white<br />
photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations<br />
appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly<br />
to order.<br />
University Microfilms International<br />
A Bell & Howell Information Company<br />
300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA<br />
313/761-4700 800/521-0600
Order Number 9812725<br />
Urbanization, urban policy and city form: Urban development<br />
in Saudi Arabia<br />
Mubarak, <strong>Faisal</strong> Abdul-Aziz M., Ph.D.<br />
University of Washington, 1992<br />
Copyright ©1992 by Mubarak, <strong>Faisal</strong> Abdul-Aziz M. All rights reserved.<br />
U MI<br />
300 N. Zeeb Rd.<br />
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
Urbanization, Urban Policy and City Form:<br />
Urban Development in Saudi Arabia<br />
by<br />
<strong>Faisal</strong> Abdul-Aziz Mubarak<br />
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of<br />
Doctor of Philosophy<br />
University of Washington<br />
1992<br />
Approved by^<br />
(Chairperspifof Supervisory committee)<br />
2.<br />
Program Authorized<br />
to Offer Degree<br />
Date<br />
URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING<br />
DECEMBER 18, 1992
© Copyright 1992<br />
<strong>Faisal</strong> A. Mubarak
In presenting this dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctoral<br />
degree at the University of Washington, I agree that the Library shall make its copies<br />
freely available for inspection. I further agree that extensive copying of this dissertation<br />
is allowable only for scholarly purposes, consistent with "fair use" as prescribed in the<br />
U.S. Copyright Law. Requests for copying or reproduction of this dissertation may be<br />
referred to University Microfilms, 1490 Eisenhower Place, P.O. Box 975, Ann Arbor, MI<br />
48106, to whom the author has granted "the right to reproduce and sell (a) copies of the<br />
manuscript in microfilm and/or printed copies of the manuscript made from microform."<br />
signature-<br />
Date
University of Washington<br />
Abstract<br />
Urbanization, Urban Policy And City Form:<br />
Urban Development in Saudi Arabia<br />
by <strong>Faisal</strong> Abdul-Aziz M. Mubarak<br />
Chairperson of the Supervisory Committee: Professor John Hancock<br />
Department of Urban Design and<br />
Planning<br />
This study is an attempt to explain contemporary urban forms and development in<br />
Saudi Arabia by focusing on the country's sociopolitical and economic developments since<br />
the promulgation of the new nation-state in 1932. Due to the combined effects of<br />
centralized decision-making and active governmental financial underwriting of<br />
modernization, the holistic traditional settlement, which evolved by accretion around a solid<br />
core of intrinsic values, collapsed. The application of Western models of urban<br />
development which are not tailored to the social and political environment of a non-Western<br />
cultural systems have failed to provide effective solutions to local problems of urban design<br />
and planning.<br />
An underlying question was set forth: what cultural developments have driven urban<br />
development in Saudi Arabian society and the transformation of its traditional built forms<br />
An answer to this question involves probing into sociopolitical and economic factors that<br />
accompanied the relatively sudden substitution of modern urban forms for the pre-industrial<br />
forms of the traditional society. One major force that parallels the departure from the<br />
traditional built forms has been the adoption of the nation-state and the subsequent role it<br />
has assumed in modernizing Saudi society. Using national government documents,<br />
interviews with government officials and planners, master plans, municipal regulations,<br />
journalistic accounts, and recent research and studies, I examine the relationship between<br />
the government's intervention in urban development and the resulting urban forms for the<br />
last six decades.<br />
-Three case studies were chosen: Riyadh, Arar and Huraimla. I focused on the scope<br />
and character of government intervention in the process of modern urban development in<br />
the Kingdom, in each of these cases. The findings demonstrate the overriding role of the
state in contemporary urban development. Centralized decision-making processes,<br />
including urban planning, have supplanted control by local communities. At the same time,<br />
the modernization of the built environment has been achieved at the cost of forgoing many<br />
cultural needs and environmental considerations. To reestablish cultural personality and<br />
rejuvenate economic efficiency in the contemporary built environment, I argue for<br />
environmentally compatible, efficiency based, and community justified urban development.
TABLE OF CONTENTS<br />
List of Figures<br />
List of Tables<br />
v<br />
vi<br />
CHAPTER I<br />
Urbanization, Urban Policy and City Form:<br />
Urban Development in Saudi Arabia 1<br />
I. Urbanization: Comparative Theories 2<br />
n. The Saudi context: People and Terrain 5<br />
HI. A New Nation 6<br />
IV. The Study 7<br />
V. Research Methodology and Structure of Study 11<br />
CHAPTER H<br />
The Arab-Islamic City: Historical Precedence 18<br />
I. Islam (722-1000 AD): Philosophical and Ideological Underpinnings of<br />
Urbanism 19<br />
A. Islamic Expansion and Urbanization 22<br />
B. Actual Town Building 25<br />
II. Traditional Muslim Urban Form 29<br />
A. Islamic Legislation: The Role of Fiqh in Shaping the City 30<br />
B. The Role of Social Factors in Shaping the Design of<br />
Neighborhoods and Dwellings 35<br />
C. Physical Characteristics of the Arab-Islamic city 37<br />
HI. The Islamic City Model: Religious and Philosophical Basis of Islamic<br />
Urbanism 40<br />
IV. Critique of the Model 43<br />
V. Islam's Utopia 45<br />
Summary 47<br />
CHAPTER HI<br />
Forces of Change in Saudi Arabia: Nation-state Formation, Urbanization<br />
and National Development 55<br />
L State and Society 55<br />
n. Modernization, Urban Development and Urbanization: The Saudi<br />
Model 57<br />
A. The Saudi National Developmental Model 57<br />
B. Early Urbanization: The Hijar Settlements and Bedouin<br />
Sedentarization 61<br />
HI. Political stability, growth of bureaucracy, and oil economy 64<br />
A. The Saudi Economy: From Traditional Subsistence to Oil<br />
Economy 64<br />
B. Oil: A One-crop Economy 67
IV. Two Decades of Turmoil (1953-1973): Development and Change<br />
After King Abdul-Aziz 73<br />
A. The Ten-Point Reform Program of 1963 75<br />
B. Institution Building and Consolidation 79<br />
C. Agricultural Development and Policy 85<br />
D. Industrialization and Saudi Industrial Policy 89<br />
E. The Emergence of the Middle Class 94<br />
V. Urbanization and Urban Restructuring of the Nation 96<br />
Summary 103<br />
CHAPTER IV<br />
Urban Planning: National, Regional and City Planning 110<br />
I. The Origins of Western Urban Planning and the Role of Western<br />
Consultants<br />
Ill<br />
n. Urban Planning in Developing Countries 116<br />
n. Planning Process, Policy Making and Urban Planning In Saudi Arabia 119<br />
m. Saudi Government Structure and Decision, and Policy-making<br />
Process 123<br />
IV. Urban Planning: Municipal Development, Ordinance and<br />
Comprehensive Zoning 124<br />
A. TTie Formative Era, 1930s and 1940s 126<br />
V. Planned Towns and Communities 128<br />
A. Early Planned American Oil Towns 128<br />
B. Planned Arab Communities in the Eastern Province 131<br />
VI. Planned Urbanization, Comprehensive Urban and Regional Planning<br />
in the 1970s 133<br />
A. City Master Plans 133<br />
B. National Planning: Five-Year Development Plans 136<br />
C. Comprehensive, Urban, Regional and Rural Planning 140<br />
D. New Towns Built By the Government For Industrial Purposes 140<br />
VII. Analysis & Evaluation 143<br />
Summary 146<br />
CHAPTER V<br />
Major Traditional Urban Attributes and The Emerging<br />
Urban Forms 154<br />
I. Traditional Cultural Urban Attributes 154<br />
A. Semi-Local Autonomy and Government and Control 155<br />
B. The Economy 155<br />
C. Urban Planning and Design 156<br />
D. Land Ownership and Distribution 157<br />
E. Home Ownership 158<br />
F. Public Land Use and Infrastructure 158<br />
n. Modernization Eclipses Society's Traditional Urban Forms and spurs<br />
the Metropolis 159<br />
ii
CHAPTER VI<br />
Riyadh: From Walled Town to Metropolis 167<br />
. I. Riyadh's Development: 1900-1953 167<br />
A. The Walled Town 167<br />
B. The Social Fabric 173<br />
C. Early Suburbanization, Uncontrolled Development: A1 Murabbaa' 175<br />
D. Demolishing The Wall: State Intervention and Inception of Urban<br />
Transformation, c. 1950s 180<br />
E. Urban Planning: Municipal Legislation, and Early Urban Growth<br />
Controls, c. 1950s 183<br />
F. Land Tenure 185<br />
G. The Emergence of New Architecture and Building Methods 191<br />
n. Building the Royal city, 1950s-1960s 199<br />
A. King Saud (1953-1964): the 'Master Builder^ 199<br />
1. Annasiriyah: The Royal Suburb 200<br />
2. Al-Malaz: Planned Community for Administrative Purposes 200<br />
3. Urban Reconstruction at the Historical Core 202<br />
B. King <strong>Faisal</strong>'s Socioeconomic Reforms: 1958-1974 205<br />
HI. Planning the 'City of Future': the Introduction of City Master Plans and<br />
Effective Urban Policies in the 1970s and 1980s 208<br />
A. Urban Economy: Government Growth and Industrialization 208<br />
B. City Master Plans 212<br />
1. Doxiadis Plan for Riyadh, 1973 212<br />
2. Riyadh's Second Master Plan by SECT International 218<br />
C. Housing in the 1970s and 1980s 221<br />
D. Urban Renewal in the Historical Core 224<br />
IV. The Contemporary Urban Form 227<br />
A. Architectural Hybridism 228<br />
B. No Man's Land 230<br />
C. Dispersed Growth 232<br />
D. Government Land Uses 233<br />
E. Large-scale Development 235<br />
Summary 240<br />
CHAPTER VII<br />
Oil Industrialization Creates Modern-industrial Urban Forms: The case of<br />
Arar 248<br />
I. Location 248<br />
EL Genesis: International Economics Spur Modem Urban Growth 249<br />
III. Economic Growth and Employment Structure 253<br />
IV. Urban Development And Urban Planning 256<br />
A. The Tapline Plan, 1950s 259<br />
B. Land Tenure 261<br />
C. Militarization: Planning a Model Community 263<br />
D. The Subdivision Plan of The 1960s 267<br />
E. The Doxiadis Plan, 1970s 268<br />
F. Piecemeal Development: Land Subdivisions in the 1970s 278<br />
G. The Urban Domain, 1980s 279<br />
Summary 285<br />
iii
CHAPTER VIII<br />
State-led Urbanization Transforms Agrarian Forms: Huraimla, From<br />
Agrarian Settlement to Regional Administrative Center 292<br />
I. Location And Physical Characteristics 293<br />
n. History: Genesis 295<br />
HI. The Development of Traditional Built Form 296<br />
A. "Scattered" Development: 880-1045 H. (c.1460-1625 A.D.) 297<br />
B. Compact Pattern: 1045H/1625-1233H/1818 297<br />
C. Compact-Scattered Growth: (c. 1140sII/1740s.) 300<br />
IV. Post-Unification Huraimla: Traditional (1900-1970) Growth and Post-<br />
19708 "Planned" Growth 301<br />
A. Modified Traditional Growth 302<br />
B. Urban Planning: Intervention in the Built Environment, The<br />
Introduction of Municipality 305<br />
C. "Planned" Growth: Land Subdivisions in the Traditional Town 311<br />
D. Al-Hazm: "New Huraimla" (1979-Present) 317<br />
E. The Urban Domain (1989-Present) 321<br />
Summary 325<br />
CHAPTER IX<br />
Conclusion: Envisioning The Pluralistic City 330<br />
I. Contemporary Urban Forms 333<br />
n. Traditional Medina vs. the Pragmatic Metropolis 334<br />
A. Government and Political Control 335<br />
B. Economy 337<br />
C. Urban Design and Planning 338<br />
D. Land Ownership and Distribution 339<br />
E. Home Ownership 340<br />
F. Public Infrastructure 340<br />
ID. Envisioning the Pluralistic City 342<br />
BIBLIOGRAPHY 349<br />
iv
LIST OF TABLES<br />
Number<br />
Page<br />
3.1 Oil Production and Revenues, Selected Years 71<br />
3.2 Distribution Of The Labor Force, Saudis and Non-Saudis, By Economic<br />
Activity 90<br />
3.3 Estimated GDP Contribution by the Private Sector and Employment by<br />
Sector (1410/1989) 92<br />
3.4 Foreign Employment Growth 97<br />
3.5 Top Cities with Population of More than 30,000 (1974) and their Share of<br />
Private Sector Establishments 101<br />
6.1 Number of Permits (Construction, Renovation & Walling (Fencing) Issued<br />
by Municipal Authorities in Riyadh, Arar and Huraimla Compare to the<br />
National Total 209<br />
6.2 Funds Allocated for the Provision of Municipal Services in Million SR<br />
Selected Major Cities (1975-1988) And Population Estimates 211<br />
6.3 Number of Private Establishments and Employment in Selective Saudi<br />
Cities 212<br />
6.4 Increase in Population, area and Number of Housing Units, Riyadh City,<br />
1935-1986. 224<br />
6.5 Riyadh's Land Uses and Area in Hectares 239<br />
7.1 Employment by Economic Sector (1974) 256<br />
7.2 Land Subdivisions, Commercial, Recreational and Industrial 279<br />
7.3 Area of Land Uses As Listed in the Urban Domain of Arar (in hectares) 284<br />
8.1 Number of Lots/Buildings in Old and New Huraimla (Al-Hazm) 322<br />
8.2 Huraimla's Land Uses, Current Area and Future Needs (in hectares) 324<br />
9.1 Matrix of Cultural Urban Attributes 336<br />
v
LIST OF FIGURES<br />
Number<br />
Page<br />
1.1 Map of Saudi Arabia 14<br />
6.1 Riyadh still a walled town in 1950 169<br />
6.2 Riyadh during the 1930s 170<br />
6.3 The old suq (market). 172<br />
6.4 Royal palaces 178<br />
6.5 Riyadh's spike-like growth 187<br />
6.6 Riyadh, 1976: modenization programs fueled speculation in the land market 190<br />
6.7 Riyadh (c. 1940s): "Traditional suburbanization" 193<br />
6.8 The villa house 194<br />
6.9 American Ambassador's house in Jeddah 196<br />
6.10 Riyadh: King Saud's royal suburb, Annasiriyah (c. 1950s) 201<br />
6.11 The row of ministries in Al-Malaz ("New Riyadh") 201<br />
6.12 Al-Malaz: large-scale development 203<br />
6.13 The 1971 Doxiadis Master Plan 215<br />
6.14 The 1977 SECT/Sedes Plan 219<br />
6.15 Traditional pattern in the historical core 226<br />
6.16 Urban renewal in the historical core 226<br />
6.17 The Urban Domain of Riyadh 234<br />
6.18 1970s: Increased government intervention in urban development 236<br />
6.19 Government land uses 238<br />
7.1 Map of Saudi Arabia showing major cities and towns, including Arar 252<br />
7.2 Arar's layout during the 1970s 257<br />
7.3 Arar's communities during the early 1970s 260<br />
7.4 Ministry of Interior ISF housing ("model") project 266<br />
7.5 King Abdul-Aziz Road 269<br />
7.6 Evolution of urban pattern in Arar 270<br />
7.7 Arar's growth up to the early 1970s 271<br />
7.8 Arar land uses in the 1970s 273<br />
7.9 Doxiadis' 1975 Master Plan 275<br />
7.10 Arar's land subdivisions and major government land uses 280<br />
7.11 The Urban Domain for Arar 283<br />
8.1 Location of Huraimal 294<br />
8.2 Huraimla's farmland , 294<br />
8.3 Development of Huraimla's system of walls and quarters 299<br />
8.4 Traditional Huraimla 299<br />
8.5 Evolution of Old Huraimla's built form 304<br />
8.6 Modern neighborhoods outside the wall 304<br />
8.7 The modernization of Hurimla's suq 306<br />
8.8 The laying of the main road by the municipality 306<br />
8.9 Impact of municipal intervention 309<br />
8.10 Emergence of modern form 312<br />
8.11 1960s: new neighborhoods grew outside the wall 315<br />
8.12 Al-Hazm ("New Huraimla") 316<br />
8.13 Modernization encouraged the villa as a model housing 318<br />
8.14 A new land subdivision in the Al-Hazm area 318<br />
8.15 Al-Hazm's gridiron pattern 319<br />
8.16 Huraimla contemporary developed area 319<br />
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENT<br />
In essaying this study of broad reviews of considerable public documents and<br />
research, I often do less than justice to the subject and the officials, individual authors and<br />
public agencies that I cite in my research and I bare the shortcomings. I put forward this<br />
study hopefully offering some explanations and a proposal for improvement. My thanks<br />
are due to many individuals who kindly contributed to the production of this study. In<br />
particular, I wish to thank Professor John Hancock who, in addition to his intellectual<br />
insight, encouragement and challenging supervision, patiently accepted the task of<br />
guiding my research with special attention. His enlightening views, and constructive<br />
criticism gave me a broader grasp of many relevant issues. I also thank Professors,<br />
Arthur Grey, David Hodge, Anne Vernez Moudon, and Jere Bacharach for their valuable<br />
contributions.<br />
In Saudi Arabia, many individuals awarded their time and advice to me and to<br />
whom I acknowledge appreciation. Among them are <strong>Dr</strong>. Saleh A1 Hathloul, Deputy<br />
Minister for Town Planning and Mahir Harakati at the Ministry of Municipal and Rural<br />
Affairs. At the Arriyadh Development Authority, I am thankful to <strong>Dr</strong>. Salah Al-Johari,<br />
United Nations advisor, Zahir Othman and Ahmad Assubail. I am grateful to Professors<br />
Mohammad Annowaiser and Yousef Fadan and other faculty members and staff at the<br />
College of Architecture and Urban Planning, King Saud University which supported me<br />
through my graduate studies. At the University of Washington, I remember the help<br />
offered by my colleagues, Dena Assaf, Badr Al-Badr, Adnan Husnein, Tarik Khiati, and<br />
Ross McKenzie.<br />
I extend my sincere appreciation to my brother Saud Abdul-Aziz Al-Mubarak who<br />
never hesitated to keep me in touch with my family and answered my requests for<br />
materials only obtainable in Saudi Arabia. I am particularly grateful to my wife Joharah<br />
(Jo) Springer who has patiently endured the long periods which I needed to work outside<br />
the home. Without her moral support and editorial help, the writing of this dissertation<br />
could have been cumbersome and less interesting. Finally, I dedicate this study to my<br />
parents, Abdul-Aziz Mohammad and Aisha <strong>Faisal</strong> Al-Mubarak who have reared me to<br />
appreciate knowledge. To them, after the Almighty Allah, I confess eternal indebtedness.<br />
vii
CHAPTER I<br />
URBANIZATION, URBAN POLICY AND CITY FORM:<br />
URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA<br />
Research on the role of the state in urban development and change in Third World and<br />
developing countries is lacking. Theoretical work in such areas is both inchoate and scant.<br />
Responding to exogenous political and economic forces, urbanization in developing<br />
countries has been beset by numerous problems, such as population growth. Such<br />
problems pose challenging questions for urban research. Planning paradigms imported<br />
from Western cultures aggravated rather than assuaged the chronic problems of rapid urban<br />
development at the cost of the abandonment of traditionally based urban systems. In these<br />
new nation-state systems, the state has assumed a major role in shaping the new urban<br />
scene.<br />
The goal of this research is to probe the relationship between the role of the Saudi<br />
Arabian government in urban development and the resulting urban form. In a mere fifty<br />
years, Saudi Arabia's relatively traditional, rural, and agrarian society was transformed into<br />
a modern urban society with national government help. The Saudi experience offers an<br />
opportunity to examine the relationship between societal change and development of urban<br />
forms. I want to examine the long-range success of this intervention in which local urban<br />
communities have relied on state expenditures within a rigid central bureaucratic system.<br />
In this study, I stress the employment of a political economic approach in order to<br />
reap better understanding of urban change and development. 1 The focus is on modern<br />
urban development in Saudi Arabia since the promulgation of the new nation-state in 1932.<br />
In this new nation-state, propitious economic conditions coupled with a stable political<br />
environment have forged an urban model blending evolving urban needs with Western<br />
capitalist planning initiatives. The understanding of this urban experience constitutes an<br />
opportunity to enrich our knowledge of non-Western, traditionally-based urban systems.<br />
Upon this understanding, suitable urban models and solutions, which marry global<br />
planning modes to local ones, can be fostered.<br />
Thanks to oil wealth, the urban development programs of the Saudi government have<br />
been influential in stimulating the national economy, shifting the socioeconomic<br />
significance of the traditional social structure and urban network, creating a new urban
2<br />
hierarchy, and virtually conditioning most of the new urban scene by underwriting<br />
construction works, subsidizing private investment in the built environment and requiring<br />
municipal land use and building controls. In return, urban planning activity and public<br />
policy making have been the prerogative of the central government, a bureaucracy fully<br />
presided over by the King. Due to this heavy reliance on state spending, the Saudi city has<br />
grown economically dependent and politically immature.<br />
Urban research in non-democratic countries, I will argue, must emphasize the role<br />
and purpose of the state in urban transformation. In Saudi Arabia, urban planning and<br />
development programs have been underwritten conveying a 'client-patron relationship' (in<br />
which the government provides services for the governed in return for allegiance) rather<br />
than rational or popular criteria. I will explore several examples of the government's role in<br />
creating and shaping the new urban scene, ranging from the encouragement of settlement<br />
activity, to formulating urban policy and direct building. In economically well-endowed<br />
countries, the more autocratic the state, the greater its role in urban development and other<br />
modernization programs, and the greater the likelihood that the intervention will be sought<br />
for national leadership legitimacy and political stability as well as for economic progress.<br />
I. URBANIZATION: COMPARATIVE THEORIES<br />
Historically, modern urbanization is a result of the industrial revolution which began<br />
in the West in the late 18th century. However, unlike the developed world, most<br />
urbanization in Third World countries has been influenced directly by colonization and later<br />
indirectly through capitalism. 2 Urbanization is not merely an increase in urban population<br />
and number of cities; rather it is a process of economic and industrial development<br />
conducive to an increase in the number of cities and to the divisioning labor specialization<br />
in urban population.<br />
An urban revolution at the scale of our time would not have been possible without a<br />
powerful ideology that supplies it with strength and continuity. Modem urbanization,<br />
unlike that of antiquity, spread all over the globe, thanks to technological breakthroughs in<br />
manufacturing, transportation and communication. It has been accompanied by a new<br />
ideology is that of democratic systems of control which in the developing Western societies<br />
supplanted the older despotic forms of oligarchy and monarchy. This new form of control<br />
has recognized the equality of the populace to participate in the making of their society. At
3<br />
the same time, industrialization's political ideology also includes nationalism, and its<br />
economic doctrine is a variation of the laissez-faire market system.<br />
Industrialization is not merely the shift from animated to unanimated sources of<br />
energy and the substitution of agricultural production with market and factory production; it<br />
also implies abundance of production which caters both to the existing populace's demands<br />
and to the creation of new markets. An industrial society presupposes the primacy of<br />
progressiveness of tradition. In a traditional society, religion defined and enforced social<br />
discipline. The imperatives of the industrial city, however, relegate religion to a secondary<br />
status, if considered at all, of moral temperance. Modern city life results in<br />
cosmopolitanism in which economic activities provide citizens with alternatives to religious<br />
attendance. The environment of the city is fluid and open: rationalism triumphs over<br />
traditionalism and movement up and down the social ladder is governed by aptitude, not<br />
social status. 3<br />
David Clark defines urban development as "the process of emergence of a world<br />
dominated by cities and by urban values." According to Clark, urban development<br />
involves two different processes, urban growth and urbanization. Urban growth is a<br />
spatial and demographic process which refers to the "increased importance of towns and<br />
cities as concentration of population within a particular economy or society." Urban<br />
growth results when a society moves from being largely hamlet and village based to one<br />
dominated by cities and towns. More importantly, urbanization also "is an aspatial and<br />
social process which refers to the change of behavior and social relationships which occur<br />
in society as a result of people living in towns and cities. Essentially, it refers to the<br />
complex changes of life style which follow from the impact of cities on society." 4<br />
Urbanization is an economic and social process that occurs in the society as a whole,<br />
not just urban settlements. 5 To Reissman, urbanization is one component of a broader<br />
phenomena which includes the parallel emergence of three other features: nationalism,<br />
industrialism, and the consolidation of a middle class. As defined by the concentration of<br />
population in cities and the increasing number of urban agglomerations, urbanization can be<br />
said to be overwhelmingly spreading in most of today's countries. But in terms of its<br />
components, different societies have shown different paths of modernization. 6
4<br />
Adherents of the 'orthodox paradigm' of economic development argue that<br />
development passes through stages, hence stressing the notion that Third World Countries<br />
are closer to traditional societies than to modern ones. Third World development is<br />
compared to that of developed nations at their early industrial growth. In this<br />
developmental stage, the state should apply minimal action to stimulate development;<br />
development will occur under an environment of laissez-faire. 1 Such an approach focuses<br />
on economics as the key to development. In contrast to the orthodox view, the politicaleconomic<br />
paradigm is more concerned with historical processes. Within this paradigm,<br />
there are two major schools of thought, the Marxist and the dependency theorists. Radical<br />
political economic theory, which derives its major inspiration from Karl Marx's writings,<br />
views the process of urbanization as a natural response to capitalist activity. The city in a<br />
capitalist society is viewed as the locus of production and reproduction of capital<br />
accumulation. 8<br />
However, according to dependency theory, Third World (the periphery) development<br />
has lagged behind the developed nations (the core or center) due to the will of the latter to<br />
keep the former as a source of cheap labor and raw materials. At the same time the center<br />
needs the periphery as markets for its products and as a manufacturing stage for cheap<br />
consumer goods to be marketed at cheaper prices in the center's markets. 9 Accordingly,<br />
the urbanization process in Third World counties has been inhibited by this "intentional"<br />
interference by center countries. 10<br />
Not all societies have managed to reap urbanization's positive by-products (i.e., an<br />
open, fluid, democratic society, with a pluralistic government and one in which individuals<br />
are free to express their own view as well as free to participate in shaping their own<br />
environments). Modernization theory emphasizes the need for a "positive socioeconomic<br />
development and political participation." 11 Cam contends that social mobilization must go<br />
in tandem with urbanization, here considered a first stage of modernization, both must<br />
flourish under nationalism. Modernization is said to stimulate literacy, education and usage<br />
of mass media to spread social awareness and enhance political participation. 12<br />
While the classical approach to urbanization views urbanization as that of population<br />
increase in urban centers and the number of cities, Reissman stresses that urbanization<br />
should be viewed as an integral part of a whole set of complex institutional processes, as<br />
part of social change, an interpretation which places urbanization in the mainstream of
5<br />
macro-social change. He states that "urbanization is not a process that requires a society to<br />
go through the full cycle of change." To Reissman, industrialization is not a linear<br />
direction toward a fully urbanized society; alternatives abound. 13<br />
For example, Hamdan contends that today's civilization has reached the stage of<br />
"post-industrialization." Citing G. Hamdan, Subhi states that "urbanization is no longer a<br />
function of the degree of industrial growth; therefore, it is possible, and even natural, to<br />
have big cities without big industries." 14 Similarly, Mullins questions the evolutionary<br />
approach which stresses that urbanization implies a three-phased economic process, that is<br />
mercantile, industrial and corporate capitalism. He examines urbanization in Australia in<br />
which cities have passed from mercantile to corporate capitalism without passing through<br />
the industrial stage. 15<br />
The above theories have been based chiefly on Western urbanization, particularly that<br />
of North America. The trend of applying Western models to non-Western societies<br />
undergoing rapid urbanization has proven largely ineffective and problematic. Despite the<br />
outward parallels and similarities in many nations' recent urban developments, urbanization<br />
experience in each country poses new challenges to policy makers and urban planners. In<br />
this study, I examine an urban transformation in which a powerful state, in a mere few<br />
decades, has engaged its traditional society in a modernization program to attain living<br />
standards unmatched in many developing countries. Thanks to oil affluence and cultural<br />
coherence, the Saudi monarchy has played a leading role in this process. The synergistic<br />
application of imported technical expertise, education and oil resources has expedited the<br />
demise of traditional built forms and the emergence of modernized urban forms.<br />
II. THE SAUDI CONTEXT: PEOPLE AND TERRAIN<br />
Saudi Arabia is a vast, desolate expanse of desert and semi-desert land that<br />
encompasses an approximate area of 860,000 square miles- approximately the size of the<br />
United States east of the Mississippi River. Except in the southwest, rainfall is scarce and<br />
the country has no rivers and no significant perennial streams. Prior to the discovery of oil<br />
in large-scale production in March 1938, the country's spatial structure comprised three<br />
complementary ways of life: nomadism, settled agriculture and towns. 16
6<br />
The majority of the Country's land is a great area of desert forming a formidable<br />
natural barrier separating the diverse sections of its land into islands of isolated settlements.<br />
Hitherto, these circumstances conditioned the life of its inhabitants for millennia.<br />
Especially in the past, inhospitable geography sorted the population into thinly inhabited<br />
enclaves distributed along three belts. The first, the southwestern Hijaz-Asir plateau forms<br />
the south half of the Red Sea escarpment (Tihamat Asir). The Asir mountains extend north<br />
and are littered with numerous tiny hamlets occupying the high mountains. Asir is the most<br />
populated region of the country and has thrived for centuries performing agriculture on<br />
man-made terraced mountain slopes. North of Asir lies the northern half (Tihamat Ash<br />
Sham) due to its proximity to the Sham countries of Jordan, Palestine and Syria. Hijaz<br />
forms a lower series of mountains which at their low western coastal lands contain the two<br />
holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, with their religious importance to Muslims worldwide.<br />
The Hijaz-Asir belt houses half of the country's estimated 14.1 million population. 17<br />
The second belt pertains to the central Najd, the power base of the House of Saud. It<br />
consists of an archipelago of oases that allowed for the rise of agricultural settlements<br />
including Riyadh, the capital. Najd's towns were settled by the literati, petty traders,<br />
craftsmen and agriculturalists. Some of these towns were seats of princely powers. The<br />
third belt occupies the eastern part of the country which encompassed a relatively large<br />
population dispersed in small settlements in A1 Ahsa and A1 Qatif oases. Currently, the<br />
Eastern Province, which contains most of the country's oil reserves, houses scores of<br />
towns and cities who owe their growth and prosperity to the oil industry.<br />
The country's harsh ecology and desolate vastness fostered a multitude of sparsely<br />
populated subregions living at the verge of poverty and separated by formidable expanses<br />
of sand desert, most of which are inhabited by recalcitrant herdsmen. Since ancient times,<br />
travelers trekked along the desolate caravan routes, from one oasis to another. This<br />
environmental rigidness had defied the creation of national political power capable of<br />
changing the intrinsically centrifugal tendencies of the society.<br />
III. A NEW NATION<br />
Prior to the unification of Saudi Arabia in 1932, the majority of the Arabian<br />
Peninsula's population inhabited rural settlements abutting scattered oasises on the slopes<br />
of the mountains of Asir in the south west, and in the towns of the western coastal region.
7<br />
In addition to this form of living, the tribes of the predominantly dessert areas of the<br />
Peninsula forged a nomadic form of living which accounted for approximately half of the<br />
Peninsula's population at the turn of this century. 18 Still the coastal lands of the Red Sea<br />
on the west and the Persian Gulf on the east contained a population utilizing, in addition to<br />
small scale agriculture, maritime commerce, fishing and pearl diving as their major sources<br />
of living. The towns of Makkah, Madinah and Jeddah in the western region constituted an<br />
exception to the prevailing agrarian and nomadic (pastoral) habitats. The advent of Islam in<br />
the seventh century A.D. strengthened their urban status and provided them with<br />
continuous religious activities that helped support their economies.<br />
The promulgation of Saudi Arabia in 1932 as a new country has assured a new era of<br />
urban experience. With the formation of the new state, the urban network began to<br />
experience profound changes through relatively sudden integration with the increasingly<br />
internationalized world economy, thanks to the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in<br />
the late 1930s. The utilization of such a vital source of energy has launched the Country<br />
into unprecedented economic importance in the world market.<br />
The peculiarities of the Country's socio-political structure, coupled with its reliance<br />
on a massive oil reserve, has conditioned the development of the new urban network. No<br />
longer do agriculture, maritime trade and religious activities constitute the backbone of local<br />
economies. The new political economic changes, represented by nationalism and oil<br />
wealth, also resulted in abandonment of the traditional built environment to accommodate<br />
new and growing urban functions forged by the new changes.<br />
IV. THE STUDY<br />
This study is aimed at deciphering the major forces that have caused the discontinuity<br />
and the demise of the traditional forms and created the modem (industrial) forms. The<br />
relatively short span of time that accompanied this transformation constitutes an opportunity<br />
to understand factors underlying the new forms and some of their shortcomings.<br />
Specifically, I am concerned with the role of the state in shaping both the production of<br />
contemporary urban space and its form. Focused on the relationship between space<br />
formation and state-led intervention in development- characterized by massive public<br />
financing and centralized urban planing- the underlying assumption in this study is that in<br />
Saudi Arabia urban development has been more susceptible to political characteristics of the
8<br />
country than to those of both the capitalist market forces in democratic societies and Islamic<br />
Shari'ah, a major organizer of space in traditional settlements. 19<br />
For example, all Five-year Development Plans of the national government are explicit<br />
about the King's commitment toward the promotion of the population's well being and<br />
living standards. A major vehicle to reach this goal has been massive allocation of funds<br />
in infrastructure improvements and social services. Through the provision of tax-free<br />
infrastructure networks and public and social services; interest-free industrial and<br />
agricultural loans; real estate investment opportunities and free and subsidized housing; the<br />
new urban form has come to reflect the state as the major, if not sole, decision-maker. In<br />
return, urban planning activity and public policy making have been the prerogative of the<br />
government bureaucratic system, an activity fully controlled by the King.<br />
The sudden departure of colonial powers left most newly born Third World nations<br />
with callow leadership. In Saudi Arabia, as in these countries, the role of the state in<br />
national urban development has been significant. In Saudi Arabia, the urban development<br />
programs of the government have been influential in restructuring national urban<br />
economies, shifting the political-economic significance of the traditional urban network,<br />
creating a new urban hierarchy as well as virtually conditioning most of the new urban<br />
scene through land allocation for development and private speculation and by underwriting<br />
construction works. The historically important Holy towns of Makkah and Madinah in the<br />
western region presently rank third and fourth respectively in terms of population size and<br />
government spending, after Riyadh, the Capitol (1.5 million residents) and the port city of<br />
Jeddah (one million residents). Similarly, the previous fishing settlements of Dammam and<br />
Alkhobar on the east coast have assumed national and regional importance with the<br />
discovery of oil. Concomitant with this restructuring of the urban economies is an<br />
urbanization process fueled by an influx of rural migration and foreign labor.<br />
The problem this study deals with is the production of modern urban structures and<br />
forms that do not represent their own culture and environment. Instead, the new urban<br />
forms have come to reflect political leadership's vision and adaptation to world market<br />
needs. This problematic urbanization, marked by heavy reliance on alien urban growth<br />
models, must be seen through an investigation of the national decision-making process. To<br />
alleviate the pressures of urbanization, the government has sought technical forms of urban<br />
planning, that is physical planning, to curb surmounting negative aspects of development.
9<br />
In most cases, even physical planning has been an ex post facto activity, coming after the<br />
growing of an urban problems. Such apolitical approaches to control urban problems have<br />
been done without public participation and with minimum governmental -appreciation for<br />
societal values and long-range advantages. The resulting urban forms are rigid<br />
representations of hasty, culturally and environmentally irrelevant development.<br />
This study is a political economic approach to urban development. In this approach,<br />
the focus is, first, on the dependent nature of a country's economy and its degree of<br />
development in relationship with the world economy. The focus is, secondly, on the<br />
significance of historical changes which have occurred in the structure of cities as a result<br />
of the switch from traditional (precapitalist) to capitalist modes of production. The focus<br />
is, thirdly, on the class structure of the cities, especially the role played by government<br />
created economic opportunities. Finally, the political economic approach emphasizes the<br />
role of the state and its relationship to the elite in shaping the urbanization process. In<br />
short, to understand the modern built environment, I am taking an approach that places<br />
urban growth within sociopolitical, economic processes and recognizes cultural and<br />
historical differences among societies experiencing massive transition, that is the Third<br />
World Countries.<br />
Several attempts have been made to understand the contemporary physical<br />
environment of the Muslim-Arab city. 20 These studies, whether explicitly or implicitly,<br />
distinguish between the processes shaping the traditional physical environments and the<br />
modern built environments created by the new nation-states following their emancipation<br />
from colonialism. While some authors have questioned the validity of the distinction •<br />
"Islamic city," others have shunned the whole concept of the Islamic city model. Still, to<br />
some researchers, the Islamic city concept has been used in a substantial portion of urban<br />
research on the Middle East and North African cities. 21 Nevertheless, research on the<br />
Middle Eastern city is lacking. For example, in his 1976 review of the current state of<br />
urban research in the Middle East, Bonine concluded that "The traditional Middle Eastern<br />
city is still being explained in cliches and stereotypes...The modern city and processes of<br />
urbanization have barely been touched upon." 22<br />
A comprehensive and realistic approach to understanding the urban transformation is<br />
employed. The urban transformation is seen as an integral part of societal change in which<br />
settlements have had to respond to the new exigencies brought by national and international
10<br />
developments. The discontinuity between traditional, authentic architecture and urbanism<br />
and that of the contemporary built environments is not merely due to changing ideological<br />
attitudes favoring imported Western paradigms. The urge for development has led to largescale<br />
development and new building technology causing the demise of authentic<br />
architectural and urban principals as well. Nor can the problem of chaotic modern urban<br />
forms be solely attributed to shifting the roles of responsibility in shaping neighborhood<br />
from local residents to the state's municipal control of urban growth. 23<br />
Rather, stated more comprehensively, the apparent lack of relevance of contemporary<br />
built environments in Saudi Arabia is mainly due to these societal systems' sudden,<br />
lopsided development from traditionally based social systems to capitalist/industrialized<br />
ones. Explanations that oversee the relationship between sociopolitical developments and<br />
urban transformation, while contributing to the understanding of some problems, do not<br />
provide comprehensive answers. They provide partial analysis of specific aspects of the<br />
problem such as the lack of importation of unsuitable technology and/or urban planning.<br />
Little, if anything, however, is said about the political economic aspects of urban<br />
development and the resulting urban form.<br />
The discovery of oil reserves in commercial quantities has strengthened Saudi<br />
Arabia's economy and catapulted its population's living standards to ranks surpassing<br />
those in many developed countries. These oil revenues are at the disposal of a centralized,<br />
national bureaucracy which makes urban and regional decisions; the only discretion left to<br />
local communities includes limited technical decisions such as platting and detailed<br />
blueprints for infrastructure and public services at the municipal level.<br />
The justification for this centralized planning can be attributed to the government's<br />
touted financial commitment for implementing and running virtually all the nation's needed<br />
infrastructure and social services. Similarly, the justification for this form of governance<br />
can be extended to explain the centralized, top-down political character of the Country. As<br />
long as there is a strong source of income from the central government, there is no<br />
pressing need for some form of local governance by local communities who have grown<br />
fully dependent on state funding. The new urban network has been organized by and<br />
around the national bureaucracy. However, it is true to say that despite this somewhat<br />
unwieldy centralized bureaucracy, urban planning in Saudi Arabia, though technical, has<br />
assuaged many problems characteristic of urban transformation. 24
11<br />
V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND STRUCTURE OF STUDY<br />
Through investigation of Saudi Arabia's urbanization experience, in general, and<br />
through individual cases of some representative urban areas, I will show the relation<br />
between state intervention and the resulting urban forms. In addition to tackling the<br />
problems of urbanization, I will also look at how centralized policy-making has enhanced<br />
leadership legitimacy and control. My purpose is to analyze the government's direct and<br />
indirect involvement as the major architect and planner of urban development. Ultimately, I<br />
believe, such massive intervention has shaped both the structure and form of the various<br />
settlements. By exploring the government's mechanisms of land and financial resource<br />
allocation, a model of urban development can be deduced and generalization to other nondemocratic<br />
political systems in the Middle Eastern oil-based economies can be outlined.<br />
The methodology of the research is centered around the investigation and<br />
manipulation of data from three Saudi Arabian settlements. The role of government in<br />
creating and shaping both the urban structure and the urban forms of Saudi settlements will<br />
be assessed by focusing on urban policy in these three towns in particular, as well on<br />
other settlements in general. The three settlements are selected to provide a variety in terms<br />
of their population size, urban economies, and origins--whether evolved from agrarian<br />
settlements or industrial camps to modern communities.<br />
The first and largest of these towns is Riyadh, the capital, which represents a large,<br />
administrative city. With a population of approximately 1.5 million, it is the political heart<br />
of Saudi Arabia and the home of the Royal authority. The second town to be studied is<br />
Arar, representing a small city of 65,000 residents located in the northern region of the<br />
country. Arar was originated anew from a small industrial camp in the early 1940s. The<br />
third settlement is Huraimla, a small town with a population of 5,500, located fifty miles<br />
north of Riyadh. Huraimla was originally a village with an agricultural economy. While<br />
Arar is only forty years old, Riyadh and Huraimila have been on the map for centuries.<br />
The rationale behind selecting these settlements is mainly that of the researcher's<br />
familiarity, personal contacts and accessibility to information.<br />
The first chapter of the dissertation contains a definition of the problem, the rationale,<br />
and a discussion of the study's contribution toward understanding the Saudi urban<br />
transformation. Such an urban experience is valuable in the sense that it provides an
12<br />
alternative approach to understanding urban transmutation in non-democratic and<br />
traditionally based cultural systems in developing countries.<br />
In this chapter, I present an original urban development model that contributes to the<br />
understanding of urban processes in societies under transition. The analysis is drawn upon<br />
political economic studies in which the role of the state in urban transformation is<br />
highlighted. 25 It explores a unique experience in which whole urban economies have been<br />
changed from individually controlled pastoral and agrarian settlements to integral national<br />
urban networks heavily dependent on government financial support. Through the<br />
provision of jobs and services and investment opportunities in the built environment, the<br />
national government has assumed full control of the decision-making process. The Saudi<br />
city cannot be seen as an engine for economic development; rather it is better understood as<br />
a means for collective consumption, a means for equitable redistribution of oil wealth to<br />
individuals, and a source for political stability and legitimacy. Due to this heavy reliance on<br />
state spending, the Saudi city has grown economically dependent and politically immature.<br />
The second chapter is an exploration of the urban processes which created and shaped<br />
the traditional Muslim built environment. In order to understand the contemporary physical<br />
environment, it is essential to explore historical processes which influenced its traditional<br />
settlements. While urban transformation in the West evolved through somewhat gradual<br />
stages of development compatible with cultural and technological changes, the urbanization<br />
of Muslim countries has been abrupt. The forces of colonialism and then the modern<br />
integration of the newly urbanizing nations' economies into the rapidly expanding world<br />
market system have created urban systems in Third World Countries that owe more to<br />
external influences than to pristine, locally spurred cultural development. A brief<br />
discussion of the origin and evolution of the traditional settlements in Saudi Arabia will<br />
help elucidate the factors that caused the departure from traditional urban forms to the<br />
modern Middle Eastern metropolis. Using national government documents, interviews<br />
with government officials and planners, review of master plans, municipal regulations,<br />
journalistic accounts, and recent research and studies, I will examine the relationship<br />
between government's intervention in urban development and the resulting urban forms for<br />
the last six decades.<br />
The third chapter is an investigation of how the contemporary built environments of<br />
Saudi Arabia have come to their present structure and form. It constitutes a historical
13<br />
overview of the economic and political developments which enveloped the new nation-state<br />
and ultimately determined its contemporary urban forms. This will help as an introduction<br />
to the nature and peculiarities of contemporary Saudi urban development. To cope with the<br />
rapid urbanization, the national government has heavily relied on central, authoritarian<br />
planning practices for speed and control, leaving no space for private institutional<br />
organization input and creative, autonomous localism. The decision-making process,<br />
including urban planning, has increasingly become the domain of the central government.<br />
With improved oil revenues, orders and central funds flowed down the bureaucratic chain,<br />
while fealty and information worked their way backup. Under the auspices of central<br />
government, new towns and cities grew from independent agrarian villages and trade posts<br />
to new, dependent urban constellations.<br />
Chapter four is an overview of urban planning activity in Saudi Arabia. The early<br />
municipal regulations and kinds of land allocation that set the standards for development<br />
will be discussed. The early models of growth controls, manifested in street platting, city<br />
planning and regional planning which supplanted the culturally-based space organizer of<br />
the past, will be highlighted. Urban planning, though applied mainly in its physical form,<br />
has been influential in controlling urban growth. At the same time, urban planning activity<br />
has been instrumental in conveying and sustaining the authority's commitment to promote<br />
social well-being through enhancing order in the built environment. In Saudi Arabia, urban<br />
planning takes the form of organizing and controlling physical growth through the<br />
preparation of town and city master plans and regulation of development. Capital-intensive<br />
mega projects are entirely funded by the national government, sometimes lavishly.<br />
Countless urban developments, speedways, parkways, landscaped housing projects and<br />
large-scale infrastructural development have marked this transformation. Examples will be<br />
chosen from different towns and cities around the country. Information will be gathered<br />
from primary and secondary data such as public documents and published urban literature.<br />
In Chapter five I address major cultural attributes that characterized the traditional Arab-<br />
Muslim built environment and shaped their production.<br />
Chapters six, seven and eight are an examination in detail of the three case<br />
settlements, Riyadh, Arar, and Huraimla. In these chapters, I will investigate decisionmaking<br />
processes that helped transform the physical environment to its contemporary<br />
forms. The last chapter is a summary and conclusion of the case study, emphasizing the<br />
characteristics of the Saudi Arabian urban development model. This chapter contains the
14<br />
Jerusalem*<br />
^—— —<br />
, .Amman I R<br />
m<br />
• « _ <br />
'"§ \ AITuray) ^rar ^ .,<br />
\ / JORDAN • N A P U D BasraCjAbadan<br />
CANAL<br />
• j .Ma'ay' o, ,jaw( 1 1 /kuwait KUV<br />
EGYPT<br />
Aswan<br />
Tabuk<br />
JABAU<br />
.Madina<br />
Yanbo<br />
y., / ^Kuwait<br />
Hafr al-Batin ,<br />
* Artawiya QammamX bammm Gcv/<br />
^ . DUIdlUU Buraida<br />
Dhahran<br />
^ ;^Tiu ,<br />
Q' Huraimla e Riyadh \\vl J Abu DhabjZj - Gutfot Oman<br />
.<br />
® ^ ^ Buraimi<br />
B<br />
SAUDI<br />
...Mecca .Khurma<br />
Jidaai" • .j a i|| .Turaba<br />
ARABIA<br />
Nizwa<br />
OMAN<br />
SUDAN<br />
Khartoum<br />
. Khamis Mushayt<br />
.Abha<br />
Najran<br />
Jizah<br />
>YEMEN<br />
ARAB<br />
.Sarra<br />
'REPUBLfe-o^^"^<br />
R Forgei<br />
ETHIOPIA<br />
0<br />
r - • tir'<br />
Gulfol<br />
Aden<br />
SOMAUA<br />
Figure 1.1<br />
Map of Saudi Arabia showing Riyadh, Arar and Huraimla and other major cities. Source:<br />
R. Forget, in N. Safran (1988).
15<br />
research findings: an evaluation and assessment of the Saudi urban experience and<br />
characteristics in light of historical, cultural, and technological changes in the span of<br />
the last five decades. Here, articulation of the aspects of the Saudi urban experience<br />
will result in a model which I believe will be helpful in understanding urban<br />
development and space formation in traditionally based sociopolitical systems<br />
endowed with favorable economic opportunities. The model is a presentation of an<br />
urban example in which state policy is analyzed in relation to leadership goals and<br />
interests. In such a centralized, non-democratic decision-making environment, urban<br />
policy has been conducive to the sustenance and perpetuation of traditional authority<br />
ideals. This model will be contrasted to prevailing models of urban development, for<br />
example, where market forces are working amidst democratic institutional (decisionmaking)<br />
frameworks that maximize public involvement. In the Western model,<br />
ecological awareness, economic efficiency, and social justice are the major concerns.<br />
The competing market players and groups' consciousness will somewhat condition<br />
the resulting "pluralistic urban forms."
16<br />
Notes To Chapter I<br />
1<br />
Helen Safa, ed. Toward A Political Economy of Urbanization in Third World Countries (Delhi:<br />
Oxford University Press, 1982).<br />
2 For good summary, see M. P. Smith and J. R. Feagin, eds. The Capitalist City (Padstow, Great<br />
Britain: T.J. Press Ltd, 1987).<br />
3 H. Chudacoff. The Evolution of American Urban Society (Englewood, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc,<br />
1975).<br />
4 David Clark. Urban Geography: An Introductory guide. (Baltimore, MA: The John Hopkins<br />
University Press, 1982), 38.<br />
5 Chudacoff, 1975.<br />
6 Loenard Reissman. The Urban Process: Cities in Industrial Societies (New York: The Free Press,<br />
1970).<br />
7 C. Wilber and K. Jameson, "Paradigms of Economic Development and Beyond." In The Political<br />
Economy of Development and Underdevelopment, edited by C. Wilber, 3-27 (New York: Random<br />
House, 1988).<br />
8 D. Harvey. Consciousness and the Urban Experience: Studies in the History and Theory of<br />
Capitalist Urbanization (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1985). Harvey shows how<br />
centrality, and hence Paris' urban growth, as well as the city's urban form, was enhanced due to<br />
massive capital investments in the built environment and transportation which made Paris at the<br />
locus of the country's economy and culture.<br />
9 For a counter argument, see A. Lepietz, "New Tendencies in the International Division of Labor:<br />
Regimes of Accumulation and Modes of Regulation." In Production, Work, Territory: The<br />
geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism, edited by A. Scott and M. Storper, 16-40 (Boston:<br />
Allen and Nunwin, 1987).<br />
10 C. Wilber and K. Jameson, "Paradigms of Economic Development and Beyond." In The Political<br />
Economy of Development and Underdevelopment, edited by C. Wilber, (New York: Random House,<br />
1988).<br />
11 East Cam, "Urbanization and Political Behavior." In The Middle East city: Ancient Traditions<br />
Confront a Modern World, edited by A. Saqqaf (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987), 339.<br />
12 Ibid, 339.<br />
13 L. Reissman, 1970.<br />
14 G. Hamdan. "The Identity of Egypt, Part 4 (in Arabic), Alam El-Kotob, Cairo, 1984, quoted by H.<br />
M. Sobhi, in A. Saqqaf, op cit, 230.
17<br />
15 Quoted by C. G. Pickvance, "Comparative Urban Analysis and Assumptions about Causality". In<br />
Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective, 29-52 (London: Itahca Press, 1986). In this<br />
analysis, Mullins espouses a Marxist rational of capital accumulation and class struggle.<br />
16 Costello, V. F. Urbanization in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).<br />
17 This estimate of the Saudi population is based on the U.N. Department of International Economics<br />
and Social Affairs' report, World Urbanization, Prospects 1990: Estimates and Projections of Urban<br />
and Rural Populations and of Urban Agglomerations (New York: United Nations, 1990), 149. The<br />
report projects a population of 17.1 million by 1995.<br />
18 Shamekh , 1976.<br />
19 On the role of Islamic Shariah in shaping traditional Arab-Muslim towns, A1 Hathloul, S. A.<br />
Traditions, Continuity and Change in the Physical Environment: The Arab-Muslim City.<br />
Unpublished <strong>Dissertation</strong>. Department of Architecture (Cambridge, MS: MIT, 1981); Akbar, J.<br />
Crisis in the Built Environment: the Case of the Muslim City (Singapore: Concept Media Pte Ltd,<br />
1988); Hakim, B. S. Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles (London: Kegan<br />
Paul International, 1986), and Hakim, B. S. "Islamic Architecture and Urbanism." In Encyclopedia<br />
of Architecture, Design, Engineering, and Construction, Vol. 3, edited by J. Wilkes, 86-103 (New<br />
York: John Wiley and Sons, c 1989).<br />
20 See for example, Akbar (1988), Al-Hathloul (1981), Blake Blake, G. H. and Lawless, R. I. eds.<br />
The Changing Middle Eastern City (London: Croom Helm, 1980); Brown, Kenneth, ed. Middle<br />
Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective (London: Ithaca Press, 1986b); and Saqqaf, A., ed. The<br />
Middle East City, Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World (New York: Paragon House, 1987).<br />
21 For example, Abu-Lughod (1980,1987) questions the term "Islamic City." Bonine (1983,1985)<br />
refutes the concept's validity in modern processes. However, Brown (1986) points to the persistent<br />
usage of the term in contemporary urban research.<br />
22 M. E. Bonine, "Urban Studies in the Middle East," Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 3<br />
(October, 1976), 19-20.<br />
23 Akbar, 1988.<br />
24<br />
A1 Hathloul, S. and Anis-ur-Rahmaan, "The Evolution of Urban and Regional Planning in Saudi<br />
Arabia" Ekistics 312 (May/June 1985): 206-212.<br />
25 Helen I. Safa, ed. Toward A Political Economy of Urbanization in third World Countries (Delhi:<br />
Oxford University Press, 1982), Bryan Roberts. Cities of Peasants (Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE<br />
Publications, 1978), D. <strong>Dr</strong>ukakis-Smith. Urbanization, Housing and the Development Process<br />
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980).
CHAPTER II<br />
THE ARAB-ISLAMIC CITY: HISTORICAL PRECEDENCE<br />
Do you know the rights of the neighbor....you must not build to<br />
exclude the breeze from him, unless you have his permission...<br />
A neighbor should not forbid his neighbor to insert wooden beams<br />
in his wall. 1<br />
- Prophet Mohammed<br />
One can hardly disagree that traditional settlements in various parts of the Developing<br />
World have lost continuity with their past, while at the same time retaining some elements<br />
of their urban heritage. In the case of economically well endowed nations, the<br />
transformation has been phenomenal as well as acute. Unlike the Western city which has<br />
evolved congruous with other aspects of cultural change, the non-Western city has<br />
developed deluged by Western intervention, culture and technology. As "foreign"<br />
planners, armed with savoir faire and Western technical expertise, came to the rescue of the<br />
problematic Third World city, in many cases their input has further complicated the<br />
situation. As technology has shattered the distance barrier and made interaction between<br />
world societies easy, non-western urban systems were abruptly discontinued. Now,<br />
researchers dealing with urban problems and development have increasingly come to grips<br />
with the need to address the transferability of technology in problem solving which must<br />
continuously be devised to cater to local cultural exigencies. In the Middle East, there is a<br />
pressing need to reinstate the missing link between the traditional medina and the<br />
"contemporary incoherence," to use Keneth Brown's expression. The new imperatives of<br />
the modern era must be brought in harmony with cultural needs. 2<br />
This chapter is an overview to shed light on urban processes in the pre-Saudi Arabian<br />
era which ended following World War One when colonial powers ceded independence to<br />
most of today's Muslim countries. Jean Charles Pepaule wrote "Space, and habitat in Arab<br />
and/or Muslim societies cannot be considered without reference to Islam." Commenting on<br />
the nature of Islamic urbanization, Riaz Hassan stated that any "analytical study into the<br />
development of Islamic urbanization must start with an examination of Islamic religious<br />
traditions; for certain features of religious tradition of Islam are underlying factors in the<br />
evolution of Muslim urbanization." 3 Conversely, the abandonment of traditional physicocultural<br />
processes in the making of the contemporary Arab-Islamic built environments has
19<br />
resulted in problematic urbanization. The modem urban formation lacks a strong reference<br />
to the local heritage and identity. The new space-design is that of centralized planning and<br />
municipal controls (devoid of social considerations) which supplant residents' control and<br />
input in development.<br />
The Muslim city was built reflecting its inhabitants' convictions. 4 Islam has nurtured<br />
egalitarianism rather than elitist-despotism or materialist privatism. Such emphasis has<br />
prompted Rapport to comment that the "Islamic city to an American has no order." 5<br />
Europeans perceived the African village as lacking order, mainly and simply because it is<br />
not laid in a geometrical form. Such parochialism has undermined the development of<br />
sensible solutions to local problems.<br />
Under the guise of modernization, many Developing and Third World countries have<br />
sought Western technical advice and financial backing to plan the growing metropolis<br />
awakened by the new international economic systems to which their nation-states became<br />
connected. Modernization of the medina, upgrading it to the metropolis, has been looked<br />
upon by each fledgling nation-state's political leaderships as a leverage for legitimacy. A<br />
brief discussion of traditional urban processes, the structure and form of the pre-industrial<br />
city in a West-East comparison will be first presented. The discontinuity of the "placid"<br />
traditional Muslim city, and its subsequent substitution by the "chaotic" metropolis, I<br />
argue, has not been due merely to technological factors, 6 the introduction of new planning<br />
and architecture principles 7 and/or that of the transfer of residents' responsibility and<br />
control over their neighborhoods into that of the institutionalized government municipality. 8<br />
Rather, it is largely due to the sudden metamorphosis in the society's political economic<br />
structure at the macro-level, which has caused lopsided societal development at the microlevels<br />
of these countries cultural systems of which the urban sphere is one manifestation.<br />
I. ISLAM (722-1000 AD): PHILOSOPHICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS<br />
OF URBANISM<br />
Documentation puts the Near Eastern Mesopotamia region as the cradle of urban<br />
civilization which goes back to 5,500 B.C. when cities first appeared. 9 The long history of<br />
urbanism in the Middle East has been the result of propitious, temporal as well as physical<br />
conditions. 10<br />
As a birth-place for the world's great religions, the area witnessed the<br />
creation of many settlements and urban centers. Several factors have forged the
20<br />
development of the Middle Eastern city: water resources; trade relying on highly demanded<br />
old-time commodities, such as spices and incense; favorable political circumstances; and<br />
numerous dynasties establishing their own capitals,'to name a few. A major factor that<br />
spurred urban centers was Islam. 11 Since its swift expansion in the seventh century A.D.,<br />
Islam has changed the Middle Eastern map, creating new towns and conditioning both<br />
cultural systems and physical form of cities.<br />
The Prophet Mohammed is believed by Muslims to have received Allah's revelation<br />
and to have started the preaching of the updated, reformed Abrahamic faith in 712 AD at the<br />
age of forty. As preached by the Prophet, Islam emphasizes monotheism, that is the<br />
oneness of God. To its followers, Islam is more than a religion, it is a way of life<br />
straddling two life-spans, the first life, dunia, and the life after death, akhirah. Islam<br />
emphasizes the preponderance of the Divine Allah (God) over secular materialism. As<br />
Muslims put it, there is no God but Allah. Allah is the Supreme being. He is omnipotent<br />
and omnipresent, indivisible, invisible and unimaginable by human intellect both in look or<br />
character. In a strict Muslim sense, A perfect God means that there is no sharer in His<br />
Nature and His Attributes: "Say: He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute;<br />
He begetteth not, nor He begotten; and ther is none like unto Him." 12<br />
Mankind is<br />
considered the viceroy whose main purpose in the first life on earth, that is dunia, is to act<br />
as a deputy for the Sovereign Allah. The worshipping of Allah is the raison de'etre for<br />
human existence. All that surrounds mankind is both for their utilization and to help them<br />
discover Allah. Allah says in the Koran,<br />
I have not created Man and Jinn but for the sole purpose of worshipping<br />
me. I need no sustenance from them nor do I need them to feed. 13<br />
While promising the treasures of the hereafter, akhira, Islam denounces mammon as<br />
deleterious, hence places a damper on materialistic luxury. 14 The 'first life', dunia, usually<br />
is discussed with little importance and is viewed as a transitional passage on the path to the<br />
real destiny- that is, either heaven or hell. Prophet Mohammed once said: "What is there<br />
for me in this dunia The likeness of one's life on this earth, is that of a traveler who<br />
stopped for some rest under the shade of a tree, soon to leave it with no return." 15<br />
Though Islam expressively drew strong similarities between previous Biblical<br />
messages, mainly that they all shared the call for worshipping one God, It repudiated both<br />
Judaism and Christianity (though revered their followers as the people of the Book). The
21<br />
Prophet taught that the Biblical accounts as they had changed through time were vestiges,<br />
devoid of truthfulness and banal. They were either completely lost, due to lack of reliable<br />
documentation, or changed for economic and political interests. Whatever had survived<br />
contained outdated teachings which were ab initio designated as universal messages.<br />
As verbally professed and illustrated by the Prophet' lifestyle, Muslims, rulers and<br />
masses were instructed to shun luxury and self-glorification including the construction of<br />
statues, burial tombs and sepulchers. Religiously, Muslim legions considered Christians'<br />
elevation of Jesus to the status of god and the Persians' worship of fire as repulsive.<br />
During their military advancement, early Muslims returned scornful of the Roman's<br />
materialism, and looked upon their cities as expressions of mammon. Mohammed<br />
instructed his followers that cupidity leads to calamity and resources should be<br />
parsimoniously allocated to benefit the community. He lived a life in which he shunned<br />
ostentation, though encouraged the community's members to procure their living with<br />
hard, just work. Even the most sanctuary places of the city, the mosque, habitually<br />
referred to as the house of Allah, should not be built at extravagant standards at the expense<br />
of needy Muslims. A man's rights are perceived as sacred. His blood, privacy and<br />
property are more sacred than the black Kabba, the most holy sanctuary place in the Great<br />
Mosque of Makkah. Mohammed once said in one of his last speeches to his followers<br />
I have gathered you to tell you that it is a great sin for one of you to inflict<br />
harm on any fellow Muslim. For each Muslim's rights are more sacred than<br />
the House of God itself (Ka'ba). 16<br />
The early Muslim vanguards went out from the Arabian peninsula to subjugate nearby<br />
nations and to introduce their populations to Islam. They considered their missions holy,<br />
with a noble goal to "manumit" others out of the "slavery of their [created] fellow mankind<br />
to that of the Creator [Allah] and from the darkness of kufr [the denial of God] to the light<br />
of Islam, its righteousness and guidance as seen from an Islamic view. It was held that all<br />
non-Muslims followed the wrong path, by not practicing Islam. 17 If not converted they<br />
would be doomed to the eternal life in the Hell. <strong>Dr</strong>iven by such convictions, they took on<br />
their shoulders the responsibility of introducing Islam to the unbelievers. This zeal was to<br />
inspire emulation in the various epochs of Islam's history.<br />
In 1902, Abdul-Aziz A1 Saud, the founder of today's Saudi Arabia predicated his<br />
nationalist drive on a similar religious premise. By 1932, he managed to unify the different
22<br />
lands comprising Saudi Arabia. The creation of the nation-state constitutes a watershed<br />
between the society's pre-industrial traditionalism and the new era of modernity.<br />
A. Islamic Expansion and Urbanization<br />
From the advent of Islam in the seventh century, a new era of urban centers began to<br />
emerge; however, its advent added to an already existing urban tradition, especially in the<br />
Middle East. Islam made use of the urban heritage and built on it. Islam's swift expansion<br />
resulted in laying the grounds for many of today's urban centers, some of which were<br />
previously small settlements. The location of these towns was the result of several factors<br />
including locations on major trade routes; propitious natural locations; the presence of a<br />
major religious activity; or as a result of the rise of dynasties. Islam also fostered its own<br />
urbanization; several types of cities can be pointed to.<br />
The amsar, or military administrative, town was built as an army camp. It was built<br />
either in the proximity of a pre-Islamic town, such as the case of Al Fustat (Cairo) or on a<br />
site that was meant, by the Muslim armies, to be separate from neighboring settlements, for<br />
example., Kufa, Iraq, or al Qairawan, Tunisia. The second, ribat or outpost towns, were<br />
fortresses that grew from border garrisons to be nuclei for important cities such as Rabat,<br />
Morocco. The third type, the amerriyah, or princely town was the outcome of the rise of<br />
some dynasties to power, who considered the founding of their own capitals as an<br />
expression of their power. Baghdad, Fez and Marrakesh exemplify this type. Finally,<br />
there are the sanctuary tov/ns which developed spontaneously around a sanctuary, a<br />
hermitage or saint's camp. Karbala city in Iraq is an example of this type.<br />
The sojourn of the Prophet in Madinah is considered very important as a source or<br />
example and precedent to be emulated (and simulated) for all aspects of Islamic community<br />
including the building activity. Following his arrival in Madinah, the Prophet embarked<br />
upon a campaign of preaching Islam. This took the form of, first, sending missionaries<br />
carrying messages to the surrounding tribal chiefs and kings. If failed, then war, or jihad,<br />
was waged. Fueled by the dreams of residing in paradise, Islamic legions advanced at an<br />
unprecedented determination and success. To cease, or to stick to settled ways of life, such<br />
as trade and agriculture, was a sign of retreat: a love for dunia. The exertion of oneself in<br />
the spread of Islam, struggling in God's path Jihad, was given priority and great prize. 18<br />
During this period of advancement, Muslims resettled, breathed new life into new towns
23<br />
and/or transformed already existing towns and villages. The Mediterranean basins,<br />
Damascus, Antioch, Alexandria easily fell under Muslim control. At the beginning,<br />
Muslim invaders settled in the vicinity of the conquered towns, out of which the Muslim<br />
sections grew with a distinctive character resembling the physical organization of Makkah<br />
and Madinah. However, eventually Muslims founded purely Islamic cities such as Fustat<br />
(later Cairo), Kufa and Basra. In al-Maghrib (North Africa) and al-Andalus (Iberia),<br />
military outposts and encampments were developed into major capitals such as Qayrawan,<br />
Fez, Marrakesh and, in Spain, Cordova and Seville. In East-West Asia, the new<br />
settlements of Sultaniyya, Isfhan, Nishabur, Herat and Bukhara and Samragand were<br />
brought into new urban centers.<br />
The advent of Islam signaled a new era of political unity under the auspices of a<br />
strong, growing and relatively permanent state in lands that had hitherto rarely enjoyed<br />
security. The resulting political stability was the prerequisite for progress of Madinah,<br />
which increasingly became a teeming center of the expanding empire. This stability set in<br />
motion an urbanization process for centuries to come. As the Islamic empire expanded and<br />
attained power, workers and resources were brought together from its expansive<br />
surroundings. Cities sprouted on the frontiers and on the major routes connecting the core<br />
with the enlarging periphery. Many of the new cities grew from tents and makeshift<br />
encampments dotting the expanding empire. Like all states, the Muslim state, whenever in<br />
strength, nurtured, protected and regulated the economic, social and cultural affairs of its<br />
subjects and provided public amenities for regions under its control. Less than a century<br />
following the Prophet's message, the Islamic empire encompassed a vast territory<br />
stretching from the west shore of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrnees to the borders of'<br />
China, in the east.<br />
During the time of the great geographer, al-Maqdisi (9th century A.D.), the Muslim<br />
world contained the major following metropolises: Asmara, Baghdad, known for its<br />
nobility and virtue, Kufa in Iraq for its refinement, Basra for industry, and Misr (Cairo) as<br />
a bustling trade center. Outside the Middle East, there was Balk known for its<br />
ostentatiousness and Samragund touted for its craftsmanship. Classical Islamic urbanism<br />
reached its climax at the height of its territorial expansion and cultural apogee, between 3rd<br />
H. and 4th H. (9th and 13th centuries A.D.), during which time the classical type of city<br />
was fully manifested.
24<br />
The Prophet acknowledged the value of a collective community to mobilize armies to<br />
spread the new religion. His success at uniting the pugnacious Madinah clans, and<br />
winning the fealty of the fickle, and usually recalcitrant Bedouins has attracted scholarly<br />
investigation. In his monumental study of medieval Muslim civilization, Ibn Khaldoun, the<br />
14th century social thinker and Muslim historian, argued that Islam provided the most<br />
important factor in the rise and the growth of Muslim urbanization. It substituted religious<br />
affiliation for kinship as the rational for social organization. Ibn Khaldoun drew a<br />
distinction between what he termed "primitive culture" (Bedouin/nomadic) and "civilized<br />
culture" (hadara/civil). The primitive culture as he described it concentrated on cultivation<br />
of land and domestication of animals in one locality, or while roaming the desert. Its life<br />
was characterized by simplicity and the satisfaction of only the necessary needs. Pastoral<br />
communities were small and self-sustaining; the food stuff was simple and was eaten<br />
without processing; and clothes were made of animal products. Men found shelter in either<br />
caves, tents or simple huts. All but the necessary tools and crafts were absent. Continuous<br />
roaming necessitated minimum and light belongings. Finally, organized rational<br />
knowledge was virtually absent.<br />
Respect for authority, attachment to a certain locality and deference to the rights of<br />
others were prerequisites to the civilized culture. Only through buttressing social<br />
solidarity, could a transformation of 'primitive culture' to a 'civilized culture' take place.<br />
An 'additional force' was required to spark such a process. In the Muslim civilization<br />
case, Islam has served as the force behind the new loyalty, rooted in absolute belief in<br />
Allah, and has become one of the most effective instruments for the rise of urbanization in<br />
Islam. 19<br />
The importance of a settled community, the town, to that of the pastoral, was<br />
augmented by the introduction of the daily five mandatory prayers (with strong emphasis to<br />
do them in group), structuring the daily routine, which served as a strong religious<br />
gathering and social link at the neighborhood level. These prescribed daily prayers resulted<br />
in the establishment of the neighborhood mosque, a Muslim institution and community<br />
center that enhanced the social ties among the Muslim quarters' residents. The town's<br />
status in society was induced vis-a-vis the village and nomadic folk life through the<br />
indoctrination of mandatory Friday prayer, an obligatory worship for town people with a<br />
fixed population of forty people or more. Such stipulation was sufficient to instigate urban<br />
nucleus for future settlements. Though it seems felicitous by today's standards, such
25<br />
differentiation between the town was a crucial stimuli in the predominantly pastoral<br />
conditions of seventh century Arabia. The Friday prayer, meant to bring the community of<br />
several neighborhoods together, required a larger mosque, jami. The compulsory mandate<br />
of the Friday prayer has been an impetus attracting Bedouins, hence strengthening the<br />
town-hinterland relationships. The jami institution has since become a place for<br />
community gathering, education, and political leadership. In short, Islam devised a<br />
hierarchical set of worship duties firmly grounded in spiritual canon encouraging<br />
gregariousness in the community of believers bound by a common language, religion,<br />
cultural background and place. Thus it restructured the semi-primitive Arab pastoral life<br />
around daily, weekly and monthly congregational rituals, that have since stimulated the<br />
interconnectedness of the otherwise insulated and pugnacious desert communities.<br />
On the economic side, Islamic teachings are said to have introduced legislative norms<br />
tailored to fit the needs of an active commercial, merchant community, an activity<br />
conducive to the growth of towns. While addressing the significance of community, Islam<br />
sanctifies private property. The followers of the faith are equal in the sight of Allah who is<br />
the sole owner of resources, including land. Commercial transaction is encouraged while<br />
usury is prohibited. Such encouragement paved the way for the development of the bazaar<br />
economy with its guild-like merchant association, a peculiar aspect of the Middle Eastern<br />
city under Islam. Arguments over the degree of their socio-political influence aside,<br />
Muslim guilds developed under supporting Islamic political circumstance, and pro-market<br />
tolerance. 20 They had their influence on the economic activity in the Muslim city,<br />
providing capital and training for their members. Guilds were also a means for social<br />
mobilization and political solidarity, regulating and protecting crafts. Even guilds '<br />
controlled by non-Muslims enjoyed rights to execute their commercial activities. 21<br />
B. Actual Town Building<br />
Following the Prophet's arrival, Madinah, located inland in the littoral western plain<br />
of the Arabian peninsula, was transformed into a bustling workshop of building activity<br />
and education as well as military operations. Mohammed sent messengers to the various<br />
settlements and tribal turfs asking them to accept the new religion. Tribal leaders and<br />
curious Arabs flocked to Madinah to meet the new rising figure in Arabia, "the long<br />
awaited Prophet." Though preaching in the cradle of Arabia, Islam disparaged the<br />
religiously lukewarm Bedouins' habits, an attitude some historians perceived as sine qua
26<br />
non to the transition to sedentary life. The social solidarity of the mobile Bedouin folks<br />
was based on common ancestry, common interests, and common experience of life and<br />
death. Nomadic culture nurtured the love of desert, personal freedom and loyalty to the<br />
family and the tribe. Bedouins' continuous roving for seasonal staples, grass and water<br />
nurtured their lack of attachment to a certain location. They grew indifferent to authority.<br />
Their harsh environment taught them the art of endurance, occasionally at the cost of<br />
others' rights.<br />
It was the first year of Hegira, 1 H./622 A.D. when the Prophet Mohammed and his<br />
best companion, Abu Bakr, reached Madinah (nee Yathrib) fleeing the polytheists of<br />
Makkah. They entered the oasis to the cheering crowds of its inhabitants. The Prophet had<br />
previously signed a treaty with their leaders. In the ecstasy, some attempted to hold his<br />
camel's robe but the Prophet objected and asked them to let the camel walk until it stopped.<br />
He told them the camel had been instructed by Allah to choose the place where the center of<br />
the settlement, hereafter named Madinah Monaouarah (the city of light), would be located.<br />
That place was to be the mosque of the Prophet. Abutting the shaded colonnade<br />
designating the mosque, the Prophet constructed a room for himself and his wife, Aisha.<br />
The early followers, Sahaba, were chiefly loyal new converts from Makkah and tribal<br />
factions whose members preferred to settle close to the Prophet to learn from him and<br />
enlisted themselves in his army to fight for the spread of the new message. Under the<br />
urgency of providing shelter for the growing number of believers, Madinah residents,<br />
Ansar, shared their homes with the Makkan Muslims, Muhajireen. In addition, the<br />
Prophet allocated undeveloped land tracts to the new converts according to their place of<br />
origin and tribal affiliation. The unit of distribution was called Khitah (pi. Khittat), a term<br />
interchangeably used for quarter. The size of each khittah varied according to the number<br />
of a tribe's members. Moreover, a number of small-size clans from different tribes could<br />
join into one khittah.. Historical accounts of the settlements of the early Muslims in<br />
Madinah show "that Medina at the time of the Prophet was organized into quarters [khittat],<br />
and that each quarter was settled by members of one tribe or clan." 22<br />
Before the Prophet's arrival to Madinah, Yathrib comprised a number of independent,<br />
separated settlements belonging to the various tribes. They were called manazel (residents)<br />
or biout (houses), terms which connote less-permanent quarters. Following the Prophet's<br />
unification of the oasis tribes, these manazel became quarters within the growing city.
Those who fled Makkah with the Prophet, Muhajireen, to join the Muslim community<br />
27<br />
were granted non-arable lands donated by the Ansar and clustered in groups or around the<br />
Mosque. The Prophet divided the land surrounding his mosque to dour (lots) and riba<br />
(quarters). The fiefs, khittah, were distributed to both individuals and tribes alike, though<br />
size corresponded to need, all for the owners' heirs. The internal distribution and<br />
organization of these khitat was left to the owners. In some of these khitat, residents set<br />
aside land in which they buried their deceased and built neighborhood mosques. During<br />
the Prophet's life, the city grew enormously, while retaining its primeval tribal character.<br />
Madinah housed four markets before the Prophet's arrival. Upon his arrival to<br />
Madinah, he pitched a tent which he designated as a market next to the Mosque. He said<br />
"this is our suq, it is not to be built or acquired (la-tatahajjaru), and no tax is to be levied on<br />
it." 23 Following the Prophet's order, the suq was left as open space with no permanent<br />
structures during the reign of the four Caliphs who followed the Prophet in ruling the<br />
nascent Empire. It was not until Muawyyah bin Abi Sufyan (41/661-60/680) that the suq<br />
was constructed. Until this day, the suq complex still occupies the same place and is<br />
known with its historical name, al Manakhah (the place where camels are unloaded).<br />
Commenting on Madinah's spatial organization and its morphology during the Prophet's<br />
time and thirty years following his death, Al-Hathloul wrote<br />
Information on the pattern of the city streets- their form and size and how<br />
they were laid out- is lacking. To use information from later times, there<br />
was during Muawiyah's reign what is known al-balat which according to al-<br />
Samhadi's description covers most of the city's three major thoroughfares.<br />
At some point at the end of this balat near al-musalla, its width during the<br />
time of Ibn Shabbah (262H/876) was ten cubits while at its beginning near<br />
the gate of Mercy, in the Prophet's Mosque, its width was six cubits. As to<br />
Madinah's suq, it seems to have continued in its original site though other<br />
specialized suqs evidently appeared in the area between the original one and<br />
the Prophet's mosque. Within this area, Ibn Sabbah refers to several which<br />
existed during his lifetime. Among those were the suq of date sellers, fruit<br />
sellers, bakers, dyers, tailors, leather merchants, sellers of copper utensils,<br />
and smiths. 24<br />
The system of allotting khitat was copied by the four Muslim Caliphs, who were<br />
elected by the sahaba community, in starting the new settlements. During the reign of the<br />
second Caliph, Omar bin Al Khatab (13/634-23/644), the expansion of the Muslim territory<br />
went apace. It included Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. In order to help administer the vast<br />
territory, six amsar were designated to house the vanguards on the frontier. They served
28<br />
as garrisons for the advancing Muslim armies, soon to become administrative centers for<br />
their provinces. Basra and Kufa in Iraq were founded in one year (16/638) and Fixstat<br />
(21/642) in Egypt prospered. However, Jawwathah and Jabiyah were deserted in later<br />
times. Qayrawan was founded in Tunisia during the reign of the fifth ruler after the<br />
Prophet, Muawiah. In other territories, Qazwin, Ardabil, Ray and Marw, were designated<br />
as amsar for military outposts. The tradition of designating the mosque, abutted by the<br />
suq, and the application of the khitat, as a system of planning, and the formulation of the<br />
street patterns have become a standard procedure in the layout of new settlements carried<br />
down by the first Caliphs following the Prophet's tradition. In those towns that existed<br />
before Muslim control the application of the Islamic legal system, Shariy'ah, and residents<br />
mundane aspects of faith has gradually transformed their urban forms with distinctive<br />
similarity.<br />
Al-Kufa originated from a military camp. The Caliph Omar instructed his viceroy,<br />
Sa'ad bin Abi-Waqqas, to plat the new town. Omar ordered that a hierarchical system of<br />
roads with various widths should include main roads, manahij, to be 40 cubits, 30 cubits<br />
for the next major ones, and 20 cubits. Abi-Alhaiaji was assigned the task of actually<br />
implementing the order of plating the new town. The Prophet set as a minimum width of 7<br />
cubits for small lanes or passage ways, al aziqqah. Abi-Alhaiaji was assisted by an<br />
appraisal committee in making decisions. As in the case of Madinah, the first structure to<br />
be laid down was the congregational mosque, usually taking a square shape, including a<br />
shaded area and the sahn, an open courtyard. The army leader's house was built next to<br />
the mosque, and was usually referred to as the administrative house, Dar ul Imarah. The<br />
open space of several manahij, major roads, were delineated around the mosque.<br />
Omar also asked that an open market area be assigned for the town. Following the<br />
Prophet's tradition, he ordered that the suq be left open with no.permanent structures.<br />
Space was taken by vendors on the basis of first-come-first-serve. Vendors were allowed<br />
to erect shades, with the major mosques as the only built structure in the central area. The<br />
suq remained unbuilt during his reign. It remained unbuilt until the Khufa governor,<br />
during the reign of the Caliph Hisham, (105/724-125/743), ordered the construction of a<br />
permanent building for the suq. Khitat were assigned as residential spaces and distributed<br />
to the major tribes. However, one large tribe could settle more than one khittah. Once the<br />
tribe members decreased others were allowed to join. These khitat were subdivided by<br />
each tribe to house the individual members. An open space, called saha, a common was
29<br />
left unbuilt for the use of various functions as well as a cemetery. The khitat also included<br />
their own neighborhood mosques for the daily prayers.<br />
From the previous discussion it appears that the building process of new towns,<br />
especially in the arnsar model (originated from military camps), conformed to the Prophet's<br />
tradition of the Madinah example. It was a "system of planning" based on, first, the<br />
significance of the mosque in umma (nation) of Islam, shown in the centrality of its<br />
location as a place for worship and community gathering, and abutted by the governor's<br />
residence. Second, the platting of the new town followed a pre-conceived system of open<br />
spaces, the suq, and circulation, road networks with various widths, however were not<br />
precisely defined or marked. Finally, there was the repetitive application of the khitat as a<br />
unit of land distribution to the various tribes as residential quarters. The system was based<br />
on the tribe as the dominant social institution. As tribes' members increased, hence town<br />
population, demand for built land increased causing khitat to close in on each other, thus<br />
consuming the available open space and systematically encroaching on the street network<br />
which resulted in the meandering street system of the traditional Islamic town.<br />
II. TRADITIONAL MUSLIM URBAN FORM<br />
In light of prevailing technology, the pre-industrial city everywhere else in the world,<br />
kept its size to the limits of the major mode of transportation within the city, that is the<br />
"walking city." The limitation of technological know how was both a characteristic of the<br />
pre-industrial town and a hindrance to its growth. Relying on technology as the<br />
determining factor, Sjoberg (1960) argued that the pre-industrial cities of the world are<br />
more similar than different; a characteristic that led Sjoberg to concentrate on the similarities<br />
among the pre-industrial cities rather than the differences. 25 For example, he points out<br />
common structural traits such as their small size, dominated by elites, and spatially<br />
organized into the administrative, religious, a market at the hub of the town, and residential<br />
quarters of household units dominated by adult males. A1 Hathloul stresses that, in<br />
addition to Islamic influence on the Middle Eastern cities, climate and "the absence of the<br />
wheel" were major factors that fostered the organic, compact organization of the Muslim<br />
city. 26 The appreciation of technological and environmental conditions by the inhabitants<br />
and the supremacy of the dictates of Islamic Shariy'ah led to the striking similarities of the<br />
Muslim cities. Von Grounbaum noted this similarity alluding to the (1) individually walled<br />
quarters, (2) the system of gates on each quarter, (3) the lack of open space in the city, (4)
30<br />
the narrow, meandering streets and alleyways and (5) houses built around courtyards<br />
which were designed to maximize privacy for its residents. 27 However, structural elements<br />
of Muslim cities' urban forms aside, Islamic law, derived from the Koran and the<br />
Prophet's teachings, permeated the building processes of the traditional Muslim city.<br />
A. Islamic Legislation: The Role of Fiqh in Shaping the City<br />
Literature has emerged emphasizing the significant impact of Islamic law, based on<br />
the Koran and the biographical documentation of the Prophet's life (hadeeth), on Islamic<br />
urbanization and the building of towns. 28 Muslim jurists adapted these two sources and<br />
drew rulings which determined a wide range of cases, from land tenure to the design of<br />
house fenestrations with respect to neighbors' privacy. S.N. Eisenstadt and A. Shachar<br />
state that "The identity of the Islamic religious community depended on observance of the<br />
Holy Law (Shari'yah) as interpreted by the ulemas [jurists] and enforced by the rulers." 29<br />
Koran, God's revelation to Mohammed, contained Islam's philosophy, ethics, politics,<br />
legislation, and all the essentials of the Islamic civilization in one volume, in the pure<br />
Makkan language, Arabic. It was supplemented with documentation of the Prophet's life<br />
referred to as Sunnah, the way of the Prophet. This was documented in the body of<br />
hadeeth, constituting copious material on how a Muslim should live his/her life. Out of<br />
Koran and Hadeeth, fiqh was developed as a body of literature on the application of the<br />
spiritual dogma to the everyday life of the believer. Fiqh, or jurisprudence, was divided<br />
into two major sub-fields: ibadat (the understanding of matters related to one's<br />
performance of worship consistent with Mohammed's teachings) and muamalat (matters<br />
that deal with various aspects of one's everyday life in relation to others). In addition to the<br />
actual spawning of new Muslim sections and towns according to the Prophet's guidelines,<br />
the jurists' application of Islamic law transformed the pie-Islamic built environment and<br />
gave the new Muslim one an organic order.<br />
Due to the immense documentation of the Prophet's life, Fiqh was left to open<br />
interpretation by scholars. This resulted in sifting and sorting of. the material and was, by<br />
the fourth century Hegira, resolved by the establishment of the Four Sunni schools of fiqh,<br />
Mathahib Arba'a. 30 The Fiqh, or jurisprudence, includes practical rules set down by<br />
common sense and a set of moral principles and values. Such guidelines were modeled<br />
and were consistent with Islamic Shariy'ah and, in the urban sphere were based on the<br />
prevention of harm, dharar, resulting from building activity and other urban activities. 31
31<br />
The origin of the schools of thought essentially goes back to the early decades of the<br />
second century of Islam. These early branches were developed under the surmounting<br />
need to reevaluate legal practices during the growing Ummyyad dynasty reign<br />
(41H./661AD-132/759). Under the vast expanding territory of the Muslim empire, jurists<br />
and judges were overwhelmed by the tremendous increase in new cases and problems.<br />
They attempted pragmatically to rule the cases in light of the established Islamic laws as<br />
pronounced in the Koran. The scholars established various criteria by which rules were<br />
either approved or rejected. What had started as a personal judgment on the part of<br />
scholars, had materialized into procedures of agreement on such criteria, ijma'a, or<br />
consensus of the Muslims.<br />
Eventually, such agreement began to constitute the body of sunnah, actual customary<br />
practices derived from traditions documenting Mohammed's life. By the second century<br />
the term "sunnah" (literally means the divinely inspired conduct of the Prophet) evolved to<br />
mean "the ideal doctrine established in the school and expounded by its current<br />
representatives." 32 Sunnah evolved through crises of definitions and content, which by<br />
the third century was resolved in the Muslim scholars' community and concluded in the<br />
birth of Hadeeth science. Encompassing Mohammed's sayings and conduct, scholars<br />
considered Sunnah to be inspired by God, therefore complimenting the Koran, Allah's<br />
actual words revealed and quoted verbatim by Mohammed. In addition to Koran and<br />
Sunnah, ijmaa', or agreement was considered a third source of legislation based on<br />
majority rule by the scholars' interpretation and analogical reasoning, qias. The scholars'<br />
acceptance of the ijm'a as binding, resulted in discarding the customary practice of ijtihad,<br />
independent judgment, and the development of theoretical law was supplanted with that of<br />
ijmaa'.<br />
A1 Hathloul argues that such developments have become binding. He states "this<br />
pattern of dominance of an unchallenged and long-standing tradition is repeated in the<br />
contexts of the Arab-Muslim cities' built environment." A1 Hathloul commented, "From<br />
that time onwards, jurisprudence was confined to the elaboration and detailed analysis of<br />
established rules. This development substantially affected the way Muslim legal sources<br />
were composed, since the role of jurists became that of commentators upon the works of<br />
past masters." 33 Within this environment, a tradition of building developed in harmony<br />
with the legal system which has since shaped the production of the traditional Muslim built
32<br />
environment and resulted in the remarkable similarity between the traditional Arab-Islamic<br />
physical environments.<br />
As noted earlier, the expansion of Islam over a far-flung geographic area extending<br />
between Spain and India resulted in the construction of new annexes around existing cities<br />
and towns and the building of new settlements, hence resulting in a new episode of<br />
urbanization in some regions in particular. Building activity paralleled population growth<br />
of towns and building problems ensued. Solutions for such problems were derived by the<br />
extension of Islamic law, based on the major schools of jurisprudence. The following<br />
aspects of Islam's influence on traditional Islamic urban forms can be highlighted as<br />
follows:<br />
1. MAJOR LAND USES. The allotment of khittat to various tribes and clans was a<br />
procedure Prophet Mohammed initiated to settle new converts in Madinah, and, later, was<br />
copied by his companions who spread Islam in Asia and Africa. As pointed out earlier, the<br />
khittah became the unit of distribution for residential purposes to dominant social units, that<br />
is the tribe, based on the number of their members. The internal organization of the<br />
individual khittah was then left to each group to decide according to their own needs.<br />
Moreover, following the Prophet's precedence, his heirs ordered that new settlements be<br />
organized around the Friday prayer mosque, jami, and a suq to be added and governed by<br />
certain rules similar to those ordained by the Prophet.<br />
2. LAND TENURE. Islamic jurisprudence played an important factor in shaping the<br />
transformation process of the individual dwellings and estates. For example, the right of<br />
shufa'ah, preemption, gave priority to the neighbor to buy a neighbor's property upon his<br />
or her decision to sell it. This helped quarters maintain their character for longer periods of<br />
time. Another example of the rule of fiqh, jurisprudence, in shaping building processes in<br />
traditional Islamic societies was that of inheritance. Islam prescribed a detailed formula<br />
concerning the distribution of one's inheritance. Islamic inheritance law laid down<br />
procedures by which individual dwellings could be partitioned between family members.<br />
The partition also called for the provision of access (passageways and new footpaths) to the<br />
newly subdivided units, a process which led to the familiar tortuous circulation networks<br />
and the irregular shapes of dwellings and blocks of Muslim cities.
33<br />
3. THE CIRCULATION SPACE. The delineation of the minimum width of streets<br />
was set according to the Prophet who ordered that streets, for public passage, should have<br />
width no less than 7 cubits (3.23-3.50 m.). If such passageways were meant to serve for<br />
cattle and sheep they should be 20 cubits. However, for footpaths, serving in between<br />
dwellings for private passage, 4 cubits were required. Rulings concerning the use of<br />
spaces adjacent to dwellings and other rights between neighbors on using private<br />
passageways between them abound, which were grounded in fiqh. precepts. The jurists<br />
also developed regulations relating to the height of streets; they used the height of a person<br />
riding a camel to decide the minimum height of passageways. 34 For example, the eminent<br />
jurist Sahnun, who lived in the third century (c. 854 A.D.), when asked about one incident<br />
where a person who encroached on a public right of way and though the neighbors did not<br />
object for the twenty year period following the construction, he ordered its demolition. Ibn<br />
Kinanah (168H./802 A.D.), commenting on similar incident, condemned such an act of<br />
encroachment and demanded legal punishment. Concerning one case where a person built<br />
a mosque within his house and encroached on the street, the jurist Rabi'ah (c. 136H./813<br />
A.D.) ruled that it was illegal. Malik, however, predicated his decision on whether such an<br />
encroachment would harm street users. 35<br />
4. ELIMINATION OF DHARAR (HARM). The principal of dharar (harm) is based<br />
largely on the prevention of harm to other residents, including nuisance resulting from the<br />
juxtaposition of incompatible land uses next to each other. Islamic jurists derived rules<br />
from the Koran and the Prophet's Tradition, hadeeth, which ultimately determined the<br />
location and functions of land uses in the traditional Muslim city. For example, uses that<br />
created smoke, odor or presented a fire hazard were evaluated in terms of their impact on<br />
residents and property values. Frequently, jurists invoked a verse in the Koran which<br />
prohibits injury and harm among the residents 36 In one case, a neighbor who built an<br />
uncovered sewer causing a bad smell to nearby users was ordered to cover it. In another<br />
case, a man who used his residence as a tannery was ordered to remove the facility upon<br />
the complaints of his neighbors. 37<br />
Cases on ruins and structures that threatened collapse in the city were also subsumed<br />
under dharar. The judge Ibn Rafi ordered one of his students, Ibn Arrami to walk in streets<br />
and look for walls and other structures threatening to fall and demolish them. The Jurist<br />
Malik did not allow one owner to wait till the next day to demolish a wall; he insisted to do<br />
it immediately. The provision of light and air was also treated under dharar. Jurists,
34<br />
although they could not find enough basis to order the demolishing of a building which<br />
obstructed air and light for a neighbor, they expressed sympathy to those affected by such<br />
acts.<br />
The concern over harm in the form of infringement on the privacy of residents was<br />
reflected in the design of fenestrations. This concern is best exemplified in the Hadeeth by<br />
the Prophet, who was quoted as saying that if one looked through a hole into a private<br />
residence and got hit by a stone and lost his eye, no compensation was required. 38 Omar<br />
bin Al-Khattab, the second Caliph, ordered his viceroy in al-Fustat (Cairo) to examine the<br />
harm inflicted by a neighbor who opened a window overlooking a neighbor's house. To<br />
settle the dispute, Omar ordered a bedstead to be placed underneath the window where a<br />
man could ascend on it; if he could see into the neighbors house then the window had be<br />
sealed, otherwise it was allowed. The locating of doors was also regulated with regard to<br />
neighbors' rights and privacy. It was reported that the eminent Muslim scholar, Malik,<br />
said "One has no right to create something that will inflict harm or damage to his neighbor,<br />
even when what is done is within his own property..." 39<br />
Usually, a neighbor's complaint was stronger if the harm was made by a neighbor<br />
who moved in after the first one. Some jurists maintained that a neighbor had the right to<br />
object to a harm caused by a neighbor even if it was completed. Even, if harm to neighbors<br />
resulted from the construction of a mosque, neighbors' rights were safeguarded at the cost<br />
of modifying the religious building's structure. A muezzin who climbed to the top of a<br />
mosque or the minaret to call for the five daily prayers was prohibited from doing so if it<br />
caused him to overlook neighbors' courtyards or rooftops. Finally, the rooftops' openings<br />
and heights where residents could oversee neighboring houses were also regulated. The<br />
Muslim scholar Sahnun ordered a wall to be built on the top of a mosque and insisted that<br />
prayers could not be made in the mosque until such a wall was completed.<br />
5. ISLAMIC INSTITUTIONS IN THE CITY. The aforementioned rulings<br />
influenced the building processes in traditional Muslim built environments. The jurists'<br />
decisions, however, required the provision of civil and legal duties that oversaw their<br />
implementation. The qadi (judge) and the al-muhtasib (an officer in-charged with the<br />
hisbah, that is the promotion of good and prevention of evil), in addition to other several<br />
officers who were charged with building-related activities, played major roles in bringing<br />
peace, justice and order to the city. The qadi's responsibilities comprised a wide range of
35<br />
duties including the supervision of actual building processes, as was the case in Tunisia<br />
where the qadi, or his representative, walked through the city and assured that threatening<br />
walls be demolished even though no complaint was delivered to the court. In Madinah, the<br />
qadi's duties included the measurement of streets' widths in front of houses to be built to<br />
assure compliance with set standards and neighbors' rights of access and privacy. Judges<br />
were reported to consult, ahl al-Khibrah (the experts) in matters of technical knowledge and<br />
advice on damage, ownership disputes and assessment of transactions, rents and the<br />
rebuilding of waqf (property donated as charity). 40<br />
The mohtasiVs duties included the implementation of religious practices, such as the<br />
supervision of the moral behavior of residents as well as worldly tasks. In the market<br />
place, he was responsible for the protection of consumers through, for example, the<br />
checking on the quality of goods. A1 Hathloul points that the "...muhtasib could intervene<br />
on his own accord and he was at liberty to deduce principles of decision from custom (u'rf)<br />
as distinct from revealed law (shara')." 41 In Morocco, amin-ul-mustafad collected taxes<br />
and zakat (alms) on manufactured products and other goods, supervised the cleanliness of<br />
the city and other civic tasks. However, another officer, the nazir, oversaw the provision<br />
of drinking water for towns and built aqueducts and public fountains 42<br />
B. The Role of Social Factors in Shaping the Design of<br />
Neighborhoods and Dwellings<br />
In Islam, the issues of privacy play a major role in its adherents' lives. Islamic<br />
teachings discourage mingling between opposite sexes. Only those designated as mahrarn,<br />
that is relatives who by Islamic instruction are prohibited from marrying the opposite sex,<br />
are allowed to have access to the inner circle within a Muslim family dwelling and establish<br />
social contact with its women 43 Such emphasis on the privacy of one's dwelling was<br />
explicitly laid out as a precautionary measure to deter sexual interaction that might sway a<br />
Muslim into an illegal sexual relationship, outside marriage. It is common in Muslim<br />
tradition that not only unwanted harm is prohibited, but also the means and circumstances<br />
that might lead to or encourage such practices. 44 Such discouragement has resulted in<br />
physical division within the residential unit.<br />
In an economically able Muslim family house, a duality of spatial organization is<br />
discernible, the house is divided into three sections. The inner circle, harem (the family
36<br />
quarters), is a private space designated for the private use of close family members,<br />
maharim, men and women. The second section, is a semi-private one, designated for the<br />
use of family members, however, upon the reception of guests or non-maharim, only men<br />
can use that space. Women are confined to the private section with their women guests.<br />
Occasionally, the semi-private space will be used by women guests in times of family<br />
parties restricted to women only. The third domain is public space, predominantly male<br />
quarters for receptions and entertainment. In Saudi Arabia, such spaces are called majlis,<br />
and are entered directly from the street through a door or gateway vestibule, adjacent to<br />
which is provided a bathroom area for performing ablutions and guest use. Nevertheless,<br />
there is no strict emphasis on what sex uses what space. Depending on the number and<br />
size of spaces in the house and the number of guests and gender, such spaces can be<br />
shifted to attain the best use for the largest number. Guest men can be assigned to, say, the<br />
courtyard or the roof, a typical private space in normal uses and vise versa. 45 .<br />
The concern over privacy is also reflected in the layout of outdoor space. The design<br />
of fenestrations in cities inhabited by a Muslim majority reflects this strict compliance of<br />
residents with Islamic principles and guidelines. The placing of high windows in<br />
otherwise solid facades fulfills the climate and privacy concerns. In addition to climatic<br />
considerations, that is. to release hot air in rooms and enhance air circulation, higher<br />
windows, sometimes higher than a camel rider, also precludes observing home dwellers by<br />
those using the streets outside. Entrances to residential units in Muslim cities are set to<br />
minimize passersby from seeing residents. Narrow, twisting alleyways, are laid to<br />
maximize privacy for clusters of dwellings. Abu-Lughod (1987) commenting on gender<br />
segregation in the Arab-Islamic City argued that the creation of turfs for males and females<br />
is the main factor shaping the physical organization of the city brought by Islam. She<br />
wrote" The object was not only to prevent physical contact but to protect visual privacy." 46<br />
At major quarters, gateways are erected identifying spaces with a certain family, clan<br />
or tribe. Such gates, in many instances, are closed at sunset, in an effort to both preserve<br />
residents' privacy and security. In towns with various religious associations, quarters<br />
evolved housing mostly inhabitants pertaining to a certain faith. In hot, humid coastal<br />
cities, such as Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, court-yarded homes are replaced with extroverted,<br />
multi story box-houses. In such areas, large windows are covered with mashrabia, a<br />
hanging, latticed-decorated wooden structure designed to minimize glare, allow a cool<br />
breeze to enter, and protect residents from obtrusive looks by street users. Finally, these
37<br />
contrasted qualities, between the private and public in urban life, as conditioned by Islamic<br />
religion, are considered by De Montequin as "essential factors which precipitated the<br />
characteristic physiognomy and personality and therefore the environment, of the classical<br />
Islamic city." 47<br />
C. Physical Characteristics of the Arab-Islamic city<br />
THE SUQ/BAZAAR. The commercial element in the traditional Muslim city consists<br />
of a complex set of small, contiguous stalls occupying sides of passageways or branches<br />
which are covered by vaults, canvas shades or domes. Shops provide goods and services<br />
according to the size and wealth of the town. Markets usually exhibit similarity in terms of<br />
their organization. The shops edge a commercial spine. The bazaar is divided into a<br />
sequence of specialized markets that supplant one another along the spine. Different<br />
locations contain similar specialized goods and services. Noxious industries and clean<br />
shops are separated according to deliberate functional land use.<br />
Due to the bazaar area's importance in settlement life and due to its use by many town<br />
residents and outsiders, it required special supervision from authorities. In some cases, the<br />
state invested in the construction of the suq out of a need for steady income. The<br />
increasing importance of the suq.as a source of income for the authorities caused the<br />
development of an administrative institution, the Muhtasib, to supervise the organization of<br />
market activity and the collection of taxes. The Muhtasib was aided by manuals as well as<br />
by having the authority to establish land use zoning regulations.<br />
The urban craft guilds were also instrumental in controlling the economic activities of<br />
the town. They supervised prices, quality of goods and the number of shops per<br />
profession. The status of the suq economy was innovative to the degree that it was touted<br />
as a major innovation of the Muslim city. 48 Various unique responsibilities were devised<br />
for the organization and administrative responsibilities such as the role of the Muhtasib, the<br />
Nazir and Amin al Mustafad (officials who took care of consumer protection, water<br />
provision, and waste disposal). Greetz considers the suq as the representation of Muslim<br />
culture, a social institution and its economic element. He contends that if Islamic<br />
civilization can be characterized by one of its leading institutions, then its the suq. He<br />
states that
38<br />
What the mandarin bureaucracy was for classical China and the caste system<br />
for classical India- the part most evocative of the whole- the bazaar was for<br />
the more pragmatic societies of the classical Middle East. 49<br />
Kenneth Brown (1986), adds citing from Greetz work,<br />
The elements of this system are coherent and imply one another: a sharp<br />
division of labour and localization of markets, a lack of standardization in<br />
products, intensive bargaining over prices, extreme fractionalization in<br />
transactions, stability of clientship ties between buyer and seller, itinerant<br />
trading, occupation by ascription, the personal nature of reputation and the<br />
preference for partnerships over relations of employer-employee. 50<br />
The CENTRAL/CONGREGATIONAL MOSQUE {JAMI). At the hub of the town<br />
was the religious element, which included the Friday (major) mosque surrounded by a<br />
school, a library, bookstores, and perfume sellers. Surrounding the above "public and<br />
noisy" functions were patches of residential quarters. They comprised a compact mass of<br />
open courtyard, introverted housing resembling a "cellular urban texture." The house was<br />
a private enclave that, to guard for more privacy, had L-shaped entrances. Walls were<br />
solid, while the house life was internalized. Individuals' quarters were likely to be defined<br />
by different religious groups or tribes. Quarters were also likely to have gates of their<br />
own, where the quarter could be locked after dark. Other features of the traditional<br />
(Muslim) city included a city wall, a citadel, inns and small markets in the individual<br />
quarters. 51<br />
The RESIDENTIAL QUARTER. Another element that has been typically associated<br />
with the Islamic city is the "quarter," a neighborhood community that has been nurtured<br />
under the Islamic influence, especially those in the Middle East and North Africa. Its<br />
physical distinction as a "unit" of multiple residential "cells", has been the product of<br />
political, religious, social and security considerations. Abu-Lughod attributes the<br />
distinctiveness of the quarter as being due to political and administrative factors. By<br />
shunning day-to-day matters of maintenance, the state under Islamic legislation, has<br />
encouraged sub-state functional units of which the residential quarter is one. The quarter<br />
was given a large measure of autonomy which largely operated on an ad hoc basis. 52<br />
The quarter was largely inhabited by a homogeneous population who shared religious<br />
association, place of origin, similar occupation or income. In the quarter, the residents
39<br />
found intimate, lasting bonds of kinship and belief. Physically, quarters could be found as<br />
subdivisions within the city, walled and have their own gates. Lapidus points to the<br />
neighborhood community as the central aspect of Muslim urban life. The urban quarters of<br />
medieval Islam, remarked Lapidus,<br />
were small, integrated communities, by quasi-physical isolation, close<br />
family ties, ethnic or religious homogeneity, strong group solidarity,<br />
economic and administrative unity and spokesman elites, they were<br />
analogies of village communities inside the urban agglomeration. 53<br />
In Lapidus' comment on the intrinsic qualities of the traditional Arab-Muslim city, the<br />
Muslim city is organized around socially homogeneous quarters based on ethnic or tribal<br />
origin, religion, trade or the clienteles of political and religious leaders. The absence of<br />
Western-like independent associations was equaled by strong ties in the quarters, a colloid<br />
of different groups was conditioned more by social bonds, exemplified in the tribal and/or<br />
religious association, than by income. Social relations constituted multiple personal ties, a<br />
network of social relations between individuals and families within the discrete quarter.<br />
Within the city, social relations constituted the major logic that shaped the organization of<br />
its parts and outcome. Under Islamic Shariy'ah, residents enjoyed substantial authority<br />
and control over their quarters, including the construction of their houses, the creation and<br />
definition of semi-private space versus the public. Only in cases of disagreement among<br />
neighbors was legal arbitration sought by the contending parties.<br />
Fuad Khori argued that Western-born urban social ecology theory- whereby a core is<br />
ringed by concentric circles of stratified residential belts comprising the totality of the cityis<br />
not applicable within the Middle Eastern context. The twisted streets mirror social<br />
agglomerations interwoven by kinship and traditional ties of neighborhood, rather than<br />
income. He states that "Buildings are erected on plots subdivided according to inheritance<br />
patterns. It is the social assemblage that matters more than the physical design; the urban<br />
society is fitted into a social map, not a spatial one." 54<br />
Islamic principles and practical reckoning with available materials and climate can also<br />
be seen at work in the design of dwelling units. The elementary configuration of living<br />
space was uniform, but not perpendicular (orthogonal). For example, in Saudi Arabia,<br />
there are at least four traditional types of houses. They are: (1) the open-courtyard rural<br />
house, which was incorporated into new urban areas, (2) the Madinah House, comprising
40<br />
a number of rooms surrounding a covered courtyard, and (3) the Mashrabiyah House, with<br />
its relatively multi-story structure containing a central courtyard, (4) the Q'ahah House, a<br />
semi-detached, row-house with its unique latticed, projecting windows, usually found in<br />
the coastal areas of west Saudi Arabia. Generally, the Q'ahah house form reflected the<br />
internal arrangement of four covered rooms, delimiting a central open space, courtyard,<br />
fina or semi-open hall, termed the durka'a. Doorways were deliberately placed so as to<br />
avoid direct sight by neighbors and pedestrians. Family quarters may have a separate entry<br />
and entry space (atfa or darb) usually opening on to a minor cul-de-sac and thence into the<br />
public realm of the street. This conformation of the introverted house conformed to the<br />
overriding sense of privacy, a major factor shaping the traditional physical built<br />
environment.<br />
Finally, circulation and public spaces in the traditional Muslim built environment<br />
conformed to many factors except orthogonal organization of building cells and traffic<br />
space. Circulation in the traditional Arab-Islamic physical environment has been secondary<br />
to the built space, it was dominated by human scale rather than that of wheeled traffic. The<br />
configuration of the circulation paths was the residual result of built up area. Typically,<br />
residents conferred over the width and shape of traffic space once a resident decided to<br />
expand his house. Circulation space comprised chief arteries, receiving major crowds from<br />
the bustling center to the major gates and between major quarters. Secondary arteries led to<br />
quarters, feeding the branching cul-de-sacs (darb) whose layouts were narrow and<br />
meandering, deliberately built to inhibit intruding traffic. Cul-de-sacs represent the veins<br />
that fed the residential "cells." Technological factors play in shaping the tree-like,<br />
meandering traffic space. Galantay (1989) points to technological considerations such as<br />
the usage of animal transportation and the lack of wheeled traffic in the design and<br />
allocation of circulation space in (traditional) medina. Due to this technological constraint,<br />
a town was essentially a walking one, encompassing a relatively small area of 1 to 3 square<br />
kilometers.<br />
III. THE ISLAMIC CITY MODEL: RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF<br />
ISLAMIC URBANISM<br />
Following Islam's precocious expansion, under Muslim rule, the Middle Eastern city<br />
retained most of the prevailing architecture and city organization. The transformation of the<br />
ancient Middle Eastern city to the Muslim city took centuries to complete. After a
41<br />
checkered early history of eclectic growth, with the passage of time, Islamic Shariy'ah<br />
codes began to leave their impression on the built forms. A new complex, differentiated<br />
society emerged, replacing the old simpler culture divided according to tribal association.<br />
"It was Islamic because religious communities evolved based upon schools of Islamic law,<br />
creating a new context for organizing Muslim social and religious life." 55 Bonine (1983),<br />
points that such change was attained when most of the regions' inhabitants, who came<br />
under Muslim control, espoused the Muslim faith by the eleventh and twelfth centuries and<br />
only then "we can speak of a truly Islamic urban society." 56<br />
Due to the strong influence of Islamic law, Muslim towns transformed showing<br />
distinguished characteristics, commonly referred to under the "Islamic City" model. This<br />
rubric has evoked numerous writings that have either questioned its applicability or have<br />
assented its plausibility. This has amounted to an unresolved debate stemming mainly from<br />
its applicability to unspecified geographic and temporal limits in the vast regions inhabited<br />
by Muslims, prior to the emergence of the nation-states of the twentieth century in the<br />
various parts of the Muslim world following their emancipation from colonialism.<br />
In this model, orientalists (historians studying Muslim culture) have emphasized<br />
Islam's great influence on the towns inhabitants, the urbanization phenomenon, and the<br />
internal structuring of towns that are dominated by a Muslim majority and/or under a<br />
Muslim state. Developed by French orientalists studying North African towns during the<br />
1920s, the Islamic City model postulates a community of believers living under the<br />
jurisdiction of a Muslim state in which Islamic teachings override all aspects of its<br />
practicing Muslims' life. 57 The combined adherence to Islamic teachings by the<br />
inhabitants, under the auspices of the Muslim state, renders a spatial organization<br />
conditioned by such teachings, given the environmental context. Cities are seen as<br />
manifestations of Islamic religious ideals, and so the structure and the morphology of the<br />
Muslim town reflects these ideals. However, variations abound in the Muslim world<br />
largely due to environmental factors and the urban heritage which predated Muslim<br />
influence.<br />
The term, Islamic City, once used to designate the pre-industrial cities lying within<br />
the confines of Islam, proves superior over other terms, for the Middle Eastern city. The<br />
Middle Eastern prefix merely refers to a region defined by geographic boundaries; thus it is
42<br />
ahistorical, a term which denies both time peculiarities and culture. Moreover, the wide<br />
usage of the term Muslim/Islamic city by scholars attests to its convenience. 58<br />
K. Brow (1986), commenting on the use of the concept of "Muslim City" in research<br />
in Britain and France, contends that much of the researcher's work has been similar to<br />
those concerned with the interpretation of change in urban life in European urban literature<br />
which usually focuses on the "'progression' from the city of Virtue (the Muslim City) to<br />
the city of Vice (the colonial city) to the city Beyond Good and Evil (the modern city)." 59<br />
According to Brown, such studies of space, social structures and processes no longer<br />
isolate the Islamic influence on urban life. However, the Sluglettes (1986), in their<br />
historical study of Aleppo, reject the validity of the term "Muslim City" as the conceptual<br />
tool for the study of the late 19th and 20th century city. They argue that "by the end of the<br />
19th century new forms of identity and association, political, economic and ethnic, had also<br />
become firmly rooted in the Weltanschauung of many Aleppines." 60<br />
The model of the Islamic City recognizes the urban nature of Islam, where the city is<br />
perceived as the place where, more than the village, adherents can fulfill the true Muslim<br />
life. It also acknowledges that with the advent and swift spread of Islam, Muslim created<br />
settlements. The model is also a formless, irregular, and haphazard collection of quarters.<br />
The outcome is an organic organization of the city's elements. According to this model,<br />
winding streets and cul-de-sacs result from the absence of civil authority. Sauvaget, who<br />
lamented the dissolution of the Hellenistic structure of Aleppo under Islamic control,<br />
describes the "formlessness" of the Islamic city as emanating from a "law of anarchy." 61<br />
The basic premise for the Islamic city's model is that Islam is an urban religion<br />
because it envisioned a large and complex social community that only a city system could<br />
handle. An examination of Islam's basic traits makes it evident that Islam is a religion of<br />
urban people. The Prophet Mohammed was born and raised in the urban enclave of<br />
Makkah, a highly developed religious and trade center, fifty miles inland off the western<br />
coast of the Arabian peninsula. In discussing the model's reference to disordered<br />
organization of the city's built elements and the meandering street network, Bonine alludes<br />
to its pre-industrial technology and its hot climate. Given these two properties, the Islamic<br />
city was rationally organized for its inhabitants. 62 The narrow road network provided<br />
protection from the scorching sun and the densely-packed buildings increased shadowed<br />
surfaces, hence maintaining cooler spaces.
43<br />
IV. CRITIQUE OF THE MODEL<br />
According to Bonine (1983), the "Islamic City" model/theory poses a number of<br />
problems. The major elements of the city (e.g., courtyard houses, the market place and<br />
wall) can be found in other pre-industrial cities which share similar climatic conditions.<br />
For example, the windowless massed outer walls of buildings, the public paths, citadel, the<br />
narrow winding streets, all existed before Islam, and Bonine considers associating them<br />
solely with Islamic Cities as "fallacious." Moreover, the religious significance of the<br />
mosque is comparable to similar institutions in other societies. Sauvaget goes further by<br />
saying that "all principal Islamic institutions were an adaptation or modification of earlier<br />
ones, even the Great Mosque." 63 Although Bonine recognizes the significant input of<br />
Islam on the region, he denies the applicability of the term Islamic City. He states that<br />
"Islam is not necessarily an urban religion, nor did it necessarily foster urbanism".<br />
Instead, he suggests the use of the term the "Middle Eastern City" to refer to the traditional,<br />
premodern ME city.<br />
In her work on Rabat, Janet Abu-Lughod (1980) raises questions on the term's<br />
applicability to other parts of the Muslim world. 64 She points to the sheer objectivity of it,<br />
by questioning the intellectual construction of the rubric Islamic city: how it designates a<br />
religiously coined entity. She wrote that "The construction of the concept of the Islamic<br />
city was an integral part of the colonial project of distancing, objectifying, and<br />
dehumanizing the peoples who were to be treated as "lessers." 65<br />
Abu-Lughod (1987), after reviewing the corpus of the Islamic City model, brilliantly<br />
debased its underlying arguments and questions them as myths. She argues that the model<br />
of the Islamic city grew on a mere "handful of cities are actually described" and "only<br />
certain legal codes- on which the Islamic form of city is presumed to be based- have been<br />
studied. She stated that:<br />
Only gradually did it become clear to me how much a conspiracy of copying<br />
and glossing had yielded this optical illusion....In short, most studies still<br />
focus on a single case and try to generalize, rather than start with the more<br />
fundamental question: why would one expect Islamic cities to be similar and<br />
in what ways 66<br />
She devises a modest list of five major factors as an answer to this question. She<br />
rules out three factors (terrain and climate; technology; distribution and transportation) as
eing universal ones that can affect other built forms. However, she singles out two as<br />
44<br />
being Islamically-related. These two factors, place and time, play major roles in shaping,<br />
but do not determine those connected with the legal and political system and the system of<br />
social organization, both of which she points out could vary considerably in Islamic cities.<br />
Since its inception, Islam has made distinctions between those who are adherents to<br />
the faith and the non believers. This has been translated into spatial segregation which has<br />
since created distinction between juridical classes through social distance. For example,<br />
Christians and Jews, under Islamic law are considered dhimmis, the people of the Book.<br />
Though not asked by Muslim legislation to live in separate quarters, such distinction, has<br />
led to physical segregation by time. Abu- Lughod argues, although Islam has assured their<br />
sanctity and defined their rights, this distinction indicated to outsiders that they were<br />
supposed to live there and to insiders that they belonged within. Such religious segregation<br />
has become more profound during colonial rule and the incursion of commercial Europe<br />
which, for example, instigated the institution of Jewish ghettos.<br />
But to say that Islamic Shariy'ah was the only factor in shaping the building process<br />
and spatial organization is not similar to saying that it was the major factor influencing the<br />
cities under Islamic governance. This is to portray Islam with anthropomorphic qualities,<br />
like a surveyor or an architect who compels clients to build their homes the way his<br />
drawing dictates. We should look more closely to the different temporal and geographical<br />
factors, as well as to the role of minorities within the Muslim Cities and to the outside<br />
influences. Technology was an influential factor; its availability, or lack thereof; the lack<br />
of which has been a detriment to many cities in different cultures at different times.<br />
In short, Islam influence on towns and cities was significant. The above discussion<br />
illustrates the unique role of Islamic law in shaping individual dwellings, circulation space<br />
and the prohibition of the juxtaposition of incompatible uses. We saw how the very<br />
principle of promoting good and preventing harm was central to jurists, judges and other<br />
civil personalities whose duties included bringing order and promotion of justice in the city.<br />
Islam introduced numerous religious rituals and encouraged many moral attributes that<br />
ultimately reflected in the production of an Islamic city, with institutions such as mosques,<br />
waqf, madaris (schools), and the bazaar economy. As E. Wirth points<br />
It would still be thinkable that Islam as a religion indeed has not essentially<br />
formed the oriental city, that the legal and social order united with it
45<br />
however contributed decisively to the spreading of the apparent forms of the<br />
city, as they been built in the old Orient, in the whole of that part of the<br />
world rule by Islam (emphasis added). 67<br />
V. ISLAM'S UTOPIA<br />
Above, I dealt with historical developments and legal, social and physical attributes<br />
that gave traditional Islamic cities their personalities. Here, I will attempt to expound the<br />
reason behind the overall tendency among Muslim rulers to shun due emphasis on the<br />
embellishment of their cities resulting in the familiar utilitarian character of Muslim towns.<br />
When comparing the early organically-conditioned urban settlement activity under the<br />
fledgling Muslim rule, with their predecessors of the Hellenistic and Roman towns, laid<br />
according to rectangular forms that included public and recreational spaces, an<br />
unacquainted individual might find Muslim towns strikingly impoverished, haphazardly<br />
organized and lacking physical order. However, when considered in terms of their<br />
religious underpinnings and functionality, Muslim towns appear physically more simple<br />
and modest than that of their predecessors.<br />
The superimposition of an urban scheme or replica of a layout of "core" cities such as<br />
Makkah, Baghdad, or Damascus by Muslims either on the existing conquered towns or in<br />
the building of new ones is unknown in Islamic history. Especially during the early<br />
period, Muslims were more interested in planting the seeds of faith than of building<br />
colonies as did the Romans before them or the Spanish colonialists' imposition of their premade<br />
plans, the Laws of the Indis. 68 In his discussion of the factors underlying the<br />
remarkable shift in city morphology, which actually began to disintegrate in the second<br />
century A.D., but was consummated in the Muslim era, Von Grounbaum wrote that pre-<br />
Islamic orthogonal plans of Aleppo and Damascus were forsaken as it was replaced<br />
gradually by organic forms.<br />
However, others have argued that such deprivation of interest can be attributed to the<br />
fact that early Muslim warriors were of Arab descent, and had personality traits of the<br />
initial nomadic tribes. Their lack of interest in what Europeans have considered as<br />
"rational" urban morphology, which they inherited from conquered nations, has been due<br />
to the Arab nomadic lack of a strong material existence. Early Muslim warriors have also<br />
been said to have been driven by "natural" impulses as the ruling factor behind their<br />
expansion, as an explanation of their apathy for orthogonal structuring of the city. Due to
46<br />
their natural instinct, they preferred simplicity and found "rational" forms distasteful, and<br />
therefore, opposed them.<br />
Unlike Western Utopias that emphasize the construction of a "model" living habitat<br />
where free citizens enjoy a living environment that combines modern technology with a<br />
natural setting, Islam introduced a Utopia of a unique character. In Islam, "utopia" (heaven)<br />
does not exist on and should not be expected in this life, dunia. Rather, Islam draws a<br />
vivid picture of an eternal life after death. 69 By suppressing due emphasis on dunia,<br />
Islamic teaching has ranked dunia as secondary, if not a frivolous, value to the eternal life,<br />
that is Akhira. Akhira is portrayed as the land of continuos peace and abundance,<br />
evergreen, flowing rivers of pure water, wine and milk. Heaven is worry-free and everyouthful,<br />
an experience which begins after one's death, all in return of the believers'<br />
recognition of the oneness of God and its implications. This implies that due respect and<br />
observance of ordained worships and social obligations as laid down in the Koran and<br />
practiced by the Prophet in public or private life. Finally, economical factors may have had<br />
their influence. Islam did not proscribe levying taxes beyond subjects' means. The rules<br />
on what a ruler can collect from his subjects are well defined and numerous by sayings of<br />
the Prophet which warn against burdening the believers beyond their capabilities or<br />
unjustly. With limited financial resources available to the practicing Muslim rurler, less<br />
attention and efforts will be given to embellishing the built environment.<br />
The simplicity of Muslim faith, predicated on the oneness of God, with no specific<br />
religious hierarchy serving as an intermediary between the servant and the Sovreign, that is<br />
Allah. The workability of Islamic rituals and divine laws is simply laid down and is based<br />
on rigorous documentation procedures (known as tautheeq). Such a detailed narrative of<br />
the Prophet's conduct was made possible by his long tenure of twenty three years and this<br />
has been reflected on the urban sphere. The Prophet discouraged emphasis on<br />
materialism. 70 It was narrated how he shunned luxury and emphasized cleanliness. This<br />
due emphasis on simplicity and parsimony explains why early Muslims vanguards did not<br />
copy urban elements of the cities of classic Antiquity, such as the social space of the agora,<br />
the recreational amphitheater, theaters and the stadium. Although, Muslims' concern over<br />
cleanliness resulted in the maintenance of the thermae, even these public baths, hammamat,<br />
were transformed into public spaces which were more modest and solely reserved for the<br />
bathing and cleaning functions of one sex at a time.
47<br />
So, Islam's perception of dunia antithetically runs counter to cultures such as the<br />
Greek, the Roman, and post-Medieval city builders. Islamic teachings belittled the dunia<br />
phase. 71 A saying of Prophet Mohammed states: "If the dunia (first life) value to Allah is<br />
equal to the value of a mosquito wing, Allah would have not given any of it to a<br />
nonbeliever."<br />
It is this great emphasis on the religious doctrine which I believe consitutes the major<br />
reason behind the indifference and lack of zeal among Muslim rulers toward the<br />
embellishment of their cities. This overriding societal influence of religion during Medieval<br />
Europe has rendered the European city similar to the traditional Islamic city's form, both<br />
espoused organic built forms. 72 This helps explain the great similarity between its physical<br />
organic order and tortuous road system, as shown in the centrality and eminence of the<br />
Cathedral, and the meandering layout of the towns. Both the medieval European and the<br />
traditional Islamic cities were also technologically lacking. In both, religious concepts<br />
played a major factor that conditioned its society and influenced forms. 73 On the other<br />
hand, European medieval towns had a political autonomy not characteristic of Muslim<br />
ones.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
From the previous review and analysis, it appears that several factors shaped and<br />
conditioned the traditional Arab-Islamic physical environment. These factors can be<br />
divided into two groups, Islamic-related factors and non-Islamic related factors. The<br />
factors that have to do with Islam are first, attitudinal as perceived by Islamic teachings and<br />
traditions: life, dunia, is considered as a sojourn, a short stay that should be sacrificed by<br />
one who is expecting to live another life which is portrayed as much more worthy. To<br />
achieve the heaven (utopia), a Muslim should model his/her lives according to the Prophet,<br />
who explicitly shunned luxury, warned against cupidity and perceived the personification<br />
of riches as wrong (sinful). Muslim rulers were discouraged from squandering public<br />
resources on the beautification of buildings, the building of monuments, and statues or the<br />
construction of sepulcher for the reason of seeking self-glorification.<br />
The second Islamically-related factor is legislational: the documentation of the Koran<br />
and sunnah by the early Muslims and the subsequent development and elaboration by<br />
Muslim scholars resulted in a specified legal body that, while relegating substantial
48<br />
autonomy to the residents, underlined the traditional urban processes. They comprise the<br />
right of way, a neighbor's right to buy the adjoining homes, shufa'ah (preemption) and a<br />
guarded neighbors' rights, including privacy. Once settlements were established, concepts<br />
and beliefs based on Islam governed incremental changes. Muslim law was set and<br />
expanded by jurists to guide individual cases of acquisition and expansion of new property.<br />
This process has been commended by some to be the major reason behind the striking<br />
similarity between Muslim settlements' forms.<br />
Third, economic factors also played an important role. Islam limits the state power of<br />
extracting income through taxes by limiting the zakah, alms, which amounts to 2.5% of<br />
invested capital. Islam also dictates the aspects on which such sums can be allocated. In<br />
many other civilizations and non-Islamic states, rulers enjoyed unlimited rights to enforce<br />
taxes at the cost of burdening their subjects. In return, these fortunes were squandered on<br />
the embellishment of their palaces and capitols. Under Islam, waqf, a private institution<br />
devoted for charity, was encouraged. It helped sustain charitable functions and services for<br />
the public.<br />
Finally, the city under the Islamic system mirrored its culture. The dense form of the<br />
city evolved under Muslim rule consistent with its ecology. Throughout there was a<br />
practical reckoning with available materials and climate through the adaptation of its form,<br />
structure and components in tune with topography, climate and the prevailing technology.<br />
The town's center comprised a compressed spinal-cord quality of the bazaar, the centrality<br />
of the Friday mosque (jami) and the educational institutions and hospices clustered about it.<br />
This core was interwoven with a web of public, semi-private and private spaces moving<br />
from the core of the bustling and noisy suq to the quarter, to the neighborhood (inhabited<br />
by extended family and those affiliated with it) to the compound to the home. An outward<br />
homogeneity resulted from pro-contextual organization of space and form that rendered<br />
modesty of residential architecture due to the use of local material in harmony with the<br />
natural setting, all surrounded by the wall, defining its limits. As Abdullah Schleifer<br />
succintly wrote: "...the uses of space become more ingenious and more organically (rather<br />
than abstractly) creative- on site design by rule of eye rather than off-site scale." 74<br />
Islam retained prevailing social and cultural norms which did not contradict its<br />
teachings yet influenced the internal organization of urban forms. Since its inception, the<br />
social life in the traditional Islamic cities was organized primarily around the family, tribe,
49<br />
guild, all regulated in the light of Islamic Shariy'ah which were set in illustrative, simple<br />
and clear spoken language. The extended family was a strong kinship unit, and the<br />
individual duly encouraged, if not threatened, to maintain strong ties and reverence for it.<br />
Tribal loyalties and family affiliations continued to play a strong role in the shaping of the<br />
ecological and social structure of the Islamic city. Non-Islamic factors have had their<br />
influence on the structure and form of the city as well. In pre-industrial societies, physical<br />
forms were governed by the limitations of their technology. Moreover, environmental<br />
factors and pre-Islam's influence also played major role in shaping the traditional Islamic<br />
city.<br />
The above picture has lost strength with the advent of colonialism, nationalism, and<br />
technological know-how (modernization). But prior to these latest historical processes, it<br />
is clear and widely acknowledged that Islam played a significant role in conditioning the<br />
built environment in societies where Muslim populations comprised a majority. The term<br />
"Islamic City" connotes both temporal and historical meaning. Geographically, it<br />
distinguished a certain architecture and morphology that was shaped by residents' beliefs<br />
and concepts of space as stressed under Islamic Shari'yah (the prescribed rules of conduct<br />
based on Islamic teachings). Temporally, the concept of the "Muslim City" refers to a<br />
distinct period of time from the seventh century A.D. to the onset of colonialism and the<br />
adoption of nation-states during the 20th century.<br />
Under the influence of external factors, first colonialism and later the integration of<br />
most Arab-Muslim countries' economies to the world political economy, the Middle<br />
Eastern cities of today have passed through radical historical processes that caused their<br />
morphology to lose their predominantly, pre-industrial, Muslim-shaped traditional character<br />
to the "contemporary city of incoherence" of today. 75 The new metropolis is characterized<br />
by a physically decentralized structure that lacks reference to the past and is in a permanent<br />
state of transition.
50<br />
Notes to Chapter n<br />
1 Translation of these Hadeeths were offered by Besim S. Hakim. Arab-Islamic Cities: Building and<br />
Planning Principles (London: Kegan Paul International. 1988), 154.<br />
2 See Kenith Brown (ed) Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective. (London: Ithaca Press,<br />
1986).<br />
3 Riaz Hassan, "The Nature of Islamic Urbanization- An Historical Perspective," Islamic Culture (July<br />
1969): 233.<br />
4<br />
Kevin Lynch. Good City Form (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987).<br />
5 Ramos Rapport. The Meaning of the Built Environment (London: Sage Publications, 1983), 89.<br />
6 E. Galantay, "Islamic Identity and the Metropolis: The Search for Continuity" Urbanism In Islam: the<br />
Proceedings of the International Conference on Urbanism in Islam (Tokyo: ICUIT, 1989): 1-24.<br />
7<br />
S. A1 Hathloul, Traditions, Continuity and Change in the Physical Environment: The Arab-Muslim<br />
City Unpublished <strong>Dissertation</strong>, Department of Architecture, MIT (1981).<br />
8 Akbar (1987), op cit.<br />
9<br />
Davis Kingsley, "The Urbanization of Human Population," In The City in Newly Developing<br />
Countries: Readings on Urbanism and Urbanization, edited by Gerald Breese, 5-20 (Englewood Cliffs,<br />
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1960).<br />
A.E. J. Morris. History of Urban Development: Before the Industrial Revolutions (New York: John<br />
Wiley & Sons, 1986), 1.<br />
G. Sjoberg. The Preindustrial City: Past and Present (New York:The Free Press, 1960), 160,55.<br />
Holy Quran, 112:1-4.<br />
13 Holy Quran, 51:56.<br />
14<br />
On the hereafter, Muslims invoke many verses including this one in the Holy Quran, in which Allah<br />
Says "The unbelievers claim that they will never be resurrected, Say to them (O Mohammed), Yes, by<br />
my Lord, you shall surely be resurrected. Then you shall be told of all that you did. And that is easy<br />
for Allah [that is to recreate life]." 64: 7.<br />
Hadeeth.<br />
1<br />
^ Hadeeth.<br />
17 The name Islam is derived from the word silm, peace. In Arabic, it means submission. By accepting<br />
Islam, a person is expected to submit his life to Allah, and model his conduct to the teachings of the
51<br />
Prophet. By doing so , a person may succeed in attaining peace from Allah's punishment and reside in<br />
paradise.<br />
Usually peace will be given a chance. When Mohammed commanded his expeditions' leaders, the<br />
Prophet would ask them not to kill children, women nor elderly. Only those involved in military<br />
confrontation were to be fought. War was the third resort after the choice of accepting Islams, and<br />
hence becoming Muslims, and/or paying the duties by the non-believers in exchange for services<br />
provided by the state such as defense (Non-Muslims are not required to join the army).<br />
19 Riaz Hassan, "The Nature of Islamic Urbanization -An Historical Perspective." Islamic Culture (July,<br />
1969), 235.<br />
2<br />
® Martin J. Daunton discusses both arguments in his paper "The Social Meaning of Space: The City in<br />
the West and Islam." The Proceedings of the International Conference on Urbanism in Islam (ICUIT),<br />
Vol.1 (October 22-28,1989): 26-58.<br />
21 Islamic Encyclopedia of the Social Science.s "Guilds." Vol. 7 (New York: Macmillan, 1933).<br />
22<br />
Al Hathloul (1981), 30-41.<br />
23<br />
Ibid, 33.<br />
24<br />
Ibid, 34.<br />
2^ G. Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City (Riyadh: Free Press, 1960).<br />
26<br />
Al Hathloul (1981).<br />
27 S. Al Hathloul (1981); S. Al Hathloul, "The role of the Physical Environment of the Arab-Muslim<br />
Cities," Riyadh, Arab city Institute.<br />
28 S. Al Hathloul (1981), B. S. Hakim Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles. (London:<br />
kegan Paul International, 1986); J. Akbar (1988), for example.<br />
29<br />
S.N. Eisenstadt and A. Shachar. Society, Culture and Urbanization (Newbury Park: Sage<br />
Publications, 1987), 206.<br />
30 Shiism is a branch of Islam comprising 10% or less of the whole Muslim population worldwide "with<br />
doctrines significantly different from those of the orthodox Sunni majority." C. Glasse.' "Shiism". In<br />
The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 1991),364. Some consider<br />
the Sheit's Jafry as fifth school. However, unlike the Sunni four schools of fiqh whose scholars all<br />
agree that the Prophet was the actual person and pay due respect to his successors, the four Khualafaa<br />
Arrashidoun (righthly guided Caliphs), the Sheit adherents, profess reverence to the Prophet, consider<br />
his nephew Ali bin Abi Talib and his decendents as imams, who have some holliness characterisitcs.<br />
Ali, due to early political conflict lost succession to the ledership of the Islamic nation. This<br />
disagreement has caused schism in Islam since the Sunni schoolars vehemently repudiate the concept of<br />
imam as defined in the Shiet sect.<br />
31 See Besim S. Hakim (1986).
52<br />
32<br />
NJ. Coulson. A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964), quoted in A1<br />
Hathloul, op. cit., 4.<br />
33<br />
A1 Hathloul (1981), 17.<br />
34<br />
See B.S. Hakim (1986) for elaboration.<br />
35<br />
A1 Hathloul (1981), 85.<br />
3<br />
6 Allah Says in the Holy Koran, "And diminish not the goods of the people, and do not mischief in the<br />
earth working corruption." Koran, Arberry: 183.<br />
37<br />
B. Hakim (1986), 32.<br />
3<br />
® Hadeeth.<br />
39<br />
Quoted in A1 Hathloul (1981), 108.<br />
4<br />
® By encouraging waqf (charity geared toward the benefit of the public) Islam helped socialize private<br />
property.<br />
41<br />
A1 Hathloul (1981), 135.<br />
42<br />
J. L. Abu-Lughod, Rabat: Urban Apartheid In Morocco (Princeton, Jew Jersey: Princeton University<br />
Press, 1980).<br />
43<br />
Koran, Chapter on Women.<br />
44<br />
For example, in the case of drinking alcohol, in addition to abhorring its use for drink, Islam considers<br />
those who sell it, carry it, and use its money to be equally sinful.<br />
4<br />
5 This simple gender-space configuration has been labeled by some Sufi-oriented scholars as Zahir and<br />
Batin. TTie former means the outer, while the later signifies the inner. Such distinction invokes<br />
mystical connotations to otherwise direct and simple implementation of Islamic teachings by the<br />
residents and enforced by legal authority.<br />
46 Janet L. Abu-Lughod, "The Islamic City-Historical Myth, Islamic Essence and Contemporary<br />
Relevance," International Journal of Middle East Studies 19 (1987), 167.<br />
47<br />
Francois-Auguste De Montequin, "Religious, Social, and Physical Qualities of Islamic Urbanization."<br />
Hamdard Islamicus 1 (Spring 1983), 64.<br />
4<br />
& K. Brown, "The Uses of A Concept: The Muslim City." In Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative<br />
Perspectives, edited by K. Brown (London: Ithaca Press. 1986b): 73-82.<br />
4<br />
9 C. Geertz, H. Geertz and L. Rosen. Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society. Three Essays in<br />
Cultural Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University). Quoted in Kenneth Brown (1986), 76.
53<br />
Kenneth Brown (1986b), 77.<br />
M. Bonine, 1988, op. cit. E.Y. Galantay, C. Mechkat, in A. Saqqaf (ed.) The Middle East City:<br />
Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987): 5-41.<br />
52<br />
Abu-Lughod (1980).<br />
I. M. Lapidus, "Muslim Urban Society." In Middle Eastern Cities, edited by I.M. Lapidus (Beverly<br />
and Los Angeles, 1969), 196-97.<br />
54<br />
Fuad Khori, "Ideological Constants and Urban Living." In The Middle East City: Ancient Traditions<br />
Confront a Modern World. (New York: Paragon House, 1987) p.72.<br />
M.E. Bonine, "Cities of The Middle East and North Africa." In Cities of the World, edited by<br />
Stanley D.Brunn and J. F. Williams (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 281-321.<br />
56 ibid.<br />
57 For convincing discussion and critical review of the term Islamic City see Janet L. Abu-Lughod, "the<br />
Islamic City- Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance." International Journal of<br />
Middle East Studies 2 (May 1987): 155-176.<br />
5^ For example K. Lynch Good City Form (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987) states that "The<br />
Islamic city, for example, was intended and widely understood as an expression of the fundamental<br />
religious concepts of that society." A. Saqqaf (op cit.) distinguishes the Islamic city from the Middle<br />
Eastern one; the latter is mostly used to refer to the industrial era starting with colonialism.<br />
59<br />
K. Brown, 73.<br />
60<br />
M. Farouk-Sluglett and P. Sluglett, In Brown (1986), 286.<br />
61<br />
Ibid.<br />
62<br />
M. Bonine (1983).<br />
63<br />
Ibid.<br />
64 Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Rabat: Urban Apartheid In Morocco (Princeton: N.J. Princeton University<br />
Press, 1980).<br />
65 Janet L. Abu-Lughod. "What is Islamic About a City Some Comparative Reflections." In The<br />
Proceedings of the International Conference on Urbanism In Islam (Tokyo, Japan: ICUIT, 1989), 212.<br />
66 Abu-Lughod (1987), 160.<br />
67 E. Wirth, "Die orientalsche Stadt," Saeculum 26 (1975): 45-94. Qouted in B. Hakim (1986), 180.
54<br />
68 Islam means submission. It instructs adherents to follow a certain way of life compatible with what is<br />
revealed in the Korna and the way the Prophet did in practice. Unlike, Jesus who preached Christian<br />
teachings in a few years that ended in tragic turmoil which ended his teaching tenure, Mohammad lived<br />
long enough, 63 years, out of which 23 years was in actual prophethood.<br />
69 Though not immediately after death. According to the Prophet's teachings, once the corpse is buried<br />
his/her sole returns to body. Depending on the person's conduct on earth, the grave will be either a<br />
piece of heaven or one of torment.<br />
70 Only in terms of self-aggrandizement and material sense. This is clear from the Hadeeth in which the<br />
Prophet was quoted saying" Work for your life (e.g. in terms of prolonging good deeds and<br />
maximizing good conduct as laid in Islamic teachings) as if you would live for ever, and work for your<br />
second life as if you would die tomorrow." On the other hand, in another Hadeeth, he said," if the day<br />
of judgement has been engaged while you holding a seed, go ahead and plant it."<br />
71 It was narrated that the Prophet once said: "Ad-dunia is cursed [by Allah], whatever in it, save what has<br />
been done for the sake of Allah."<br />
72 Only when the popes of Rome, in their attempts to rejuvenate the Christian faith, had embarked upon a<br />
campaign to embellish Rome to attract and mesmerize the faithful. In 1300 following the debacle of<br />
the last crusade expeditions, indulgences were sold to stimulate Christian enthusiasm and to assist in<br />
the financing of the embellishing of Rome. A.E. J. Morris, History of Urban Development: Before<br />
the Industrial Revolutions (New York: Jhon Wiley & Sons, 1986), 140. They opted rationally ordered<br />
urban forms emphasizing a system of broad, straight avenues conforming to gridiron based districts and<br />
the closing of vistas by the careful placing of monumental structures and statues. Buildings are<br />
integrated with the surrounding open spaces in geometrical perfection.<br />
73 A counter argument may hold that it also had to do with technology. Still, the technology of the<br />
Medieval city was little improved, if not similar to that prevailed in the Greek and Roman cities, which<br />
opted and utilized orthogonal layout in the construction of their cities and outposts, such as the castra,<br />
the Roman fortified legionary camps.<br />
74 Abdullh Schleifer, "Islamic Jerusalem as Archetype of a Harmonious Urban Environment." In the<br />
Middle East City: Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World, edited by A. Saqqaf (New York:<br />
Paragon House. 1987), 171.<br />
75 See K. Brown (1986b), 74.
CHAPTER HI<br />
FORCES OF CHANGE IN SAUDI ARABIA: NATION-STATE<br />
FORMATION, URBANIZATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT<br />
For all practical purposes Saudi Arabia is a closed country to the<br />
Christian world. Fewer than a hundred Europeans or American<br />
have visited its desert fortresses in modern times. No non-Moslem<br />
journalist has ever been officially permitted to visit its capital at<br />
Riad. Yet this huge country is the heart of the Arab world (it<br />
contains Mecca) and its King, Ibn Saud, only a remote and mystery<br />
figure to outsiders, is non of the world's strong men. 1<br />
-Life Magazine, 1947<br />
The intent of this chapter is to shed light on historical events and political<br />
developments leading to the emergence of Saudi Arabia from a tribally-based and organized<br />
society to one in which authority and significant decision making are increasingly assumed<br />
by the central government. Since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of<br />
this century, dramatic developments have taken place, culminating in the formation of the<br />
new nation-state. The promulgation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on September 23,<br />
1932, has ushered a dual reciprocal process in which the society has gradually<br />
transformed, supplanting its millinea-long essentially traditional nomadic and agrarian<br />
modes of living with a new process of institution building and the consolidation of national<br />
authority. The financial resources available through oil revenues have been ploughed into<br />
the development of the country's infrastructure and industrialization of the economy. In<br />
Saudi Arabia, in 1950, only 16 per cent of the Saudi Arabian population was urban. By<br />
1970, this figure had risen to 49 per cent, and to 77 per cent in 1990. Concomitant with<br />
these major changes, Saudi urban structures and forms have mutated.<br />
I. STATE AND SOCIETY<br />
The state is the consolidation of dispersed authority of a traditional society into a<br />
central power and control. "Nationalism is the belief that each nation has both the right and<br />
the duty to constitute itself as a state." 3 According to C. E. Black, central authority and its<br />
rationalized functions owe their existence to the rule of law, which is maintained by the<br />
bureaucracy specifically created to facilitate its implementation, and to the improved rapport<br />
between the state and the citizen. The replacement of capricious and arbitrary rule of<br />
individual statesman with the rational legal system is the hallmark of modern developments
in the political domain. Rapport between the state and the individual amidst an open<br />
environment which upholds citizen's rights has fostered the democratic system. This<br />
56<br />
rapport has been achieved through various means including the use of propaganda, popular<br />
enlightment or police powers. Even in nations that grant limited freedom and rights to their<br />
subjects, the use of economic incentives and propaganda is sought to maintain popular<br />
approval. 4<br />
In Europe, nationalism developed by kings to gain control over landlords and tribes<br />
and to abridge the power of the religious ecclesiastics. Yet, the emergence of<br />
industrialization in the nineteenth century ushered in rapid social, political and economic<br />
developments. In his account of the emergence and rising role of the modern state in<br />
society, Douglass C. North, stated "The revolutionary technology of the 19th century<br />
radically altered the production and distribution of the goods and services." This was<br />
paralleled with a tremendous increase in specialization and division of labor, resulting in<br />
drastic changes in relative prices. The traditional structure of the family, economic<br />
organization and the polity was transformed, accordingly. Out of this milieu, new interest<br />
groups emerged leading to political pluralism supplanting traditional social associations.<br />
Therefore,<br />
The demand for new institutional forms of organization to undertake functions<br />
undertaken by the family in traditional economic organization could not be<br />
completely realized by voluntary organizations because of moral hazard,<br />
adverse selections, and the demand for public goods. The growth of<br />
government is a function of demand arising from the redistributive effort of a<br />
growing number of effective interest groups and the inability of voluntary<br />
organizations to completely meet the new needs of the family and of economic<br />
organization. 5<br />
In developed capitalist nations, the state steers the society, collects taxes, and<br />
provides legal guidelines and protection for private ownership. Nationalism, it has'often<br />
been argued, makes for national integration, but "Nationalism and other forms of ethnic<br />
consciousness often stimulate political disintegration, tearing apart the body politic." 6<br />
Nationalism is essential to modernization which, according to Karl Deutsch, involves social<br />
mobilization and change. Social change like increases in literacy, urbanization, exposure to<br />
mass media, industrialization coupled with an increase in income per capita expand "the<br />
politically relevant strata of the population" who in turn press for more government<br />
services. These functions increase political awareness and participation and shifts
attentions from the local level to the national level. 7 In other words, nationalization<br />
coupled with modernization fuels mass mobilization and results in more political<br />
participation, which distinguishes modem politics from traditional politics, and is a key<br />
element in political development<br />
57<br />
Such developments have triggered a phenomena of migration to the cities which, in<br />
the lapse of a few generations, has resulted in the concentration of 45 percent of the<br />
O<br />
world's population in urban centers. Concomitantly, improvements in health provisions<br />
have decreased the number of infant mortality and have prolonged the expected lifetime,<br />
causing a sharp upward kink in world population. The social unit of the agrarian society,<br />
the tribe, has drastically mutated into the mobile nuclear family as the new social unit, and<br />
is more prone to migrate in pursuit of economic trends in the industrial age. Modernization<br />
attempts have expanded the role of women as production relies less on muscular strength<br />
and more on the machine. Improved communication systems have facilitated and increased<br />
access to information, increasingly suffusing the society, while technological<br />
breakthroughs in transportation have shortened travel time, hence allowing fast and easy<br />
mobility. All in all, these and other complex developments encourage and reinforce the<br />
process of social mobilization, which is spatially translated in the physical migration of the<br />
population away from its rural habitat.<br />
II. MODERNIZATION, URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND URBANIZATION: THE SAUDI<br />
MODEL<br />
A. The Saudi National Developmental Model<br />
Like other nation-states, the Saudi Arabian government chose to modernize its<br />
underdeveloped society, a process which threatens the integrity of traditionally based<br />
regimes. Due to oil affluence, the Saudi government opted for a policy of rapid<br />
development resulting in remarkable consequences causing dramatic shifts in the society.<br />
This decision to pursue modernization hinged on the pressures to maintain internal integrity<br />
and to stave off external threats aimed at destabilizing the fragile Saudi political system in<br />
its early decades. Militarily, the state has followed a multi-throng policy, emphasizing the<br />
strengthening of the country's defense capabilities to thwart outside hostilities and,<br />
internally, to deter fragmentation of the nation's sub-regions, traditionally susceptible to<br />
segregation by tribal affiliations.
58<br />
The enlistment of large sums of national financial resources and man power in the<br />
consolidation of the new nation-state resulted in a tremendous allocation cities and<br />
indirectly resulted in an increase in urban living standards of the population. In the civil<br />
domain, the Saudi government has tried to create a stable, modern economy centered<br />
around a central bureaucracy heavily dependent on oil revenues. Government intervention<br />
in the national urban process, which goes back to the Hijar settlement program of 1912,<br />
was seen as a necessary measure to defuse centrifugal tendencies that prevailed for<br />
millennia as well as to convey legitimacy on the Saudi Monarchy.<br />
The economically impoverished and politically fragmented character of the society has<br />
changed due to the dramatic events during the early part of this century. By utilizing<br />
power, diplomacy, religious legitimacy and ancestral claims to dynastic inheritance, Abdul-<br />
Aziz Bin Abdul-Rahman <strong>Faisal</strong> A1 Saud succeeded in his campaign to unify the various,<br />
isolated parts of the Arabian Peninsula. 10 Felicitous political changes both worldwide and<br />
on the local level, gave Abdul-Aziz an opportunity to reclaim his forebears' control over<br />
vast parts of Arabia. A watershed event occurred in 1902/1319 when Abdul-Aziz, with a<br />
mere forty of his acolytes, invaded Riyadh killing its Rashidi viceroy and brought the preindustrial<br />
settlement of approximately five thousand inhabitants under his family control.<br />
This incident was followed by a series of battles between the rival dynastic powers in<br />
Arabia which culminated in 1926 by the ceding of Jeddah to Abdul-Aziz. In 1932 the<br />
country was officially named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a hereditary monarchy<br />
appealing to traditions and committed to modernity.<br />
Saudi Arabia's sociopolitical system is based on traditional principles and practices<br />
heavily rooted in Islam. Legitimacy of the ruling A1 Saud family is based on a combination<br />
of tribal-dynastic roots and appeal to Islamic orthodoxy. Although an absolute monarchy<br />
not bound by a written constitution and a representative body of citizens, its absolutism is<br />
tempered by, first, the supremacy of Islamic Shariy'ah which presses for equality and<br />
rapport between the governor and the governed (the ruling system considers its application<br />
of Shariy'ah as the main source of legitimacy), secondly, by widespread tribal<br />
interrelatedness through conjugal ties between the royal family and the major tribes and<br />
leading families of the country; and, finally, by the presence of the informal majlis (which<br />
literally means a place to sit), touted by the Saudi officials as a substitute for the Western<br />
democratic system as well as being "consistent" with Saudi culture. The majlis is a Saudi<br />
invention par excellence. It is an informal institution in the sense that it does not adhere to a
59<br />
written document spelling out its structure and application such as governing procedures<br />
and methods of amendments. Still, the majlis, though shunned by the majority of the<br />
urban middle classes, increases public access, in person, to the King, the senior royal<br />
members, and governors of the various regions of the country. In such gatherings,<br />
individuals are encouraged to voice their concerns in person or to deliver written appeals<br />
and complaints.<br />
Like his forebears of the first two realms, Abdul-Aziz predicated his nationalist<br />
movement on the puritan ideals of the eighteenth century reformer Mohammed Abdul-<br />
Wahhab. He placed his dynasty at the top of the country's political control, appealing to<br />
the classical Muslim image. He governed the Kingdom, as he had earlier governed the<br />
Sultanate before he added Hijaz (the western part of Saudi Arabia comprising the historical<br />
cities of Makkah, Madinah, Jeddah and the surrounding region) to his domain in 1924. As<br />
an absolute ruler, he vested himself with full executive, military, legislative, judicial and<br />
religious powers. During the first decades prior to the promulgation of the Kingdom,<br />
Abdul-Aziz governed his domain according to the Najdi traditional role of the town amir<br />
and the tribal sheikh. The royal court administration apparatus was limited to simple<br />
bookkeeping handled by the literati, a group limited to a handful of religious scholars.<br />
Abdul-Aziz ruled his domain directly without ministerial intermediaries, relying on the<br />
customary tribal methods of governance aided by a small number of advisors of his court.<br />
The defeat of the Hashimites in 1924-25 revealed Abdul-Aziz's customary system as<br />
anachronistic, especially when compared with the far more developed administrative<br />
Turkish system. The Turkish administrative structure in Hijaz furnished a model for the<br />
new state government departments under Abdul-Aziz and the institutional framework for<br />
future ministerial government at the center. Being the Muslim leader of the two holy cities,<br />
he could not avoid the pious Muslim pilgrims who mounted their expectations on the new<br />
custodian of Islam's most holy places.<br />
King Abdul-Aziz's campaign to unify the country culminated in the takeover of<br />
Jeddah which was ceded to him following a long siege in December 17,1925. Following<br />
the takeover of Hijaz, Abdul-Aziz immediately embarked upon reforms in the<br />
administration, introducing a constitution for the new Kingdom, in August 1926, which<br />
provided for autonomous institutions modeled after existing Hijazi Ottoman ones. The<br />
early government structure comprised seventeen offices, all essentially geared toward the<br />
King and the royal court's immediate affairs and services. They included administrative
60<br />
departments to handle the growing government functions, health clinics, royal guest<br />
department, security and army, among others.<br />
Abdul-Aziz authorized the creation of a small advisory body on legislative matters,<br />
called Majlis Ashshura (Consultative Counsel) as well as local municipal, village, and<br />
tribal counsels. In 1931, six departments were established to handle provincial affairs of<br />
which each respective department's head formed Majlis al Wukala (Council of Agents).<br />
Abdul-Aziz denied the Hijaz region constitutional autonomy, for Hijaz, traditionally the<br />
center of power in Arabia, demanded careful attention by the new Najdi control. The King<br />
ruled through his viceroy, <strong>Faisal</strong>, who was no less absolute in the province than elsewhere<br />
in the country. However, the King gave the Hijaz region representative institutions over<br />
which his second son, Amir <strong>Faisal</strong>, presided.<br />
These institutions were later to grow into ministries. They included the agency of<br />
finance, foreign affairs, and defense. Their purview expanded beyond the Hijaz area to the<br />
entire nation during the decade of the 1940s. Following the Najdi control, Hijaz's cities of<br />
Jeddah and Makkah progressively lost their institutions, hence centrality in the nation's<br />
political sphere, to the new capital, Riyadh. The growth of state apparatuses was<br />
culminated in the promulgation of the Council of Ministers in October, 1953, one month<br />
before Abdul-Aziz's death. These developments marked the transition from the<br />
chieftainship of the old order to the bureaucratic ministerial administration of contemporary<br />
Saudi Arabia.<br />
Generally speaking, the political development model which Saudi Arabia has been<br />
following since its founding by Abdul-Aziz and later carried by his heirs corroborates what<br />
Huntington and Nelson describe as the autocratic model of development. In this model,<br />
power is concentrated, formal political participation is nullified, economic growth is<br />
enhanced and socioeconomic equality is promoted as a way of securing appeal to legitimacy<br />
among the governed masses. 11 To secure its control, Huntington and Nelson argued, the<br />
government must maintain control of power and create an effective bureaucracy to<br />
implement policy. In less endowed developing countries, such a task is formidable. In the<br />
case of Saudi Arabia, the government used its oil revenues to attain wide leaps in pushing<br />
for modernization without duly disturbing the delicate balance of social groups, whether<br />
traditionalists, secularists, upper or low income groups, while excluding the urban middle<br />
class from politics. In short, in the Saudi model of development, accelerated modernization
61<br />
was espoused to create outlets for the steadily increasing oil affluence, to stave off external<br />
threat and to convey legitimacy in the face of rising expectations of the growing urban<br />
middle class. 12<br />
National development has become the vehicle to attain national integrity, economic<br />
prosperity and the means to attain better standards of living of the population, a common<br />
goal for modern economies. However, theoretically, the pursuit of development has been<br />
accompanied with numerous problems, which, if not well understood, may result in<br />
negative social social, economic and political outcomes. Samuel Huntington stated<br />
The principal threat to the stability of traditional society comes not from<br />
foreign invasions by foreign armies, but from invasion by foreign ideas...The<br />
monarch is forced to modernize and to attempt to change his society by the<br />
fear that if he does not, someone else will. Nineteenth-century monarchs<br />
modernized to thwart imperialism, twentieth-century monarchs modernize to<br />
thwart revolution. 13<br />
As the discussion unfolds, the relationship between the political economic<br />
characteristics of the nation-state and urban change will be elucidated. Urbanization, urban<br />
development and urban policy will be discussed in light of the dramatic changes in the<br />
national economy while adhering to an essentially "rigid" political framework of the<br />
traditional monarch manifest in a centralized decision-making process and an absence of<br />
formal citizens' participation.<br />
B. Early Urbanization: The Hijar Settlements and Bedouin<br />
Sedentarization<br />
Saudi Arabia was the traditional home of Middle Eastern nomadism which was<br />
estimated to form 50 per cent of the country's population in the 1930s. 14 The nomads<br />
pastoral, mobile life involves migratory animal husbandry, while taking advantage of<br />
seasonal and geographical variations. This can only be explained in terms of the harsh<br />
physical environment of the Arabian peninsula. Before the 1980's agricultural programs,<br />
only 0.13 per cent of the Country's total area of 2.2 million square kilometers was<br />
cultivated; 80 per cent of the country was desolate desert used for grazing. Starting with<br />
the capture of Riyadh in 1902, Al-Saud adroitly proceeded to consolidate the Country's<br />
regions despite their poor potential for unification. 15 With magnanimity, religious fervor<br />
and political flair, the King managed to win the fealty of the regions' settlements and the<br />
fickle and powerful nomadic bedouin tribes, with largesse, force, or conjugal relationships.
62<br />
Alan George points out that "with the twin aims of creating the basis of a centralized<br />
political organization, and or reviving the ideals of the Wahhabism, King Abdul-Aziz<br />
established the Ikhwan, or Brethren, a religious organization modeled on the Wahhabi<br />
movement." 16 It was an organization whose ideology was based on a return to strict<br />
fundamentalist ideas. King Abdul-Aziz's effort to tame the Ikhwan political power took the<br />
form of settling the leading tribal factions in rudimentary-built colonies known as hijar<br />
settlements (singular, hijrah). 17 The term hijrah invokes the concept of reliving the faith as<br />
modeled after the Prophet Mohammed's flight from Makkah to Madinah at the dawn of<br />
Islam. It connotes the move from the land of polytheism to the land of Islam.<br />
The Ikhwan movement was the reification of Wahhabi religious reform in the<br />
nomadic population of Arabia. In the physical sphere it was manifest in the Hijar program<br />
which was started by Abdul-Aziz in 1912 to settle the recalcitrant bedouin tribes. 18 The<br />
King sought to establish Hijar, first, for religious-militancy and control, but later for<br />
agricultural production. Agriculture was encouraged "to be the basis of economic life and,<br />
most important, the reformed religion the basis of social and spiritual life." 19 While the<br />
professed goal was to encourage the bedouins to settled forms of life based on communal<br />
religious organization, the hijar initiative was taken for political purposes as well. The<br />
predetermined locations for sedentary living meant close supervision by the government<br />
and quick mobilization of forces when needed. The sedentarization was meant to help<br />
nomads abandon their roving life-style and to enlist them as reservists in the army for<br />
Abdul-Aziz's expeditions. They carried the major burden of policing the tribal areas and<br />
helping the King consolidate his authority at a time when no standing army was available to<br />
him. In the course of King Abdul-Aziz's forty years sponsorship of the hijar's colonies<br />
program, two hundred settlements {Hijar) were established in the central region (Najd)<br />
alone.<br />
One of these settlements, Al-Artawiyah, which belonged to the powerful Mutair tribe,<br />
boasted a population of over 10,000. Although the hijar settlements owed their start to the<br />
religio-political designs of Abdul-Aziz, their subsequent growth hinged on the agricultural<br />
programs of the government. Once Abdul-Aziz amassed financial strength to establish his<br />
own standing army, the military purpose behind the hijar program gave way to the<br />
economic. For example, when some of the Ikhwan factions opposed Abdul-Aziz's<br />
decision to suspend the long-practiced expansionist religious military raids, jihad, to<br />
advance the Saudi-Wahhabi domain into nearby Arab territories of the new Arab nation-
63<br />
states, Abdul-Aziz mustered his military capabilities from townspeople and loyal bedouins,<br />
defeated the disobedient bedouin chiefs and ordered the demolition of their settlements.<br />
Only those who showed allegiance to the King were issued weapons and their leaders were<br />
awarded subsidies.<br />
The process of settling pastoral herdsmen in hijar colonies continued apace during the<br />
following reigns of the Saudi monarchs. The government followed the same vision which<br />
perceived the pastoral life as anachronistic and the population as useless for the new era of<br />
modernization which called for an active, educated labor force. By 1982 the number of<br />
hijar settlements reached 4,020, dotting the various parts of the country. 20<br />
Nevertheless, the hijar experiment was less than successful. A study by the Ministry<br />
of Interior in 1982 concluded that 68 percent of the established hijar did not qualify for<br />
permanent development. The failure was attributed to several factors. They included<br />
physical obstacles, such as the lack of water, arable land and distance from markets and<br />
transportation. Social factors such as the status and prestige associated with being a head<br />
of a clan or rivalry between bedouin tribal chiefs enticed groups to apply for land for new<br />
settlement despite the unqualified nature of the location for growth or growth potentiality.<br />
Financial benefits provided by the government to the head of a settlement enticed some<br />
potential elders to apply for a land grant from the state to establish a new hijrah. Finally,<br />
technical reasons were also cited. Responsibility for the sedentariztion program was<br />
dispersed among various government agencies who made decisions without coordination<br />
and rational justification. 21<br />
In Saudi Arabia, there are 10,365 "villages and hijar," as classified by a study by the<br />
Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affair (MOMRA) 22 The Ministry of Interior puts the<br />
number of hijar at 4,020 which leaves us with 6,345 villages in the Kingdom. A study by<br />
the MOMRA found that the average number of people living in "villages and hijar"<br />
settlements was 251 inhabitants occupying an average of 40 residential units. In addition,<br />
there are 4,636 names that refer to a small number of residential units and built structures<br />
scattered in the vicinity or out of the boundaries of actively inhabited settlements which did<br />
not qualify for the definition of village or hijrah. In many instances, especially in the case<br />
of hijar, residential units were haphazardly scattered in the desert with no reference to a<br />
plan, resembling bedouin's tent camps. This resulted in difficulties stemming from future<br />
needs to supply basic public services and utilities and the laying of streets. In order to curb
64<br />
such a chaotic sprouting of hijar, measures have been taken to abort unpromising locations,<br />
including the denial of government housing loans to its inhabitants.<br />
Abdul-Aziz's first attempts, and the Saudi government's later efforts to settle the<br />
roving bedouins were rooted in several factors. Hijar programs have been promoted for<br />
religious, military, political and economic reasons. Nationalism required a civil population<br />
glued by national allegiance rather than recalcitrant herds of men and livestock bound by<br />
tribal association. I consider this intervention by the state to be the inception of state<br />
intervention in Saudi urban development which was to continue in the developmental<br />
programs of the various monarchs. Economically, urbanization was induced by connecting<br />
the national economy to the international market system. Politically, the government's<br />
modernization programs have become means to attain political stability and economic<br />
prosperity in line with the prevailing cultural imperatives.<br />
HI. POLITICAL STABILITY, GROWTH OF BUREAUCRACY, AND OIL ECONOMY<br />
A. The Saudi Economy: From Traditional Subsistence to Oil Economy<br />
For centuries, the Saudi society has engaged in agricultural production, pearl diving<br />
and fishing, trading and the nomadic nurturing of livestock by nomads. Prior to the<br />
creation of Saudi Arabia in 1932, an integrated national economy did not exist. Industry<br />
was limited to production of simple tools by craftsmen who lived in small towns and urban<br />
centers of the Hijaz in western Saudi Arabia (where the two holy cities of Makkah and<br />
Madinah are located). The Hijazi dwellers of Jeddah, Makkah and Madinah were<br />
essentially urbanites who practiced trade and commercial activity because of the annual<br />
influx of pilgrims visiting the holy places in Makkah and Madinah. Jeddah served as an<br />
entrepot on the Red Sea and as a gateway to Makkah, taking advantage of its littoral<br />
location along the the Red Sea.<br />
The traditional economy of towns was that of the bazaar economy. Merchant and<br />
trade economies were located mainly in major towns and cities. The traditional economy<br />
was based on customary inheritance of family occupations or crafts. The family head<br />
supervised whatever craft he inherited from his father and so he handed down the<br />
profession to his progeny. He maintained the quality of the family craftsmanship on which
65<br />
his extended family's living depended. Usually, households of an influential craftsman or<br />
trader lived side-by-side in the same locality.<br />
Unlike a firm economy, which "is based on rationalized production and capital<br />
accumulation for further investment and expansion," the traditional bazaar economy is said<br />
to inhibit "capital accumulation and represents a way of life and means of absorbing surplus<br />
labor; it is not conducive to development.. .and can hinder the expansion of the firm<br />
economy." The bazaar economy refers to a large number of small, highly competitive<br />
enterprises which rely on intensive use of labor. Due to its family orientation, the bazaar<br />
economy is risk-minimizing rather than profit-seeking through increasing productivity. 23<br />
Interestingly, we will come to see that the Saudi bureaucracy has grown resembling that of<br />
the bazaar institution, in the sense that its growth was conditioned by the paternalistic<br />
commitment to provide citizens with employment. Unlike the Western development model<br />
in which the polity is either supporting as joint player in a developing, industrialized market<br />
economy, in Saudi Arabia the bureaucracy has become the chief player in the national<br />
economy and urban development.<br />
Due to the country's harsh ecology and especially during its early formative decades<br />
the country was plagued by problems of finance. Poverty was the overriding character of<br />
society. In the opening decades of Saudi rule, Abdul-Aziz's resources were limited to his<br />
realm, which then did not go beyond the borders of the middle region, Najd known for its<br />
utter lack of resources. His amirate's annual revenue may well have amounted to no more<br />
than $250,000. The conquest of the fertile A1 Hasa region in 1913 was estimated to double<br />
Abdul-Aziz's annual income. During the early decades of the war campaign of unification,<br />
King Abdul-Aziz survived on foreign subsidies and Islamic proscribed taxes (called zakat).<br />
The expansion of Abdul-Aziz's realm to include Hijaz was both religious and economic.<br />
Religiously, the inclusion of the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah was consistent<br />
with the religious undertones of the two-century Wahhabi puritan movement.<br />
Economically, the relatively active Hijazi economy looked highly attractive on material<br />
grounds. Once Hijaz fell under Abdul-Aziz's control in 1924, annual revenues rose<br />
considerably to an estimated $20 to $25 million, according to Philby. But revenues from<br />
Hijaz always correlated with the success of the pilgrimage season. During the 1930s, the<br />
Saudi revenues, including the annual income from the pilgrimage, amounted to less than<br />
five million English pounds.
66<br />
Recognizing the need to administer the fledgling and tenuous nation-state, Abdul-Aziz<br />
laid the foundation of a modern state by creating the infrastructure of the administration.<br />
This government structure was soon to proliferate into a centralized, bloated bureaucracy<br />
that was deliberately nurtured to offset other traditional institutional forms of political<br />
leadership and to lump decision making powers at the center. It constituted the only<br />
decision-making organ in the country over which the King presided and had the final say in<br />
treasury expenditures and command of the administrative and defense apparatus. Once the<br />
unification of the new state was completed, Abdul-Aziz was faced with increasing burdens<br />
of modernizing the state to meet its contemporary functions, a double pressure on Abdul-<br />
Aziz since his takeover of the traditionally urban and cosmopolitan Hijaz from the<br />
Shariefian descendants of Prophet Mohammed. Abdul-Aziz was in a race for time, for the<br />
wounds his battles caused during his conquest of the various tribal and urban dwellers<br />
were still fresh. A key factor in giving continuity to his dynasty was to establish the<br />
administration and to secure a modern economy that would eventually weaken the<br />
marauding and contumacious tribal factions within his confines. Although King Abdul-<br />
Aziz managed to create such an administration, its structure and size was limited by his<br />
desire to keep it tractable.<br />
This financial impasse was aggravated when cheap Japanese pearls were introduced<br />
in 1930, causing the prices of the pearl industry, a mainstay of eastern towns' economies,<br />
to fall by as much as 90 percent in a matter of a few years. The direct result was acute<br />
unemployment in the secondary effects on traders, laborers, boat builders and farmers<br />
throughout the economy.<br />
Moreover, during the worldwide depression of the 1930s, the number of pilgrims<br />
declined sharply and virtually ceased during World War n, as normal transportation was<br />
disrupted. This loss was critical because until the discovery of oil pilgrims accounted for<br />
substantial dividends to the national treasury due to the imposition of a head tax on them.24<br />
The number of pilgrims fell from an average of 130,000 a year between 1926-29 to 80,000<br />
in 1930,40,000 in 1931 and less thereafter. At the highest level of the pilgrimage (hajjj)<br />
traffic, state income leveled between $20 to $30 million. Hajj income comprised one-third<br />
to one-fourth of the government income in 1933. To promote pilgrimage, King Abdul-<br />
Aziz applied strict security measures to ensure the safety of pilgrims. Hitherto, pilgrims<br />
used to pay for safe passage though tribal territories.
67<br />
The decline was also partly caused by the crash of sugar and rubber prices in Java<br />
and Malaya, whose Muslim population accounted for a significant number of foreign<br />
pilgrims. Pilgrimage dues accounted for $30 million a year. Between 1920s and 1930s, in<br />
order to boost the sluggish hajj season, Abdul-Aziz allocated modest improvements for the<br />
holy cities in a desperate effort to encourage pilgrims. In addition, he applied strict security<br />
measures to ensure the safety of pilgrims. Hitherto, pilgrims used to pay for safe passage<br />
though tribal territories. This economic situation was drastically altered following the<br />
discovery of oil in the late 1930s. King Abdul-Aziz abolished pilgrim dues charged to<br />
Muslim pilgrims one year before his death in 1953.<br />
B. Oil: A One-crop Economy<br />
During the early decades of the twentieth century the world demand for oil as a major<br />
energy source tremendously increased. For example, the conversion of the British navy<br />
fleet from the use of coal to oil between 1914 and 1930s, and the booming use of<br />
automobiles worldwide catapulted the demand for oil supplies and sent oil companies<br />
franticly searching for more oil concessions overseas. Abdul-Aziz was tuned to the<br />
promising news of oil ventures around the country. The first attempts to obtain Saudi oil<br />
go back to 1923 when Abdul-Aziz awarded the first concession ever given in Saudi Arabia<br />
to a British company in the Eastern area. Having failed to find promising quantities after<br />
four years of exploration, the British did not renew the agreement and their operations<br />
ceased.<br />
The discovery of oil in Bahrain in 1932 by the Bahrain Petroleum Company, an<br />
Anglo-American company, inspired new efforts to try the Saudi soil across the Gulf<br />
shores. With unwonted alacrity Abdul-Aziz awarded a sixty-year concession to Standard<br />
Oil of California (SOCAL) to start exploration for oil in the A1 Hasa province. An<br />
agreement was signed in May 29, 1933. The Saudi concession to an American oil<br />
company, which covered almost the entire Eastern Province, or one third the country's<br />
land, represented a major break with the British monopoly of petroleum concessions in the<br />
area. The American deal entitled the Saudi government to 100,000 pounds of gold as a<br />
downpayment, which though meager, was a God-send and saved Abdul-Aziz's insolvent<br />
treasury. After untoward trials in what seemed a futile effort, the SOCAL staff tried<br />
digging deeper at well number seven. In March 1938, a vast underground reservoir of oil<br />
was struck in the vicinity of Dammam, a small fishing settlement in the east province of the
68<br />
country heralding a promising future. However, it was not until May 1,1939, that oil<br />
revenues finally reached an annual share of about 200,000 pounds in royalties from<br />
SOCAL. The discovery of oil was the deus ex machina that relieved Abdul-Aziz's<br />
financial impasse.<br />
As oil was struck in 1938, construction work for the industrial infrastructure started<br />
immediately and exports began in 1938. With the admission of American oil companies,<br />
the oil industry and further explorations required the mustering of skilled labor, modern<br />
technology, oil processing and heavy equipment and machinery, advanced construction<br />
methods, transportation and, communication networks, and other supporting facilities. A<br />
rudimentary road network and shipping facilities were first laid to facilitate the increasingly<br />
expanding oil activities. The placid and bucolic agrarian and pastoral communities of the<br />
Eastern Province were gradually transformed into a boisterous hive of oil exporting<br />
industry.<br />
The Saudi population first met the new technology with a somber attitude. Change<br />
was too fast and dramatic to be comprehended by the traditional society. The religious<br />
ranks of Ulama (religious scholars) especially, reacted with caution as they were perplexed<br />
over what to permit as consistent with their understanding of Islam and what was<br />
consistent with local traditions. Nevertheless, the guarding of traditions became secondary<br />
to Abdul-Aziz's progressive ideals as oil revenues started to pour into the state treasury and<br />
allocation in modernizing the government and the traditional society was a matter of time.<br />
For the discovery of oil in the late 1930s strengthened Abdul-Aziz's aplomb over the<br />
Kingdom during its formative decades. Politically, oil revenues complemented King<br />
Abdul-Aziz's adroitness and proved helpful and timely in placating and lubricating the<br />
demanding, contumacious political factions. Economically, oil income has engaged the<br />
population in modernization programs for the last forty years.<br />
The flaring of World War n caused a pause of oil exportation and struck the callow<br />
national economy with imminent depression. So in the first dozen years of the concession,<br />
the Saudi exchequer received, in addition to token annual rentals, a total of $6.8 million in<br />
loans from the oil company against future royalties. The depleting treasury of the Kingdom<br />
was compounded by a severe drought that caused livestock to perish and the already<br />
meager agricultural productions to dwindle. In the face of a glaring famine, tribal powers<br />
stepped up efforts to break the new centralizing order while the old centrifugal tendencies
69<br />
toward a polyarchy of tribes lurked in the background. Again, Abdul-Aziz met the<br />
clamoring tribes and scornful town populations with subsidies, hence maintaining the<br />
buoyancy of the dynasty. This time, financial backing came from Americans who<br />
recognized the vitality of the Saudi oil to the U.S. economy. This anticipation for future<br />
economic interests, was translated in the U.S. foreign policy in a declaration by President<br />
Roosevelt in 1943 that "Saudi Arabia as a state is vital to the defense of the United<br />
States." 25 In 1948, Abdul-Aziz received a hefty $17.5 million from the United States,<br />
sufficient enough to stave off the economic hardship of the time.<br />
With the news of the discovery of large oil reserves, the Getty Oil Company was able<br />
to obtain a sixty year petroleum concession in the neutral zone between Kuwait and Saudi<br />
Arabia and had equal rights with Kuwait over the exploration of oil. Soon after, the Saudi<br />
government granted the Japan Petroleum Trading Company, Ltd a forty-four year<br />
concession which covered the water coastlines of Saudi Arabia in the Neutral Zone.<br />
Operations started in 1959 and oil gushed in 1960. In 1965, the French succeeded in<br />
winning a concession agreement when the Saudi government concluded an agreement with<br />
Societe Auxiliarie de la Regie Autoin. At the request of the King, who shied away from the<br />
increasing numbers of foreigners in his conservative territory, the oil companies, including<br />
SOCAL which was renamed ARAMCO (an acronym for Arab American Oil Company) in<br />
1944, built their community camps segregated from the nearby towns and settlements.<br />
ARAMCO started with a massive construction project encompassing hundreds of single<br />
family homes, bachelor apartments complemented with a club, shady and landscaped<br />
gardens, recreational facilities and shops, a scheme hitherto unbeknown to the preindustrial<br />
society. This project was jealously dubbed "little America" by some Britons.<br />
King Abdul-Aziz's achievements must be judged in light of the tremendous energy<br />
and the time which he devoted to unifying the nation-state. In light of the contextual<br />
circumstances surrounding the creation of the nation-state and the polity, Abdul-Aziz must<br />
be acclaimed for his progressive efforts to set up the various departments and offices<br />
handling increasingly specialized modern functions while maintaining the integrity of the<br />
new nation-state.<br />
In addition, in terms of physical developments, King Abdul-Aziz's reign and life<br />
witnessed the establishment of substantial infrastructure, considering the meager income<br />
available to him and the overall xenophobic society. In 1925, the first Hospital was
70<br />
established in Makkah, followed by construction of another one in Riyadh in the following<br />
year. In 1932 there were 3,000 cars in the country and only 239 kilometers of surfaced<br />
roads as late as 1953. 26 Prior to the establishment of the road network, the journey<br />
between Riyadh and Makkah by an automobile would consume fifteen days on desert<br />
tracks that exhausted cars and trucks as well as petrol. It was not until 1949 that the King<br />
authorized the construction of a tarmac road from Jeddah to Madinah. A railway from the<br />
Arabian Gulf to Riyadh was built between 1947 and 1951.<br />
In the Eastern Province, the oil companies' were engaged in massive industrial plans<br />
transforming the historically pre-industrial region into a center of construction activity. Oil<br />
companies carried out significant improvements in the form of ports, pipelines, and oil<br />
company's residential and industrial complexes. New towns sprouted to house the work<br />
force engaged in the new industry. Towns such as Al-Khobar (the first city in the Kingdom<br />
ever to start from planned origins), while Ath-thoqba, and Dhahran grew from labor camps<br />
and companies' office and residential quarters. Dammam, historically a sleepy fishing<br />
town, witnessed unprecedented growth as a major commercial port. It was shortly to<br />
receive a further boost to its status when the provincial governor of Hufuf moved the seat<br />
of the eastern province government to Dammam. Michael Field noted "It was with these<br />
developments, it is generally agreed, that the modern Eastern Province business centers of<br />
Dammam, Dhahran and Khobar- which was still a collection of barasti [structures built of<br />
makeshift materials] when the first petrol station was opened there in 1946- began their<br />
development as modern cities." 27<br />
During the early decades of the Kingdom (1932-1952) the treasury of the state was<br />
still in its rudimentary phase- the King assumed final and absolute say on its disposal.<br />
Inefficient disposal of oil revenues was widespread, for at that time the country had no<br />
banking or formal education systems and the King's advisors and other fledgling<br />
administration posts were given to Arabs from nearby nations. The King's staff was<br />
limited and lacked expertise of finance. In 1946, the King's receipts from oil revenues did<br />
not exceed $10.4 million. Five years following the end of World War n, the government's<br />
treasury received a whopping sum of $165 million. By the end of his life, Abdul-Aziz was<br />
receiving over $3 million a week. Revenues from oil continued to grow in leaps and<br />
bounds, so by 1957 they exceeded $300 million and in 1965 the national income surpassed<br />
$650 million, a fabulous figure when compared to the days of poverty (Table 3.1).
71<br />
Table 3.1<br />
Oil Production and Revenues, Selected Years<br />
Year<br />
Daily Production<br />
b/day<br />
Price<br />
(U.S. dollars per<br />
Annual<br />
Revenues<br />
Barrel)<br />
1938 1.4 -<br />
0.1<br />
1940 13.9<br />
-<br />
1.2<br />
1950 546.7 1.75 56.7<br />
1954 961.8 1.93 236.3<br />
1957 1,130.8 2.08 296.3<br />
1959 1,152.7 1.90 313.1<br />
1960 1,313.5 1.80 333.7<br />
1964 1,896.5 1.80 523.2<br />
1970 2,799.1 1.80 1,214.0<br />
1971 4,768.9 1.80 1,884.9<br />
1972 6,016.3 1.80 • 2,744.6<br />
1973 7,596.2 2.85 4,340.0<br />
1974 8,479.7 11.25 22,573.5<br />
1975 7,075.4 12.4 25,675.8<br />
1976 8,577.2 12.4 30,754.9<br />
1977 9,199.9 13.00 36,540.1<br />
1978 8,301.1 12.70 32,233.8<br />
1979 9,532.6 24.00 48,435.2<br />
1980 9,900.5 32.00 84,466.4<br />
1981 9,808.0 34.00 101,813.0<br />
1982 6,500.0 34.00 70,478.6<br />
1983 5,100.0 29.00 37,351.6<br />
1984 4,700.0 29.00 31,470.3<br />
1985 3,100.0 28.00 18,322.9<br />
1986 4,689.8<br />
-<br />
13,554.8<br />
1987 3,991.0 - 17,489.3<br />
1988 4,928.1<br />
-<br />
16,638.0<br />
1989 4,863.5<br />
- -<br />
1990 - 31,122,2<br />
Sources: Saudi Aramco, 1989; Ismail M. Duais, 1986. (Numbers are rounded to nearest decimal). Kingdom<br />
of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Research and Statistics Department, Annual Report,<br />
1410/1411H (Riyadh: Ayyobi Printers, 1990), 190.
Overwhelmed by the new wealth, the nouveau riche royal family members<br />
constructed palaces and orchards and began spending on luxurious belongings hitherto<br />
considered contradictory to the austerity imposed by puritan Islamic traditions and<br />
72<br />
prodigious by desert standards. According to H. St. Philby, during the early the 1950s,<br />
the construction of Amir Abdullah's palace, presently the heir to King Fahad, cost 400,000<br />
English pounds, while a palatial house in the heart of Riyadh, where land prices had<br />
already began to soar, cost 15,000. He lamentably wrote<br />
Sad to say, the King remained alert enough to be aware of the extravagance<br />
and display on which his family and court spent oil revenue that was<br />
increasing almost hourly. Princes lost count of the noughts. Salesmen<br />
crowed round them like vultures after prey, and during the first years of<br />
plenty tempted them to endless expenditure on glitter and luxury; in Riyadh<br />
the largest of the new palaces consume three times as much electricity as the<br />
rest of city put together. 28<br />
The rest of the money went to establishing a standing army, a state-financed education and<br />
health care and the laying and surfacing of limited road network to meet the increasing use<br />
of automobiles.<br />
These dramatic improvements in the national economy were too fast for a traditional<br />
leadership to handle. The King's administration suffered from its tribal perception, which<br />
did not differentiate between what was for the King and what was for the people. Oil<br />
revenues were considered the property of the King. Commenting on the effects of these<br />
developments on the national scale, Howrath noted "while the members of the royal family<br />
wanted heavenly gardens, splendid cars and concrete palaces, Abd-al-Aziz wanted a royal<br />
railway from the Persian Gulf to Riyadh and then an extension to Jidah. The shrine was<br />
regarded by all of the advisors living in the country as an old man's folly." 29<br />
Nevertheless, the project, which was completed in 1951, profoundly altered the economic<br />
status of Riyadh and contributed to its growth as a modern capital during the 1950s. The<br />
completion of the railway coincided with the King's decision to demolish Riyadh's<br />
historical wall, ushering in the new era of the metropolis. The railroad served as the major<br />
means of transportation to the capital, which lay in the midst of the desert, until a paved<br />
road was laid in 1962 relieving the railway of its traffic and simultaneously encouraging the<br />
growth of new settlements which dotted the road and catered to the needs of travelers
73<br />
With the shift from traditional, bazaar urban economies to a modern economy based<br />
on oil exportation, dualism in urban economies emerged. This was characterized by the<br />
developing export-oriented commercial sector juxtaposed to the peasant agriculture and<br />
bazaar economies. Dualism refers to the presence of a modem sector, which endows cities<br />
with great economic opportunities, isolated from the subsistence activities of the<br />
population. In developing countries' literature, the phenomenon of dualism has been used<br />
to understand how cities continue to attract population. Moreover, dualism is argued to be<br />
fostered by the growing importance of the state in the economy. Economically speaking,<br />
the immense income furnished by oil exports has enabled the Saudi state to usher in<br />
economic growth in urban centers, while still leaving considerable funds for the<br />
development of rural areas.<br />
The changes brought by oil affluence were far reaching in all aspects of the society,<br />
including its physical environment. "Oil", wrote Philby in the late 1950s,<br />
has a twofold effect on the social economy of Saudi Arabia. In the first place,<br />
the wealth derived from it has created a desire for comfort and 'progress' on<br />
Western lines among the princes and well-to-do citizens of the country...The<br />
motor car, with its facilities for picnics, is a powerful agent in the direction of<br />
progress; and it would seem but a matter of time,when Westernization will<br />
become as general in Saudi Arabia as in its sister borderlands. 30<br />
The early government expansion of services resulted in slow urban growth as locals<br />
were attracted to work in the burgeoning government bureaucracy. The peasants, selfemployed<br />
petty traders, craftsmen, and nomads have gradually become wage-earners, as<br />
the economy transformed from a self-sufficient, domestic economy into an export-oriented<br />
one adapted to the international economy.<br />
IV. TWO DECADES OF TURMOIL (1953-1973): DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE<br />
AFTER KING ABDUL-AZIZ<br />
King Saud, at the age of 53, inherited the fledgling administration after his father's<br />
death and followed in the same steps as his father in governing the country. King Saud<br />
inherited the callow polity with defined national boundaries, a functioning administration,<br />
and a standing army, which though ill-equipped and trained, was by far superior to the<br />
poor-armed tribes. The expanding affluence of oil has since placed the King with an<br />
advantageous position vis-a-vis the undeveloped traditional sociopolitical institutions.<br />
King Saud, though lacking his father's enthusiasm and adroitness, was ready to launch
74<br />
modest efforts toward modernization which principally aimed at improving the population's<br />
welfare. It also aimed at coaxing the society into the twentieth century and kept the society<br />
in motion, yet in harmony with the state's vision. However, King Saud's reign was<br />
marked with diffidence and was also known for its indulgence of royal family members.<br />
Howrath wrote<br />
Back in Riyadh, they [the princes] had to find something to spend their<br />
money on, and among their thoughts were palaces...Saud embarked on a<br />
concrete edifice decorated in pink and gold, set in walled gardens equipped<br />
with swimming pools and fountains (supplied from artesian wells Americans<br />
had drilled), and with singing birds in cages, mosaic terraces, thousands of<br />
electric lights among the shrubs, and flood-lit minarets with loud-speakers on<br />
top for the call to prayers. It was said to have cost 4 million, and after a few<br />
years he...built another on the same site which, by the same rumour, cost 11<br />
million, and was even more garish and tasteless than the first. 31<br />
King Saud was faced with domestic, political, and economic turmoil as well as<br />
external political challenges. These mounting crises of the 1950s were partially caused by<br />
lopsided developments within the system. The Saudi society was undergoing rapid<br />
development, while at the same time the administration's functional specialization was<br />
lagging and decision making was centripetally crystalizing, so much so that when King<br />
Saud committed an official visit to Egypt in 1954, the administration came to a standstill.<br />
However, the 1950s was a decade of political upheavals in the Middle East. It witnessed<br />
the fall of Arab monarchies and the rise of revolutionary regimes on popular sentiments and<br />
the appeal to elusive slogans of wealth-sharing and Arab nationalism. The new middle<br />
classes in the Arab world that were spawned under colonialism and fostered by the<br />
modernization programs of the previous traditional monarchies, demanded political<br />
participation, faster change and more equitable distribution of wealth. In 1952 King<br />
Farouq of Egypt was toppled in a coup d'e tat by the military. In 1958, the Shariefian<br />
monarch of Iraq, King <strong>Faisal</strong>, was assassinated and his royal house members were brutally<br />
slaughtered in a humiliating showdown. His monarchic government was replaced by a<br />
revolutionary military junta. Prince Abudullah of Jordan was assassinated to be acceded by<br />
his young grandson Hussain whom later the Syrians plotted to overthrow.<br />
Such developments in the Middle East spawned anti-system ideologies in the<br />
Kingdom which were further complicated by a widening gap in the distribution of wealth.<br />
In 1953, Saudi ARAMCO workers went on strike twice demanding better working<br />
conditions. In 1956 they demonstrated when the government intended to renew the lease
75<br />
which gave the United States access to the use of the Dhahran air base. With swift<br />
response, the government issued the Royal Decree in 1956 which outlawed strikes of any<br />
kind and promised imprisonment for participating citizens and deportation for foreigners.<br />
Economically, the 1950s witnessed multiple financial crises. The national treasury<br />
weakened following Aramco's decision to reduce its production due to falling worldwide<br />
oil prices. A financial crisis in the country's one-crop oil economy ensued which translated<br />
into major cuts in payments to contractors, non-payment to importers for imported goods,<br />
and interruption and reduction of subsidies to tribal chiefs. The interruption of the<br />
previously steady rise in income of the population, coupled with the increasing<br />
moneytization of the economy, introduced the country to waves of inflation sending basic<br />
commodity prices soaring sky-high as gold and foreign reserves sunk to their lowest level.<br />
The Saudi currency, the Riyal, was devalued to half its value in the market thus raising the<br />
public debt in early 1958 to an unprecedented 1.8 billion Riyal. These problems caught the<br />
administration unprepared and caused commotion within the senior ranks of the royal<br />
family. The crisis was resolved by delegating more responsibilities to. Crown Prince<br />
<strong>Faisal</strong>, who was showing potency and shrewdness in his direction of progressive<br />
government posts and ministries.<br />
These dramatic developments signaled danger to the political stability of Saudi<br />
Arabia, as questions over the Monarchy's legitimacy surfaced, especially by those who<br />
were tuned to Egypt's Nasir, a well spoken demagogue who advocated Pan-Arab socialist<br />
ideology which engaged popular sentiments in the Arab World. His preaching caught<br />
desperate Arab followers in the political and intellectual vacuum that followed the departure<br />
of colonial powers. Nasir called for Arab nationalism and abetted Arabs to revolt against<br />
their monarchies which he perceived as anachronistic and obstacles to Arab unity. Such<br />
pressures were reflected in domestic policy in the form of a vision of economic<br />
development and administrative reform. <strong>Faisal</strong> introduced many reforms which, while they<br />
successfully mollified the crisis and promised progressiveness, reinforced divisiveness<br />
over the common goal of modernization under the nation-state.<br />
A. The Ten-Point Reform Program of 1963<br />
Saudi Arabia underwent dramatic changes in the general direction of modernization,<br />
particularly during the 1950s and 1960s. Such changes were both spontaneous and
76<br />
deliberate. They were spontaneous because they were incurred as byproducts of the<br />
modernization process, that is the exposure of the population to the outside world due to<br />
contact with expatriates and travel abroad. They were deliberate in the sense that they<br />
emanated from direct state intervention in the form of national development, including<br />
urban policies. Change necessitated the proliferation of news media and propaganda<br />
emanating from other regimes, all having profound effects on the society. For example, in<br />
1953 there were only two newspapers in the country, the official Um ul-Qura and Al<br />
Madinah Almonaourah. By 1966, the country had a dozen daily newspapers and weekly<br />
publications and television broadcasting was introduced in major cities despite explicit<br />
resentment by the Ulama. In 1985 the number of publications rose to 68 daily, weekly and<br />
monthly publications and by 1989, the number reached 73. 32<br />
These spontaneous developments have been supplemented by government policies •<br />
toward modernization. Historically, national modernization policies, points George<br />
Lenczowski, "could vaguely fall into two categories: the first, whose main objective was<br />
the techno-administrative and military strengthening of the state (such as the policies of<br />
Mohammed Ali in Egypt, Selim HI and Mahmoud n in Turkey), the second, which aimed<br />
at broader and deeper socio-political progress (such as the policies of the Young Turks or<br />
the Persian Constitutionalists). The Saudi modernization model, Lenczowski contends,<br />
straddles both categories, primarily fitting into the first one, with some practices belonging<br />
to the second. "This is so because reforms have been launched within the existing<br />
framework of political and religious legitimacy; no questions were encouraged regarding<br />
the fundamentals of this framework." 33<br />
The establishment of the Council of Minsters, in 1953, is considered the crucial step<br />
toward modernization. The introduction of a regular state budget in 1952-53 constituted<br />
the first attempt to separate the state treasury from the King's private purse. This step was<br />
followed by the creation of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) in 1958, the<br />
country's central bank, the Development Board, and in 1957, King Saud University in<br />
Riyadh, the first learning and research institution with specializations in secular,<br />
technological and scientific curriculum. The process of functional specialization of the<br />
government departments rose to a crescendo in the 1960s. The state inaugurated the<br />
Petroleum and Mineral Authority (Petromin), an agency devoted to the development of<br />
subterranean resources of the country. The decade also witnessed the proliferation of
77<br />
primary and secondary schools, including girls' education, teachers' colleges, hospitals<br />
and clinics.<br />
Faced internally with a bloated administration, sluggish economy, and rising popular<br />
resentment, and externally with widespread hostile political changes, Crown Prince <strong>Faisal</strong><br />
introduced a ten-point program which promised swift reform and opened the door for<br />
employment in the government. The reform bill promised an efficient allocation of national<br />
income and comprehensive modernization program, hence appealing to the business and<br />
merchant groups. It also won the support of the Ulama (religious scholars) due to its<br />
renewed commitment to religion and to the religious laymen because of its support for<br />
religion. Such a strategy has been characteristic of the national government's tradition of<br />
maintaining a delicate balance between traditionalists and secularists, seeking modernization<br />
within a framework of traditional acceptability.<br />
The reappointment of <strong>Faisal</strong> as prime minister on October 17,1962, closely followed<br />
the outbreak of the revolution and civil war in Yemen. Nasir of Egypt, whose Arab<br />
nationalism prior to the events in Yemin were mere rhetorical propaganda, took the<br />
opportunity and sided with the new military junta in Yemen, thereby posing imminent<br />
threats on Saudi borders. <strong>Faisal</strong> who was in the United States for medical treatment, met<br />
with U.S. President John F. Kennedy who ascertained the United States' commitment<br />
toward the integrity and security of the country. In a letter dated January 8,1963,<br />
President Kennedy encouraged <strong>Faisal</strong> to launch a program of "energetic reform and<br />
development; and in consideration of the above, pledged American support to 'the<br />
maintenance of Saudi Arabia's integrity.'" 34 The letter emphatically reflected the<br />
importance that Washington placed on Saudi Arabia due to the vitality of oil to the<br />
American economy.<br />
The United States' renewal of its commitments to safeguard the Kingdom and its<br />
political leadership was reflected upon <strong>Faisal</strong>'s joyous return to the country. His<br />
commitment to change and progressiveness lifted hopes in the population after a decade of<br />
widespread "financial mismanagement, extravagance of the palace-pampered princes, and<br />
an inconsistent foreign policy..." which was deemed incompetent in light of the dramatic<br />
developments in the region. Upon his arrival and encouraged by the Kennedy<br />
Administration, <strong>Faisal</strong> introduced a ten-point, reform package aimed at lifting the country<br />
from its financial morass and fine tuning the sluggish performance of the national policy
78<br />
making apparatus. The ten-point reform bill as introduced by <strong>Faisal</strong> can be summarized in<br />
the following points:<br />
1. The introduction of a basic law (a constitution) while adhering to Islamic law. It<br />
promised the establishment of a consultative council, Majlis Ashshura.<br />
2. The enactment of provincial legislation that would regulate the system of local<br />
governments.<br />
3. The creation of an independent judiciary and authorization of the establishment of a<br />
supreme judicial council and a ministry of justice.<br />
4. The promulgation that the structure of the judicial council would comprise<br />
members selected from both the lay jurists and the ulama community.<br />
5. A commitment to the spreading of Islamic information.<br />
6. The proclamation of reform and support of the religious agency responsible for the<br />
application of Islamic teachings concerning the preserving of public morality.<br />
7. A new program of state social obligations including the development of the<br />
education system, the provision of student scholarships, social security and the provision<br />
of Islamically compatible means of recreation for all citizens.<br />
8. A pledge for regulating economic relations and the enhancement of commercial<br />
activity and the introduction of legislation to assure progress and prosperity and economic<br />
investment.<br />
9. A pledged for economic developments, including improvements in roads, water<br />
resources, industry and self-sufficiency in agricultural production.<br />
10. The abolishment of slavery hitherto practiced in the country.<br />
The package was timely. It set forth an environment for a new round of<br />
modernization endeavor carefully intertwined with a proclaimed commitment to preserve<br />
the Islamic heritage of the Kingdom. The ten point reform simply reflected a long-awaited<br />
upgrading of the administrative apparatus to meet the rising expectations of the urban<br />
classes, who were exposed to foreign sociopolitical concepts and technology. It reflected
79<br />
the urgent need to shift gears to uplift the states' sagging reputation and appeal. For the<br />
United States, <strong>Faisal</strong>'s reform was timely as well as necessary to stave off the widespread<br />
revolutionary tides in the cold war era. To the U.S. economy in particular, and the West in<br />
general, a traditional monarchy, yet politically stable system seemed safer than a secularist<br />
and progressive system whose future was uncertain. According to Lenczowski, in the<br />
"pragmatic" sphere, <strong>Faisal</strong> scored an impressive success in the implementation of the<br />
program. With unusual speed, he restored the financial system, paid-off all debts,<br />
stabilized the currency and balanced the budget More important to this study, he<br />
earmarked special funds for national development. "Development itself began emerging<br />
from the stage of planning into the stage of execution." 35<br />
The development program accompanied the inauguration of numerous construction<br />
projects and substantial improvements in the infrastructure which were deemed necessary<br />
for future development. Foreign firms flocked to the country to execute the ambitious<br />
road-building, new airports and upgrading and expansion of telephone networks.<br />
Complex engineering projects were handled by foreign contractors who brought with them<br />
herds of laborers and professionals to build modern utilities in the rapidly growing towns<br />
and cities. <strong>Faisal</strong> also opened the door for Saudi employment in the government sector.<br />
By 1966, private business boomed under the prevailing, encouraging governmentsponsored<br />
modernization.<br />
However, the implementation of the ten-point reform bill fell short of what was<br />
promised. The first point which pertained to the endorsement of a constitution defining the<br />
mechanisms to regulate the national decision-making process guaranteeing more input on<br />
the population's part was not fulfilled. Such a failure coincides with Huntington's<br />
projection which states "the modernizing reforms of the monarch require the absence of<br />
elections, parliament and political parties." 36<br />
B. Institution Building and Consolidation<br />
Since the establishment of modern Saudi Arabia, the disintegration of certain modes<br />
of socioeconomic organization and the appearance of modern forms have proceeded in<br />
tandem. For example, the detribalization of the Saudi population has coincided with a<br />
massive and continuous movement of people from the desert and rural areas to urban and<br />
rural centers. Change has also been taking place in the form of abandoning traditional
80<br />
occupations. The emergence of the modern economy has gradually attracted the population<br />
into wage-earning employment in the government and the private sectors. For millennia,<br />
the Arabian Peninsula has been the home land of the nomads who have maintained a<br />
symbiotic relationship with the princely agrarian settlements' population. However, it must<br />
be noted that there is no clear cut delineation distinguishing the nomads from those living in<br />
the settled agricultural populations or urban centers. In addition to simple economic<br />
exchange and barter, conjugal relations have been maintained between the two, hence<br />
blurring the widely held demarcation which views bedouins as totally unbound by land<br />
locality and isolated from sedentary populations.<br />
This conceptual rigidity regarding the classification of the Saudi population has<br />
obfuscated the process of sedentarization in which the bedouins move gradually from one<br />
life style to another. Ostensibly, this involves a gradual and slow process often combining<br />
the two, or elements of both before they are absorbed into the sedentary mold. Recent<br />
studies have focused on such a process in response to the changing economic climate37<br />
An improved national economy and political stability have set in motion a process of<br />
sedentarization among the previously roving nomads. In terms of the resulting settlement<br />
pattern, they have been classified as nomadic, semi-nomadic and settled-bedouins. The<br />
first constitutes the original and historical form of nomadic herdsmen who roam in familiar<br />
territory seeking the sprouting grass following the scanty rains of the winter "taking into<br />
consideration the state of pasture and the accessibility to the market". 38 They make their<br />
livelihood by selling goats, sheep and their byproducts.<br />
The semi-nomads are half-settled segments of the bedouins who choose to settle in<br />
the proximity of urban centers and towns. Their decision to return to the desert life hinges<br />
on many factors such as economic and familia. The third group are those accustomed to<br />
the settled norms of towns. By and large, until the whole-sale provision of free-interest<br />
housing loans by the government, in the mid-1970s,they squatted on vacant interstices<br />
within the towns or inhabited the periphery in huts, houses built of makeshift materials and<br />
tents forming their own distinctive hamlets. In towns amidst agricultural hinterland, they<br />
are attracted by the increase in agricultural opportunities due to the introduction of<br />
government's incentives to farmers. Others are enticed by employment in the burgeoning<br />
public and private sectors, while others have engaged in the growing and lucrative smallscale<br />
manufacturing, construction and service economy.
81<br />
This intermittent process of sedentary among the bedouins has persisted for centuries.<br />
In more recent times of the Saudi reign, the two factors, growing oil economy and<br />
prolonged droughts, have worked together to expedite the influx of both village folks and<br />
bedouins to the seemingly merciful confines of the city. As first recipients of oil income,<br />
cities have increasingly become the embodiment of secure income outlets and its improved<br />
sanitary provisions have drastically swayed bedouins and villagers alike to forego the<br />
39<br />
precarious wilderness and rural poverty. The increasing demand for laborers in the<br />
fledgling oil industry in the Eastern Province and the government civil and military labor<br />
force has provided promising opportunities attracting throngs to the urban centers including<br />
foreigners. New settlements sprouted near Aramco's water wells and oil installationsthanks<br />
to the explosive growth in the national economy.<br />
Most importantly, the society's response to the new economic imperatives and<br />
realities was, in the political sphere, reflected in the shuffling of the society's associations<br />
and loyalties. The erosion of the traditional social, economic and cultural bases of the<br />
society have been paralleled by a similar process of institutional development and<br />
organization. The emergence of a strong and central government has gradually undermined<br />
the traditional authority of the bedouin tribe and dynastic squirearchies dominating the<br />
Peninsula's villages, and have paved the way for significant changes in the national life.<br />
The branching of the public administration, which began during the early years<br />
following the founding of the Kingdom, was culminated in the creation of the Council of<br />
Ministers (CM) in October 1953, during the last days of King Abdul-Aziz's reign, a step<br />
which constitutes a closing chapter in the country's modern history. The creation of the<br />
Council marked the transition from one man rule to ministerial administration. CM<br />
heralded the proliferation of government specialized departments reflecting the need to meet<br />
the growing functional and administrative complexities of the new nation-state, thanks to<br />
the increased oil revenues which poured into the state treasury. Economically, such<br />
proliferation has paralleled the gradual increase of state economic strength following the<br />
discovery of oil in commercial quantities in 1932. Al-Said wrote:
82<br />
The mushrooming of governmental institutions represented an attempt to cope<br />
with the condition of 'rising expectations'. As the citizens hear of the<br />
building of new schools and municipalities in neighboring towns and cities,<br />
delegations would go to the capital and demand similar privileges. As a<br />
result, limited and understaffed ministries of yesterday were giving way to<br />
larger and more numerous ministries and bureaus. 40<br />
The steady growth of the Saudi government bureaucracy and apparatus has been<br />
accompanied by a process of weakening traditional and local power centers. In its efforts<br />
to dissolve traditional, competing political factions of the traditional era, and instead of<br />
building on the already established representative tribal system of the past and its cultural<br />
heritage, the state forewent traditional nodes of authority, for examples, the city notables<br />
and bedouin chiefs, as residual of tribal structures. The swearing of the King at the top of<br />
the government echelon meant the dismantling of the strong traditional loyalty of the<br />
population to the tribe and the extended family. This process has taken two forms. In the<br />
case of towns, the process of weakening the traditional forms of authority can be discerned<br />
in the diminishing powers of the old system of city "notables." Such a weakening has<br />
paralleled the shift of authority to a central government and its branching bureaucracy at the<br />
national level. Hence, the city and town notables, the bedouin sheikh, and provincial emirs<br />
were denied active representative roles under the new nation-state. 41<br />
The old system of<br />
the quarter of the traditional Islamic city, which organized around the tribe and place of<br />
origin and enjoyed semi-autonomous control by its residents, crumbled. It was supplanted<br />
by a new system of central bureaucratic control and hierarchical administration.<br />
The process of debasing city notables similarly occurred in the bedouin tribes. The<br />
increasing centrality of the national government in the local affairs of the society has<br />
undermined bedouins' loyalty to the tribe, a sacred relation for millinea. This development<br />
was best evident in a study in which the authors state<br />
Even among bedouins, we are told, the older tribal and sub-tribal allegiance<br />
are being replaced by the idea that the center and the tribal head or his<br />
subordinate is seen as the source of effective power and the place for<br />
submitting petitions and bringing requests. Wealth has loosened the<br />
connections between tribal leaders and the common man, and the rise of a<br />
wealthy central government has, together with this, promoted a more direct<br />
relationship between the people [at large] and [those at] the top 42<br />
From the previous direct and autonomous control of the Saudi subjects, tribal<br />
sheikhs, provincial emirs and city notables roles were reduced to that of consultation and
83<br />
petitioning of the central government for their populace. Al-Said (1982) wrote "The central<br />
government never felt that this was more than a mere privilege to suggest, and when it<br />
deemed it necessary, its plans and projects were carried out despite the notables'<br />
objections."43 Emirs of provinces have since served as representatives for the central<br />
government, overseeing state ordained civil tasks and police powers, executing state's<br />
projects, and supervising the subjects.<br />
No effort was made to sustain and incorporate the traditional system of authority.<br />
Instead, the expansion of central state control took the form of provincial branching of the<br />
bureaucracy, new functions obviated the old ones, and bureaucratic procedures supplanted<br />
traditional consultative decision-making at the local community level. Early government<br />
projects such as those from the 1930s to 1950s were slow and simple (e.g., digging water<br />
wells; building dams, roads, schools, health clinics; and providing police protection) and<br />
did not significantly alter the old system of authority. However, due to the the dramatic<br />
political and economic developments of the 1960s and 1970s, the mushrooming of<br />
government services included the establishment of new branches within the ministries. The<br />
rapid growth of state departments called for employing not only out of town and regional<br />
personnel but foreigners as well. For example, between 1962 and 1967, the number of<br />
government employees doubled. It was then that the traditional powers and representatives<br />
of the multi-power traditional authority system were radically challenged and altered. The<br />
buttressing of central control was the government's national priority to stave off the<br />
centuries-long tendencies of fragmentation and provincialism.<br />
This process of modernization under the auspice of the central power has been<br />
complemented with the national educational programs which have promoted the a new<br />
values of the nation-state, hence becoming a catalyst for new national consciousness.<br />
Generous allocations in the creation of new schools, universities and other learning<br />
institutions which provide free education to citizens and scholarships to study abroad were<br />
designed to encourage the break with the historical isolationism among young people, all<br />
meant to prepare the population for economic prosperity in the future. During the last two<br />
decades, the student population has increased from nearly 600,000 to 2,500,000.<br />
Simultaneously, this process of national homogenization has gradually altered the<br />
millennia-long tradition of the identification of locals in reference to their tribal or towns of<br />
origin.
84<br />
Technology constitutes a third factor in shaping the departure of the society from its<br />
traditional past. The improved national economy accelerated the use of automobiles and<br />
other forms of transportation. While in 1970 there were 8,000 kilometers of paved road<br />
network, in 1990 it reached 32,000. The increased use of telecommunication systems<br />
eased the otherwise difficult dismantling of isolated enclaves of populations. The number<br />
of working telephones lines increased from 29,000 in 1970 to 1,500,000 in 1990. With<br />
the building of roads and installation of telephone networks, travel became easy and safe,<br />
allowing extended family members to maintain contact The state's ownership of mass<br />
media channels, such as radio and television, and state regulation of the press, coupled<br />
with central education programs, all have facilitated the creation of national values<br />
conducive to the larger, modern society. In addition, the establishment of a standing army<br />
and effective and organized police power have assured security making transport routes<br />
safe, easing both travel and the movement of goods and products. In short, the combined<br />
effects of these factors have paved the way for the process of substituting the state and the<br />
mobile nuclear family for the clan and the tribe as the major social units in tune with the<br />
modern needs of the modern age.<br />
The new centralized decision making took place at the village, town and city levels.<br />
As the bureaucracy expanded, the notables' influence as a viable social force different city<br />
neighborhoods, gradually diminished. The social ranks of the town emirs, and bedouin<br />
sheikhs declined with their death or mere passage of time along with their multi-power<br />
traditional institutions. Meanwhile, the eclipse of traditional authority as represented by the<br />
provincial and town's emir, the bedouin sheikh and city notables have eased the historically<br />
latent provincial particularism, hence expediting the consolidation of the centralized nationstate.<br />
This encroachment constitutes a great inroad into the old system. It was an<br />
inevitable outcome, argues A1 Said, not" a response to the state's need for asserting its<br />
authority nor the removal of local obstacles for the implementation of its plans and projects"<br />
by the central government. Rather, "it was a natural outcome, of the tendency to confer<br />
more power on the central government, due in no small measures to the Council of<br />
Minsters' emergence as a viable source of authority." 44<br />
While in Saudi Arabia the reform programs emphasized modernization in the social<br />
and urban spheres, little effort, if any, has been awarded to political development.<br />
Contrary to Huntington's theory, the modernization steps have not undermined the status<br />
quo. The "traditional reformer" as applied to Saudi Arabian government, has scored wide
85<br />
leaps toward modernity. And instead of isolationism, the Saudi government has opted for<br />
accelerated development affecting all aspects of the society. By 1990,77.3 percent of the<br />
Saudi population lived in cities designated "urban," that is settlements inhabited by 5,000<br />
and more. 45 Change has also been reflected in the steady growth of the middle class<br />
paralleling the government's massive allocation in education, infrastructural development,<br />
and industrialization which have had the impact of promoting the private sector and<br />
recruiting considerable employment in the public sector. The freeing of the populace from<br />
low-earning agricultural and handicraft occupations has created a labor force dependent on<br />
the state. This dependency on government employment has supplanted allegiance to the old<br />
ruling classes of the settled village-states and tribal association. Nevertheless, acute exodus<br />
to urban centers at the cost of abandoning poverty-ridden rural areas, characteristic of<br />
modern urbanization, has been tempered by the state's agricultural incentives.<br />
C. Agricultural Development and Policy<br />
Saudi Arabia's topography is essentially an expanse of desert; out of the country's<br />
one million square miles, only 1.3 percent of the land is suitable for settled agriculture.<br />
The agricultural population sparsely inhabits the desert oases and the southwestern<br />
mountainous slopes. Agriculture in Saudi Arabia was historically carried out by the settled<br />
agriculturalists and by semi-nomadic bedouins who in the better rain-watered areas<br />
practiced cereal cultivation as a supplement to animal husbandry. The transformation of the<br />
Saudi Arabian society from its pre-industrial, agrarian and pastoral ways of life to an<br />
urbanized, developing society has come at the expense of its traditional economy. Since<br />
the 1940s, oil has gradually replaced agriculture as the mainstay of towns' subsistence<br />
economy. Also, the oil industry and state jobs encouraged nomadic bedouins, who have<br />
traditionally provided the needs of towns' population for meat and dairy products, to<br />
abandon their pastoral life.<br />
Traditionally, industrialization requires the moving of national resources out of<br />
agriculture to manufacturing, a substitution of capital for labor, and the freeing of labor to<br />
move from agriculture to industry, all results in outmigration from farms. This is because<br />
industrialization entails the adoption of advance of technology in agricultural production.<br />
The confluence of urbanization, foreign migration, and rising living standards, rendered<br />
local agriculture, still primitive and reliant on inefficient methods geared to a subsistence<br />
economy, unable to meet the increasing demand for food. The oil affluence, though
86<br />
directly targeted at the urban centers during the first decades, reflected indirectly on the<br />
rural areas by an exodus to the major centers. The growing city offered far better wages<br />
and services, particularly in the booming oil and construction industries and the expanding<br />
public sector attracted both nomads and villagers. For example, during the early 1970s, the<br />
oil company offered an average annual wage of $2,675 for an unskilled laborer, while a<br />
self-employed worker in agriculture received an average annual wage of $250. 46<br />
Moreover, due to incessant migration, farmers suffered the loss of both supply of labor and<br />
falling markets.<br />
Unable to modernize apace with growing demand, agricultural production dwindled<br />
as young farmers sought formal education and moved to the promising city. Compounded<br />
by the influx of foreigners, urban population multiplied and with its nominal growth and<br />
the rise in living standards, the demand for food production soared. The rising gap<br />
between demand and production was immediately countered by rising foodstuff imports.<br />
In addition, the government introduced various incentives to boost the meager agriculture<br />
output. During the 1940s, King Abdul-Aziz contracted an American team to conduct a<br />
study to assess and identify the agricultural potential in the Kingdom. In 1948, the first<br />
department to handle agricultural development was created. Its first tasks were to help<br />
farmers obtain ground water by mechanical means and dig new wells to increase output It<br />
also supplied seeds and provided professional help to farmers on modern farming<br />
techniques.<br />
These efforts fell short of their goal. During the 1950s, local agricultural production<br />
lagged and food shortages persisted. Incentives were increased comprising subsidies for<br />
seeds and fruit trees, low-cost rents for agricultural machinery, government-paid<br />
agricultural education and training, experts' advice in the use of chemical insecticides,<br />
instruction in food preparation, the establishment of nurseries to supply farmers with<br />
needed trees and to provide transplantation, and free veterinary treatment and checkups.<br />
Moreover, financial backing included free-interest loans to help fanners buy equipment and<br />
other necessities to expand production. In addition to direct incentives in the agricultural<br />
sector, the government endowed rural areas with services to counter city-ward migration.<br />
Hospitals in major towns, and health clinics in some villages as well as mobile clinics for<br />
desolate areas were built and provided. This commitment to the rejuvenation of the rural<br />
sector stemmed from the government's effort to allocate national income to attain a<br />
"balanced" urban-rural growth and minimize over-urbanization in the form of concentration
87<br />
of surplus population in urban centers while rural areas continue to lose its agriculturalists.<br />
The state perceived the pursuance of agricultural self-sufficiency as a viable national goal to<br />
minimize national dependence on food imports.<br />
In his national address to the Saudi people in 1985, King Fahad A1 Saud highlighted<br />
the government's approach to the development of the Saudi Arabia's various regions. He<br />
stated that "Our goals are to provide all citizens, whether in villages, cities, or distant areas<br />
the same [public] services...the goals of the Kingdom are those of sustaining the pillars of<br />
Allah's [Islamic] shariy'ah and the implementation of it in all aspects, then to use all<br />
resources that Allah has bestowed on us and exert our utmost efforts to attain the<br />
comprehensive development and the rise of the standard of living." 47 Rural areas were<br />
bestowed with considerable national funds in the form of subsidies and social services to<br />
fanners, including housing loans, similar to hose for urban centers.<br />
This commitment was translated in the continuing improvements in rural services<br />
including increase in the number and quality of public schools in urban and rural areas at an<br />
accelerating pace. 48 However, while these efforts were meant to promote agriculture and<br />
to achieve balanced regional growth, their overall effectiveness is questionable.<br />
Traditionally, nomads' children begin tending the livestock in their early years and<br />
schooling attracts them away from this endeavor, thus causing the departure from<br />
traditional habitation, which hitherto supplied meat and dairy products to towns' people.<br />
The government's education policy also provided stipends for students and free education<br />
at the college level. This encouraged young ruralists and bedouins alike to seek formal<br />
education and eventually to move either to the growing service sectors or to urban areas, in<br />
both cases the farming industry suffers a loss.<br />
In 1963, some 475,000, or 72 percent, of the economically active nationals were<br />
designated 'agricultural workers and bedouin'. In 1975,52 percent of the national work<br />
force was involved in 'agriculture and fishing'. By 1986, the proportion of Saudi nationals<br />
working in agriculture dropped to 11 percent of the total Saudi labor force. 49 This is due to<br />
the country's dependence on foreign expatriate labor to meet the expanding needs of the<br />
modem economy, in general, and agriculture, in particular. However, though Saudis,<br />
particularly the young, have increasingly abandoned agricultural activity, city-ward<br />
migration among Saudis has been alleviated, thanks to the government's policies and
88<br />
subsidies which have resulted in the creation of government employment, improvement of<br />
services and living conditions in rural areas.<br />
The 1970s construction boom resulted in the importation of large numbers of foreign<br />
expatriates, which resulted in a shortage of food stuffs. The state had to rely on foreign<br />
food production to import between seventy-five to eighty percent of its food needs from<br />
abroad. 50<br />
In 1971, the bill for foodstuffs accounted for 31.6 percent of imports totaling<br />
SR 3,197 million (in 1971 four Saudi Riyal (SR) equaled $1.00 in U.S. currency). This<br />
shortage in local agricultural production prompted substantial inducements by the<br />
government to help farmers improve their agricultural techniques and bedouins to practice<br />
settled farming on a larger scale. Investments in modern agriculture, specifically in poultry<br />
and dairy farms multiplied. The Third Development Plan of 1980-85 earmarked<br />
considerable incentives to attain "self sufficiency" in some food productions deemed<br />
strategic for national security such as wheat. By 1987, foodstuff imports were reduced to<br />
17.1 percent, though in nominal terms the value rose to SR 12.9 billion (1987 the<br />
$1.00=SR 3.75). 51<br />
This commitment has conditioned the restructuring of the country's national spatial<br />
network. The allocation of agricultural subsidies, housing loans and other cash benefits in<br />
rural areas constituted strong economic incentives to farmers to retain their rural life.<br />
Consequently, the high demand for laborers for the modern sector of the economy was met<br />
by importing foreign laborers. Commenting on the effects of the government agricultural<br />
programs, Clive A. Sinclair and J.S. Birks wrote<br />
Paradoxically, the government's recent attempts to transform farming in Saudi<br />
Arabia (other than by instigating major large-scale projects) through the<br />
extension of loans and grants to small fanners with the object of aiding their<br />
mechanization and modernization have been instrumental in the preservation<br />
of a subsistence-based traditional rural sector. Loans and grants taken by<br />
farmers are not always used for investment purposes and are often spent on<br />
consumption. If invested, then the capital so provided remains underutilized,<br />
either because of poor management or for want of sufficient labor inputs.<br />
Thus grants and loans to farmers, directed toward investment in small-scale<br />
agriculture, are taken as income by the fanners. 52<br />
In many Developing countries, economic disparities between regions result in<br />
massive city-ward movement leaving the rural areas in its historical penury. In these<br />
countries, the concentration of industrial development in growth centers is rationalized on
89<br />
the premise that Ml benefits of external economies will be maximized. This leads to dual<br />
structured economies in which the majority of state energies go to the one or a few urban<br />
centers where intense and rapid growth occurs while the periphery is left to decline and<br />
stagnate. Due to the peculiarities of the Saudi development (i.e. the reliance on oil riches)<br />
this situation has been largely avoided. The agricultural programs of the government have<br />
had their share in conditioning the contemporary spatial organization of the Kingdom.<br />
Starting with King Abdul-Aziz' hijar (agricultural-religious colonies program to settle the<br />
bedouins) the emphasis on developing the rural areas by the government has alleviated the<br />
widening gap of economic opportunities between the city and their rural hinterlands. Due<br />
to government subsidized agricultural programs, the local production of major food items<br />
such as red and white meat, milk, vegetables, fruits and fish, is said to meet 70 percent of<br />
the national demand. 53<br />
D. Industrialization and Saudi Industrial Policy<br />
Traditionally, Saudi Arabia is a non-industrial country in the modern usage of the<br />
term. In 1954, there were five industrial establishments worth a total capital of SR 42<br />
million. Modem industrial activity owes its start to the enlistment of foreign capital to<br />
exploit the oil reserves of the country. This constituted a radical shift eclipsing the<br />
country's pre-industrial modes of production of urban handicraft and heralded an epoch of<br />
industrialization and economic growth. Yet, since its inception, the oil industry has been<br />
highly capital intensive, it demanded a low number of labor force (only 1.1 percent of the<br />
total Saudi nationals work in the oil industry, whose share in the Gross National Product<br />
(GNP) amounts to 38 percent). 54 Table 3.2 illustrates the distribution of the Saudi labor<br />
force by major economic activity.<br />
In the 1950s there were only few private Saudi firms which existed in the Eastern<br />
Province due to Aramco's support. They were largely geared toward the oil company's<br />
generated services. The construction boom in the cities stimulated the growth of some<br />
small industries manufacturing building materials, furniture and other household needs.<br />
The private sector's interest in industrial investment has been growing slowly, dependant<br />
on, first, Aramco's needs since the 1940s, and, later, on the government's generous aid.<br />
This slow development of a bona fide industrial sector can be attributed to several factors.<br />
Firstly, faced with fierce foreign competition, the traditional one-man shop handicraft<br />
industry has gradually given way to an onslaught of imported mechanized products.
90<br />
Owners and their apprentices joined the wage-earning labor force while their young family<br />
members joined the schooling system. The bazaar-oriented self-sufficient economies have<br />
transformed into consumer-oriented economies which offer higher income attracting urban<br />
merchants, traders, and countrymen alike.<br />
Table 3.2<br />
Distribution Of The Labor Force, Saudis and Non-Saudis, By Economic<br />
Activity.<br />
Type of Services Finance Trans- Trade Constru-Utilities Manufac Mining Agricult-<br />
Activity portation ction -turing ure<br />
No. of 765,000 33,000 125,000133,000 53,000 32,000 37,000 51,000 145,000<br />
Saudis<br />
Percent. 55% 2% 9% 10-% 4% 2% 3% 4% 11%<br />
Non- 620,425 59,500 105,230 461,763 820,334 32,978 283,004 10,503 91,595<br />
Saudis<br />
Percent. 25% 3% 4% 19% 33% 1% 11% * 4%<br />
Total 1,385,4132,500 230,230 594,763 873,334 64,978 320,004 61,503 236,595<br />
* Number of workers is less than 0.5%<br />
Source: Ministry of Planning. Fifth Development Plan: 1410-1415/1990-1995. Riyadh: Ministry of<br />
Planning Press, c.1989.<br />
Secondly, the vigorous development programs of the state, coupled with promotion<br />
industrial policies favoring Saudi establishments in particular, created a lucrative business<br />
environment. Considerable sums of national income were channelled into nonproductive<br />
sectors such as construction and trade, finance and services, which account for 28.1<br />
percent and 31.4 percent of the national labor forces respectively. Therefore, private<br />
investment has concentrated in the lucrative growing construction sector during the 1970s<br />
and early 1980s. Since the mid-1980s, it concentrated on the growing markets of services<br />
and consumer goods.<br />
To encourage Saudis and foreign industrial enterprise, the government introduced the<br />
Protection and Encouragement of National Industries Ordinance in 1963. Under this<br />
Ordinance, Saudi entrepreneurs were entitled to free land for their factories, custom-free
91<br />
imports of raw materials and machinery and protection against imports. But these efforts<br />
produced meager results. Peter Mansfield noted<br />
By the end of the 1960s some 180 small firms had been licensed, about half<br />
of them related to the building industry and the rest in food processing,<br />
clothing, and printing. Of the eight thousand so-called manufacturing<br />
establishments at that time, 90 percent were no more than workshops<br />
employing two or three people-bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, etc. 55<br />
The manufacturing sector comprises 14 percent of the Kingdom's labor force (Table 3:3).<br />
Given these factors, Saudi industry proceeded slowly and depended on state cosponsorship.<br />
The industry fed directly or indirectly on government expenditures and<br />
subsidies rather than being itself a major source of government revenues through taxation.<br />
For example, by the mid 1970s, there were only 300 factories in the country, with a total<br />
capital of $100 million. Due largely to state incentives and subsidies, the number of light<br />
or conversion industries rose to 600 establishments by 1982 with a total capital value<br />
approximating $7 billion. These industries were mainly, small-scale establishments<br />
(occupying smaller industrial plants manufacturing items including door-frames, furniture,<br />
and nails) whose owners essentially imported most of the raw materials for industrial<br />
assembly for the local market and relied on foreign expatriates for labor. Moreover, these<br />
small-scale and medium size industrial businesses were given priority to supply public<br />
project needs. The private sector grew heavily dependent on the state; yet despite its great<br />
backing, the private sector's contribution to the national gross product was estimated at<br />
only 37.8 percent. According to the Fifth Development Plan,<br />
Over the last four plan periods, the government sector has accounted for<br />
between 55 percent and 75 percent of the total investment in the economy.<br />
Furthermore, much of the remaining investment, which was undertaken by<br />
the private sector, was financed by government development agencies.<br />
Although the private sector has accumulated substantial financial assets as a<br />
result of strong economic growth in the past, only a relatively small fraction<br />
has been invested within the Kingdom. 56<br />
The meager involvement by the private sector was attributed to, first, the provision of<br />
interest-free loans by the government, as opposed to those offered by private institutions,<br />
and secondly, to the "difficulties of finding viable new investment opportunities, given the<br />
relatively small domestic market." 57 The slow response by private capital was attributed to<br />
the difficulty to switch "speedily and successfully from government-led economy based on
92<br />
TABLE 3.3<br />
Estimated GDP Contribution by the Private Sector* and Employment by<br />
Sector (1410/1989)<br />
Value Added Estimated Private Sector Employment Employment<br />
(SR billion) Share (%) 1989 Distribution<br />
(%)<br />
PRODUCING 88.0 79.4<br />
SECTORS<br />
Agriculture 22.2 99.0 569,200 9.9<br />
Other Mining 1.7 95.0 3,500 0.1<br />
Manufacturing 33.1 48.6 374,900 6.4<br />
—Petroleum Refining 17.9 18.0 14,600 0.2<br />
—Petrochemicals 4.9 63.0 6,200 0.1<br />
-Other Manufacture. 10.3 95.0 354,100 6.1<br />
Public Utilities 0.8 18.0 126,900 2.2<br />
Construction 31.8 95.0 944,100 16.4<br />
-Sub-Total 2,018,600<br />
SERVICE<br />
SECTORS<br />
Trade 28.2 99.0 898,300 15.6<br />
Transport, 21.7 15.0 262,300 4.5<br />
Communications<br />
Finance, Real Estate 23.0 95.0 262,300 1.7<br />
Community and 9.9 90.0 99,000 31.6<br />
Personal Services<br />
Sub-total: Non-Oil 170.8 77.2 3,081,600 53.4<br />
Producing/Service<br />
Sectors<br />
Gov.Sector ^<br />
56.2<br />
-<br />
624,800 10:8<br />
Sub-total: Non-Oil 227.0 58.1 5,725,000 99.2<br />
Sectors<br />
Crude Oil/Gas Sector 122.3 46,800 0.8<br />
Total Employment 5,771,800 100<br />
Gross Domestic Product 349.3 37.8<br />
Excludes non-civilian employment and includes daily wage workers not classified as civil servants.<br />
Source: Fifth Development Plan, 1410/1990-1415/1995.
93<br />
oil exports and infrastructural investment to a free-market in less than 20 years" giving its<br />
eo<br />
traditional culture and values. Islamic teachings strongly discourage interest-baring<br />
lending methods as practiced by Western-like banking firms.<br />
This "conventional" approach emphasizing small-scale private-sector industries, was<br />
altered when, beginning in the early 1960s, the government showed a new interest in<br />
exploiting relatively cheap crude oil and previously wasted natural gas for large-scale<br />
capital-intensive industry. During the course of its developmental experience, the Saudi<br />
polity has come to recognize the great potential for economic diversification, hence<br />
reducing its dependence on the exportation of crude oil. New emphasis was awarded to<br />
petrochemical and heavy industries. The objective was to engage the society in effective,<br />
productive industrial activity using oil and natural gas. In 1960, the government<br />
approached foreign companies with the idea, but to no avail. In 1961, Petromin was<br />
established by the the government to handle the marketing of oil products and to pioneer<br />
mining efforts for other non-fuel natural resources.<br />
State support for industrialization was increased when King <strong>Faisal</strong> ascended the<br />
throne in 1964. In 1965, the Saudi Arabian Fertilizing Company (SAFCO) was launched<br />
on the concept of utilizing cheap and abundant local natural gas, previously left to burn<br />
unused. A joint-venture contract between Petromin and <strong>Dr</strong>. Armand Hammer, of the<br />
Occidental Petroleum Corporation was signed to build facilities and assume production.<br />
Following a decade of sluggish functioning, and falling urea prices world wide, SAFCO<br />
performance was improved by late 1979 due to change in management and rising urea<br />
prices. SAFCO provided the backdrop for the petrochemical industry, a benchmark in the<br />
Saudi industrial development during the 1980s, for such shift from "conventional<br />
approach" to that of capital-intensive, petrochemical industries utilizing local oil and natural<br />
gas, offers better prospects for efficient allocation of national resources and minimizing<br />
dependency on foreign labor.<br />
In its announcements and publications, the government has acknowledged the<br />
depletable nature of the country's large oil reserves. The second and third Five-Year Plans<br />
of 1975-85 gave priority to develop the productive sectors of the economy, manufacturing,<br />
non-fuel minerals, and agriculture. The first and second Five-Year Plans were adopted<br />
with the vision of expanding the infrastructure and services deemed essential for the<br />
efficient functioning of the productive sectors such as education and training, water and
94<br />
electricity, transportation and communications, and banking and finance. Farouk Akhdar,<br />
Secretary General of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, summarized the thrust<br />
which underlies the Saudi developmental activities in the industrial sector. He wrote:<br />
The fundamental goal of Saudi industrialization is to foster the diversification<br />
of the economic base in order to reduce the Kingdom's overwhelming<br />
dependence on the oil sector, to achieve greater economic sufficiency and<br />
protection from external supply disruptions, and to gain the cost advantages<br />
from domestic manufacturing activity. 59<br />
To achieve these objectives, the government has followed a strategy of promoting<br />
investment in the manufacturing industry by offering a wide range of financial, tariff, and<br />
other incentives to qualified Saudi investors. For large-scale industrial projects beyond the<br />
capabilities of the private sector, the state has entered into joint-venture partnerships with<br />
foreign firms who are assigned managerial, technical and marketing tasks. Under the first<br />
two approaches, or "conventional paths," the state provides incentives and subsidies under<br />
the industrial promotion programs. By 1990, there were 2,160 working factories and 400<br />
new factories to be added in the period 1990-1995. But with improved state assets in the<br />
1970s, the government espoused a radical approach aimed at the construction of two<br />
"large, completely new hydrocarbon-oriented industrial cities." Akhdar continued "the<br />
urban industrial complexes at Jubail and Yanbu constitute the centerpieces of the<br />
Kingdom's heavy industrialization program. They reflect the government's commitment to<br />
develop a large-scale, hydrocarbon-based and energy-intensive industries such as<br />
petrochemicals, fertilizers, and iron and steel". 60 In short, the industrialization of the<br />
Kingdom owes its character and direction to the state's vision, initiative and cosponsorship,<br />
and not to an established private sector.<br />
E. The Emergence of the Middle Class<br />
The combined effects of the creation of the nation-state, the connecting of the local<br />
economy to that of the international economy, and the political framework of the state, all<br />
set in motion the process for social stratification. One manifestation of this transformation<br />
is the emergence of the middle class. As noted earlier, the massive financial allocation for<br />
state-sponsored education and modern technology, among other things, have weakened the<br />
previously strong influence of the clan. Upward mobility in the new economic order has<br />
increasingly been based on ascription and educational background, rather than family
95<br />
determined by social status. The burgeoning bureaucracy and the service-import business<br />
have required backgrounds in formal education rather than apprenticeship. As<br />
transportation technology rapidly improved, occupational opportunities have become<br />
unbound by geographical locality. The prosperity brought by the discovery of oil enabled<br />
many people the chance to enter the business world. This process is well illustrated in<br />
Gary Samore's words:<br />
The rapid pace of the development in Saudi has given birth to new social<br />
groups- administrators, skilled labor, army officers and professionals- that are<br />
not part of either the religious hierarchy, the ruling family, or the tribal<br />
order...Modernization has lured young bedouins from the desert to the city,<br />
weakening the tribal structure. 61<br />
With the improvements in the economy, the society gradually started to distance itself<br />
from pre-industrial modes. This distancing occurred slowly during the first three decades<br />
of the Kingdom, but rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s. Concomitantly, cleavages of the<br />
essentially mono-class society ensued due to the increasing gap in the distribution of oil<br />
wealth and the specialization of labor. The 1950s witnessed the expansion of the wealthy<br />
echelon comprising royal family members emerging at the top of a majority of the<br />
population essentially mired in pre-industrial poverty. An upper middle class started to<br />
form, encompassing administrators, the King's aides and royal entourage (retinues), and<br />
the merchant class (and shopkeepers) whose members rushed to reap the opportunities of<br />
the rapidly expanding import business. The merchant class expanded, paralleling the<br />
increase in the standard of living.<br />
The new middle class swelled corresponding to the growth of the modern economy.<br />
It encompassed managers, engineers and skilled technicians who grew to hold assets in<br />
towns and cities diversifying the private business with specialized shops, mechanized<br />
garages, transportation operators, chauffeurs and taxi drivers, and the like. In addition to<br />
the merchant class, both a new growing administrative and professional strata began to join<br />
the ranks of the burgeoning middle class. The transition to the industrial modes of<br />
production was characterized by a far flung division of labor and the imposition of a system<br />
of wage-earning working and professional classes. In the span of fifty years, the<br />
traditional, economically impoverished society mutated to an urban, educated class<br />
involved in the modern economy. Between 1965 and 1985, in nominal terms, the middle<br />
class grew from 14,900 to 113,200, while its proportion within the Saudi labor force grew
96<br />
2.1 percent to 8.1 percent during the same period, attesting to the emergence of the new<br />
middle class as a substantial factor in the Saudi society. 62 All in all, the introduction and<br />
growth of the bureaucracy has swelled the middle class, traditionally limited to the small<br />
merchant and landed aristocracy classes. Later in this study, I will show how this growing<br />
middle class selectively opted the new suburbs where land subdivisions are laid according<br />
to the grid and the villa, instead of the courtyard house and the organic compact layout both<br />
governed by religious and physical factors.<br />
V. URBANIZATION AND URBAN RESTRUCTURING OF THE NATION<br />
Urbanization is a function of increase in national population living in cities and the<br />
increase in the number of settlements designated as cities, while urban growth is a function<br />
of the rate of natural increase (births minus deaths) and city-ward migration. But this does.<br />
not answer the question as to why urban growth proceeded so much more rapidly than did<br />
the total population growth (3 percent per annum). Urban growth in Saudi Arabia has been<br />
extremely rapid (running at from 10 to 12 percent per annum) natural increase, rural<br />
migration and immigrants from outside the country, especially during the 1970s (Table<br />
3.4). One powerful force in shifting population from rural to urban locations was the direct<br />
and indirect impact of the rapidly expanding oil industry. (The direct impact is that of<br />
urbanization spurred by the oil industry's need for workers while the indirect impact is<br />
related to oil revenues available to the state which in turn allotted money to modernizing the<br />
society.)<br />
Foreigners rushed to the Kingdom to fill the demand for semi-skilled and<br />
professional occupations created by the new oil industry (Table 3.4). In the Eastern<br />
Province, where oil activity is prevalent, old towns prospered and new ones sprouted to<br />
house the increasing urban population. In other parts of the country, nomad, rural-and<br />
foreign migration increased in response to the growing government employment, services<br />
and investment which targeted urban centers first.<br />
Due to the kaleidoscopic developments at the national level, the urban sphere has<br />
mutated exhibiting change in a profound fashion. Firstly, the new oil industry offered<br />
good job opportunities, attracting both bedouins and agriculturalists to the gradually<br />
expanding oil industry in the Eastern Province. For example, by the mid-1970s the<br />
average annual income for an unskilled worker in the oil industry averaged $2,675, while a
97<br />
self-employed peasant earned a meager annual income of $250. 63 In addition, the<br />
provision of services in the oil-producing region's towns has aggravated urbanization<br />
pulling, bedouins and peasants from the vagaries of rural life into large towns. In 1970,<br />
the agricultural sector accounted for 40.4 per cent of the Saudi labor force and, by 1975,<br />
the agricultural labor force declined to 28 per cent. 64 By 1989, it decreased to eleven<br />
percent. Another major indicator of the transformation of the society is the diminishing<br />
proportion of the bedouin population in the country's demographic composition. From a<br />
majority at the birth of the Kingdom, by the 1980s, their share of the population decreased<br />
to ten percent. 65 Secondly, urban change owed its impetus to the indirect effects of the oil<br />
industry. Since the formation of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi monarchs have vigorously<br />
engaged in spending oil revenues on the non-oil producing parts of the country to convey<br />
legitimacy, as well as to maintain order and security.<br />
TABLE 3.4<br />
Foreign Employment Growth<br />
Year<br />
Migrant Employment<br />
1962/63 60,000<br />
1966/67 240,000<br />
1975 723,400<br />
1980 1,023,600*<br />
Source: C. A. Sinclair and J.S. Birks (1982), 164. * This number comprises two-third of the national labor<br />
force.<br />
The shift from the traditional subsistence economy to a modern economy based on<br />
exportation of crude oil meant the connecting of the country's economy to the international<br />
economic system. This disrupted the spatial stasis of the society which hitherto took the<br />
form of scattered, isolated populations with disintegrated traditional economies. A new<br />
situation of "commercial dependency" emerged in which the entire national economy has<br />
become organized around and conditioned by the exploration of a stable commodity, that is<br />
oil. This was reflected in the sprouting of new towns in the oil-producing East Province.<br />
In Third World countries, foreign capital has been instrumental in transforming traditional<br />
economies into modern ones geared toward the Developed world markets' needs. This has<br />
resulted in a dependency situation whereby developing countries' economies rely on those<br />
of the developed world. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the exploitation by foreign capital of a<br />
natural resource, that is oil, renders the entire national economy organized around the
development of crude oil, creating a dependency relationship at the world level. This<br />
98<br />
situation resembles that of the "enclave economy" which tends to produce two effects that<br />
greatly condition the spatial structure of the dependent economy. 66<br />
First, it triggers a process of concentration of population and activities around the<br />
enclave resource, that is oil. Second, a process of urbanization occurs connected more to<br />
the indirect effects of the enclave economy, than to the economic activity itself. For<br />
example, in Chile, the main economic resource of the government was royalties on copper<br />
production collected from foreign companies. These royalties accounted for 80% of the<br />
Chilean government foreign currency and 60% of its resources between the 1950s and<br />
1980s. Following the nationalization of the copper industries, the Chilean government<br />
received revenues from mine extracting directly. According to Manuel C as tells,<br />
This created a huge government sector that actually redistributed the money<br />
through the entire economy. The milk cow of the Chilean economy is the '<br />
copper sector. With the demand generated by state expenditures and salaries,<br />
you have the rest of the weak manufacturing sector [sic]. All of this produces<br />
centralization of resources in the hands of the public sector, therefore totally<br />
centered in the capital city. This is also the case in Venezuela where Caracas<br />
grows on the basis of the oil money given to the government, then uses it to<br />
expand the construction sector in the capital. 67<br />
The utilization of oil has been the catalyst for much of Saudi Arabia's urbanization<br />
and the mainstay of a strong economy, raising the standard of living and stimulating urban<br />
development. For example, Riyadh, the seat of the national government where oil<br />
revenues allocated, grew from a pre-industrial settlement of five thousand at the turn of the<br />
century to a small city of thirty-six thousand inhabitants in 1950, and into a bustling<br />
metropolis of 2 million by 1992. 68<br />
Dammam, located at the locus of oil activity, was<br />
transformed from a sleepy fishing hamlet, on the Arabian Gulf shores, into a prominent<br />
city of four hundred thousand people.<br />
Parallel with the growth of the oil industrial activity, the government has recognized<br />
the vitality of strengthening its defense capabilities. Militarization has become a powerful<br />
stimulus for Saudi urban settlements. In April, 1948, the government granted a five-year<br />
lease to the U.S. Navy for its use of an air base in Dhaharan. Dhahran was a growing<br />
town situated at the locus of oil activities to guard the oil installations. The lease was<br />
renewed for another five years in 1951. Another large scale army base was constructed in<br />
1950 in the agricultural town of Kharj, fifty miles south of Riyadh. The base included a
99<br />
small-arms and ammunitions factory, warehouses, and training facilities at the staggering<br />
cost of SR87 million by the standards of that (ten percent of the annual allocations for<br />
1951-52).<br />
The process of urban militarization continued, paralleling the exceptionally high<br />
allocations in building military power. In December, 1964, following King <strong>Faisal</strong>'s<br />
accession, Minister of Defense, Prince Sultan A1 Saud declared that the government would<br />
develop its army. Three major military bases were to be built in Hafir al-Batin (King Khalid<br />
Military City), at Tabuk and at Khamis Mushayt. The undertaking of these mega-projects<br />
spanned the next fifteen years. The bases were located in the vicinity of major towns<br />
according to national security criteria. The resulting urban form represented a bipolarity, in<br />
which two different forms were juxtaposed each referring to different functions and<br />
economies. The new "military cities" formed magnets attracting population and boosting<br />
the urban economies of their nearby towns. The combined construction activities of these<br />
military towns and the massive allocation in social services and infrastructural<br />
developments between 1970, the time of the debut of first five-year plan, and the third fiveyear<br />
plan (1980-85) caused what is commonly known as the decade of the "construction<br />
boom." The cost of these plans was estimated at $9.2 billion, $182 billion, and $337<br />
billion respectively, totaling $ 528.2 billion. By comparison, Saudi oil revenues between<br />
1972 and 1982 totaled $460.3 billion. The annual imports between 1975 and 1981 soared<br />
from SR 14.8 to SR 135 billion ($1.00=SR3.5).69<br />
The oil industry has also been responsible for the growth of towns in other parts of<br />
the country not related directly to the oil industry. For instance, the need to transport crude<br />
Eastern Province oil from the oil fields to the Mediterranean Sea required the construction<br />
of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) which was completed in 1950. A road was<br />
constructed alongside the pipeline and several water wells were dug to provide drinking<br />
water for the oil-pump stations' staff. Bedouins settled permanently as they-were attracted<br />
by water and work opportunities and soon started urban enclaves. Arar, al-Qaysumah, and<br />
An Nuairiyah towns were originated anew from these bedouin encampments in the early<br />
1950s. Arar has become the regional center of the Northeastern region and by the early<br />
1960s housed a population of 11,171 serviced with a bank, a hospital and schools. By<br />
1987, it boasted a population of 65,000. 70
100<br />
The combined effects of oil exploitation and the state's modernization programs have<br />
drastically altered the traditional urban system. A new urban network has emerged with<br />
minimum reference to the physico-cultural environment In the urban literature of<br />
Developing countries, the restructuring of the national economy to adapt to the needs of the<br />
international economic imperatives, it is argued, has resulted in the spreading of<br />
nationalism, economic development and urbanization in traditional societies. Five<br />
repercussions in the national urban development can be pointed to for their relevance in this<br />
study. 71 First, by accelerating the process of industrialization and integration to the<br />
international economic system, the rate of metropolitan growth increases. Industrialization<br />
induces migration to the urban centers which undermines traditional forms of production in<br />
rural areas. For example, between 1974-84 the area of Jeddah has multiplied 49 times its<br />
previous size. Doxiadis Consultants estimated that by the 1960s, 85 percent of Riyadh's<br />
household heads were born outside the city and that migration accounted for 70 percent of<br />
the city's annual growth rate. 72<br />
Second, the internal pre-industrial structure of the national economy was weakened<br />
while the international linkages were strengthened. The ramifications of such restructuring<br />
are profound. In most developing countries, the concentration of industrial development in<br />
growth poles is encouraged as economic strategy by national authorities to reap maximum<br />
benefits of economies of agglomerations (benefits which expected to accrue when<br />
economic activities take place near each other). A duality in the economic structure emerges<br />
as an urban center witnesses rapid growth whereas a rural periphery's economy is either<br />
stagnant or declining. This results in an influx from the periphery to the center creating a<br />
situation of "over-urbanization" characterized by acute shortages in urban services, severe<br />
unemployment and the emergence of marginal population working in the informal sectors<br />
of the economy. In some developing countries, such factors result in primacy where a city<br />
dominates the national urban structure. In Saudi Arabia, the allocation of oil revenues<br />
outside the oil-rich regions in the form of modernization programs followed political<br />
criteria, that is political stability and national security. Thus, Saudi cities which had had a<br />
major role in the- traditional urban economy such as Makkah and Madinah have lost rank to<br />
the administrative city of Riyadh; and the fishing settlements of Dammam, Khobar and<br />
Dhahran prospered owing their growth to the oil industry. The industrial complexes of<br />
Jubail and Yanbu witnessed unprecedented growth in lieu of the government's effort to<br />
diversify the national economy based on petrochemical industries. Table 3.5 illustrates
101<br />
TABLE 3.5<br />
Top Cities with Population of more than 30,000 (1974) and Their Share of<br />
Private Sector Establishments<br />
CITY<br />
NO ES TABLIS H-MENTS<br />
(1981) 3<br />
%OF COUNTRY'S TOTAL<br />
Est<br />
Riyadh 30,611 21.1<br />
Jeddah 28,651 19.8<br />
Makkah 12,332 '8.5<br />
Attaif 6,735 4.7<br />
Madinah 7,906 5.4<br />
Al-Hasa/Hufuf 5,458 3.8<br />
Dammam 6,828 4.7<br />
Tabouk 2,719 1.9<br />
Buraidah 3,281 2.3<br />
Khamis-Mushait 3,002 2.0<br />
Khubar 3,446 2.4<br />
Najran 1,762 1.2<br />
Hail 2,721 1.9<br />
Jaizan 1,335 1.0<br />
Abha 1,911 1.3<br />
Arar 1,245 0.9<br />
Sources: (Y)The Statistical Indicator, Ministry of Finance and National Economy, (2) Atlas of Saudi<br />
Cities. Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affairs, (3) Statistical Year Book (1989) Ministry of Finance<br />
and National Economy.
102<br />
how changes brought by the new political and economic developments shuffled the national urban network.<br />
Third, with the transition from a traditional subsistence economy to an exportoriented<br />
economy, urbanization accelerates creating substantial infrastructural problems.<br />
As urban areas become recipients of throngs flocking to the city for jobs and proximity to<br />
services limited to urban centers, the demand for urban services expand more rapidly than<br />
supply. This leads to rapid increases in urban land and housing prices, overcrowded<br />
housing and shortages of essential services. During the early decades prior to the 1970s<br />
increase in world oil prices, the majority of Saudi cities suffered infrastructure shortages.<br />
However, after the launching of the Five-Year Development Plans this situation has been<br />
assuaged in Saudi Arabia. The increase in oil revenues allowed for the allocation in the<br />
development of the urban infrastructure paralleling the urbanization process and industrial<br />
development.<br />
Fourth, acceleration of the urbanization process places pressure on urban land<br />
available for development leading to speculation in the real estate market and, if housing<br />
production lags, a housing problem ensues affecting both lower and middle income<br />
groups. In Saudi Arabia, the Five-Year Plans called for massive allocation in<br />
infrastructural development transforming the country's major cities and towns into a flurry<br />
of construction activity. Numerous foreign firms were called upon to participate in what<br />
became known as "the construction boom" of the 1970s. With the advent of the<br />
construction firms, an influx of expatriates were imported to achieve the targets of the Plan.<br />
N. C. Grill estimated that seventy per cent of the 2.5 million Saudi labor force was being<br />
imported. 73 This resulted in an unprecedented housing shortage and, in some areas, rents<br />
rose to a price equal the property's market value.<br />
The housing shortage was augmented by a city-ward migration by ruralites and<br />
bedouins as demand increased for labor both in the private sector and the rapidly growing<br />
public sector traditionally reserved for nationals. Finally, due to economic transformation<br />
and accelerated development, especially in economically less endowed Third World<br />
countries, a massive proliferation of squatter settlements occurred as the private housing<br />
market failed to meet the increasing demand. Until the 1970s, accelerated migration<br />
resulted in a recrudescence of shanty towns dotting the city periphery and undeveloped land<br />
within the urban areas. 74
103<br />
SUMMARY<br />
In what seemed at the beginning a mere escapade, King Abdul-Aziz A1 Saud<br />
commanded a successful campaign to reaffirm the King and his family's control in the<br />
political affairs of Arabia. The emerging political structure as established by Abdul-Aziz<br />
has been essentially traditional: a monarchy immersed in the values of an Islamic based<br />
tribal and agrarian society. In the Saudi political structure, the monarch rules as well as<br />
reigns and the actual powers of the government are symbolically shared with other<br />
traditional institutions and groups, but in all respects the King has the final say. The King<br />
is vested with absolute power carefully intertwined with religious legitimacy as defined by<br />
the state and supported by the religious body.<br />
Especially during the last two decades, due to excessive government sponsorship,<br />
economic development has progressed at a rate unmatched by most other nations. The<br />
economy has grown to a rank within the 20 largest economies of the world, while the<br />
Saudi population accounts for only .02 of the world's population. In the Saudi Arabian<br />
model, urban development and urbanization owe their impetus to the profound<br />
repercussions brought by the oil economy. Whereas, their character and intensity have<br />
been imbued by the society's political context, urbanization and urban development<br />
followed closely the political system's vision of how to modernize the country in line with<br />
its political leaders' interests. The modernization programs have been replete with the<br />
monarchy's efforts to maintain legitimacy, security and control, while appealing to the<br />
preservation of Islamic traditions conducive to its sustenance. The distribution of oil<br />
wealth has also been a function of the society's developmental stage. To a large extent, the<br />
urban process has become the means to maintain political stability and to attain economic<br />
prosperity rather than the by-product of development itself.<br />
Such socio-political and economic contexts have forged a peculiar urban planning<br />
paradigm. The confluent effects of the cultural context at the macro level- political,<br />
economic and social- have resulted in the making of an urban planning model at the micro<br />
level consistent with the national political and economic culture. In the following chapter, I<br />
will explore the evolution of urban planning in Saudi Arabia. Urban planning has evolved<br />
to reflect the country's centralized decision-making political framework at the national level.<br />
Urban planning has also been wrought under the imperatives of rapid urbanization amidst<br />
considerable influence of foreign planning practices.
104<br />
Notes to Chapter III<br />
Noel Busch, "Life Visits Saudi Arabia." Life Magazine 14, No. 22 (May, 1943), 69.<br />
United Nations, Department of International Economics and Social Affairs. World Urbanization,<br />
Prospects 1990: Estimates and Projections of Urban and Rural Populations and of Urban<br />
Agglomerations (New York; United Nations, 1990), 112.<br />
Kenneth Minogue, "Nationalism" In The Social Science Encyclopedia, edited by A. K. and J.<br />
Kuper (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 551.<br />
C. E. Black. The Dynamics of Modernization: A Study in Comparative History (New York: Harper<br />
& Row, Publishers, 1966).<br />
Douglass C. North, 1988, "Ideology and Political/Economic Institutions," Cato Journal 8<br />
(Spring/Summer 1988), 23. According to North, the revolutionary technology of the 19th century<br />
radically altered the production and distribution of the goods and services. Accompanying this<br />
technology was an enormous increase in specialization and division of labor, and consequently radical<br />
changes in relative prices, which altered the traditional structure of the polity.<br />
Samuel P. Huntington, "Political Development and Political Decay," World Politics (April 1965),<br />
406.<br />
Karl W. Deutsh, "Social Mobilization and Political Development," American Political Science<br />
Review IV.(September 1961), 493. Quoted in Samuel P. Huntington, "Political Development and<br />
Political Decay," World Politics (April 1965), 388.<br />
United Nations (1990), 2.<br />
Mark Heller and Nadav Safran. The New Middle Class and Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia.<br />
Harvard Middle East Papers, Modern Series: Number 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Center For Middle<br />
Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1984); Samuel Huntington. Political Order in Changing<br />
Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).<br />
The history of A1 Saud's dynasty's struggle to gain control over central Arabia and other parts goes<br />
back to the eighteenth century. In 1744, Mohammed bin Abdul-Wahhab, a descendant from a<br />
religious house approached Mohammed bin Saud, the ruler of the small town of Deriyah, located in<br />
the vicinity of Riyadh. He convinced Ibn Saud to join him in reforming the religious practices of<br />
the people, whom both agreed, failed to maintain the essence of Islam according to its pure origins.<br />
The history of A1 Saud is divided into three realms spanning the following periods, 1744-1803,<br />
1824-1891, and the third realm, 1902-presenL The outstanding efforts of the founder of today's Saudi<br />
Arabia, King Abdul-Aziz A1 Saud (1890-1953), resulted in the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi<br />
Arabia, a monarchy presided over by the King and his progeny.<br />
In Saudi Arabia there has been a system of contact between the King and other government's political<br />
leaders which is called majlis. It has been argued to be an approach to make public demands and<br />
concerns reach the King or his aides. It is commonly used by the public to petition requests for
105<br />
financial support, complaints, requests for governmental services and the like. It is not governed by<br />
documented procedures or based on legal powers.<br />
12<br />
Mark Heller and Nadav Safran. The New Middle Class and Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia.<br />
Harvard Middle East Papers, Modern Series: Number 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Center For Middle<br />
Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1984), Nadav Safran.Saittft Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest For<br />
Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988).<br />
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press,<br />
1968), 155.<br />
Ahmad A1 Shamkh. 1975. Spatial Patterns of Bedouin Settlements in Al Qasim Region, Saudi<br />
Arabia, Ph.D. <strong>Dissertation</strong> (University of Kentucky, 1975).<br />
For a quick reference on economic resources available to the government in the pre-oil era, see<br />
Michael Field, "Saudi Arabia: The Eastern Province Before Oil," Middle East International 86 (Aug,<br />
1978):27-29.<br />
16 Alan George, "Bedouin Settlement in Saudi Arabia," Middle East International 51 (September,<br />
1975), 27.<br />
17 Along with the majority of the inland area, the population of Najd, the Ikhwan (Muslim<br />
brotherhood), adhered to the dominant puritanical religious movement led by the eighteenth century<br />
reformer, Mohammed Bin Abdul-Wahhab. During the early period of King Abdul-Aziz's reign, they<br />
comprised a fighting force of 73,000 by some accounts.<br />
18 King Abdul-Aziz also made use of technology when he installed eleven wireless stations and four<br />
mobile stations which he utilized to control the bedouins. E. Monroe, Philby of Arabia (London:<br />
Quartet Books, 1980), 172.<br />
19<br />
A. George (1975), 28.<br />
20 H. S. Al-Musallim and A. F. Al-Quraishi, "Al Istitan wa-al Qawuai'd allati Tah'kum Nomu wa-<br />
Takween Al Hijar." (Sedentarization: the Rules that Govern its Growth and Formation) Second<br />
Conference for Municipalities and Rural Communities. First Edition. (Riyadh: National Guards<br />
Press, 1985).<br />
21 Based on previous trials, the Council of Ministers (CM) issued several decrees to avoid past<br />
mistakes. See for example CM Decree 3 dated l/l/1403h (1983) which authorized the Ministry of<br />
Municipalities and Rural Affairs to oversee the activity. The government control over the new hijar<br />
was strengthened by issuing the Royal Order 11671 dated 16/5/1401h (1981). The Order stipulated<br />
that lands granted for hijar settlements are not private grants that entail recipients to sell or cede the<br />
land without state authorization. Moreover, Royal Decrees 10607 dated 8/5/1401,11398 of<br />
14/5/1402h (1981) ordered a halt to new settlements unless justified by due feasibility studies.<br />
Source: Al-Musallim et. al. op cit.<br />
22 This is valid if both studies of the two ministries use the same definitions of what constitutes hijrah.<br />
The 1974 census lists the total number of settlements ("localities") at 20,995. See Kadi and Ibraeem<br />
(1981), 10, below.
106<br />
23<br />
24<br />
25<br />
26<br />
27<br />
28<br />
29<br />
30<br />
31<br />
32<br />
33<br />
34<br />
35<br />
36<br />
37<br />
According to Clifford Geertz. In Bryan Roberts, Cities of Peasants: The Political Economy of<br />
Urbanization in Third World Countries (Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Publications, 1984), 110.<br />
King Abdul-Aziz abolished pilgrim dues charged to Muslim pilgrims one year before his death in<br />
1953. Pilgrimage dues accounted for $30 million a year.<br />
U.S. Government Publications, Foreign Relations of the United States (1974) pp. 734-36, cited in<br />
Michael G. Nehme, Saudi Arabia: Political Implications of the Development Plans. Unpublished<br />
<strong>Dissertation</strong>, Graduate Program in Political Science (New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1983), quoting<br />
President Roosevelt, 48.<br />
Ministry of Transportation. Roads of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Pictures, p. 1. In 1953 there<br />
were only 239 kilometers of paved roads. In 1962, the number reached 3,245 km, and in 1979, the<br />
asphalt roads length reached 20,134 km. By 1990,32,000 kilometers of asphalt roads were<br />
constructed and 66,600 km of dirt roads were surfaced connecting distant small agricultural and<br />
nomads' settlements. Source: Ministry of Planning. Fifth Development Plan. Ali Johany, "The •<br />
Saudi Economy: Yesterday's Performance and Tomorrow's Prospects." In Saudi Arabia: Energy,<br />
Developmental Planning and Industrialization, edited by R. El Mallakh and D. H. El Mallakh<br />
(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1982): 1-14. For the figure on the number of cars in 1933, see<br />
Captain C.C. Lewis, "Ibn Saud and The Future of Arabia," International Affairs (July, 1933): 518-<br />
534.<br />
Michael Field, "Saudi Arabia: The Eastern Province Before Oil." Middle East International 86<br />
(August 1978), 29.<br />
Elizabeth Monroe (1980), op. cit., 274.<br />
David Howrath. The Desert King (London: Quarter Books, 1980),170.<br />
H. St. J. B. Philby, "Riyadh: Ancient and Modern," The Middle East Journal 2 (Spring, 1959), 140.<br />
Howrath, 198.<br />
Faraj F. Al-Mawled, "Political Geography of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Saudi Studies<br />
(Riyadh: Diplomatic Studies Institute, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1986). 'In Arabic.<br />
George Lenczowski, "Tradition and Reform in Saudi Arabia," Current History (February, 1967), 99.<br />
Ibid, 100.<br />
Ibid, 101.<br />
Samuel Huntington (1968), 168.<br />
See Motoko Datakura's Bedouin Village. (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1977) and Donald P.<br />
Colse's Nomads of the Nomads (Arlington Heights, HI: AHM Publishing, 1975).
107<br />
Abdul-Rahman H. Al-Said, "The Transition from a Tribal Society to a Nation-StateIn Saudi<br />
Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning and Industrialization, edited by R. El Mallakh (Lexington,<br />
MA: Lexington Books, 1982), 101.<br />
39<br />
See government expenditures on selective cities' municipalities in Chapter 4.<br />
40<br />
Ibid, 102.<br />
Royal Decree number 41/1/1 of 1359/1940. Hasan Sa'ad Bin Said, Ministry of Interior: Security<br />
and Development, p.72.<br />
4^<br />
Thomas ODea, ed. Aramco Special Study Group, "Social Change in Saudi Arabia: Problems and<br />
Prospects," (Dhahran: Arabian American Oil Company, 1963), 70. Quoted in A1 Said, 101.<br />
43<br />
A1 Said, 102.<br />
44<br />
Ibid, 103. I do have difficulty accepting this rather simple argument The abolition of traditional<br />
multi-power systems is consistent and an inevitable outcome of the emphasis on central authority<br />
manifest in the King as the head of the bureaucracy.<br />
45<br />
A 1990 UN report estimates the Saudi population at 14.134 million. United Nations (1990), op.<br />
cit. The first and only official census of 1974 lists a total population of 7,009,466 living in 20,995<br />
"locality." Omar A. Kadi and Hazim, M. Ibraheem, Takhteet al-Mudon fee al-Mamlakah al-Arabiyah<br />
Assa'udiyah [City Planning in Saudi Arabia] (Riyadh: Saudi Arabian Press Ltd., 1981), 12-15. In<br />
1974, there were 16 cities with 30,000 inhabitants. By 1987, the number of cities with such<br />
population rose to 23. MOMRA, Atlas of Saudi Cities, Existing Conditions, 1407H (1987).<br />
^ Alan George, "Bedouin Settlement in Saudi Arabia," Middle East International 51 (September,<br />
1975), 28.<br />
4^ H. S. Al-Musallim and A. F. Al-Quraishi, 459.<br />
4<br />
® The number of students receiving elementary education rose from 122,905 in 1961/2 to 422,744 in<br />
1970/1 and by 1989 it reached 1,694,394 Source: Ministry of Finance and National Economy<br />
1409/1989. Table 2-8. However, the total number of students population amounts to 2,500,000.<br />
Source: Fifth Development Plan, 1990-95.<br />
4^<br />
Numbers refer to nationals only. There were 4% of non-Saudis engaged in agricultural activity in<br />
1986. Source: Maslahat al-Ihsa'at al-A'amah (General Statistical Agency). Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.<br />
Labor Force in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: 1986.<br />
Gasssan Salamah, "Saudi Arabia: Development and Dependence,"The Jerusalem Quarterly. 20<br />
(Summer, 1980).<br />
51 Ministry of Planning, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Achievements of the Development Plans: 1390-<br />
1407 "1970-1987 (Riyadh: Ministry of Planning Press, 1987), 204-7.
108<br />
52 Clive A. Sinclair, and J. S. Birks, "Manpower in Saudi Arabia, 19801985," In R. El Mallakh and<br />
D. El Mallakh(1982), 162.<br />
53 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Planning, Fifth Development Plan, 1410/1990-1415/1995<br />
(1989), 197. It must be noted here that there are implicit costs involved in figures of increases of<br />
domestic subsidized production. Calculations of benefits and costs must include consumption of<br />
water, loss of currency to foreign labor and machinery, for example. This point also applies to the<br />
(nominal) increases in figures of industrial production.<br />
In Saudi Arabia, more than 4 million individuals (50.1%) of the total number of those who live in<br />
the Kingdom, twelve years and above, comprise the working force. The remaining 49.9% of the<br />
total number of those who live in the country are distributed as follows: (1) 23% are household<br />
wives and other individuals whose work is house-related such as maids, (2) 21% students, (3)<br />
3%.unable to work, and (4) 3% others. The Saudi nationals comprise 1.5 million of the total<br />
number (or 36.6%) out of which men account for 92.9%. The number of non-Saudi laborers is<br />
estimated at 2.5 million (63.4%) of the total labor force in the Kingdom. Source: Maslahat al-Ihsa'at<br />
al-A'amah (General Statistical Agency). Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Labor Force in the Kingdom of<br />
Saudi Arabia: 1986.<br />
55 Peter Mansfield, 77 ~ New Arabians (Chicago: J. G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1981), 166.<br />
56 Ministry of Planning. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Fifth Development Plan, 1410/1990-1415/1995<br />
(Riyadh: Ministry of Planning Press), 141. Especially since the debut of the five-year development<br />
plans, the government established specialized credit institutions such as the Real Estate Development<br />
Fund, Public Investment Fund, Saudi Industrial Development Fund, Saudi Arabian Agricultural<br />
Bank, Saudi Credit Bank, and Specialized Credit Programs. The assets of these institutions amounts<br />
to SR 197 billion in 1989, only ten percent less than the combined assets of all commercial banks.<br />
During the course of their activity, they provided more than SR 234 billion.<br />
57<br />
Ibid, 141.<br />
58<br />
59<br />
"Back in Business," The Middle East (August, 1990), 26.<br />
Farouk M. Akhdar, "The Philosophy of Saudi Arabia's Industrialization Policy," In R. El Mallakh,<br />
17<br />
60<br />
Ibid, 17.<br />
Gary Samore, The New York Times (Sunday, October 18,1981), 14. Quoted in Nehme, Michael G.<br />
Saudi Arabia: Political Implications of the Development Plans. Unpublished <strong>Dissertation</strong> (New<br />
Jersey: Rutgers University, 1983), 11.<br />
62 Mark Heller and Nadav Safran, "The New Middle Class and Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia,"<br />
Harvard Middle East Papers, Modem Series: Number 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Center For Middle<br />
Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1984).<br />
63 Alan George, op. cit
109<br />
64 N.C. Grill, "Urbanization In The Arabian Peninsula," Occasional Papers Series (Durham, U.K.:<br />
Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Durham, 1984.), 35.<br />
65 Gasssan Salamah, op. cit.<br />
66 Dependency theory postulates an exploitative integration of Third World economies into the<br />
international capitalist market system. Some argue that such a relationship has been present since<br />
the formation of the international/imperial banking in medieval Europe (Wallerstein, 1966).<br />
Although I accept that Developing nations have developed dependent on Developed countries capital,<br />
and technology, my analysis does not necessarily follow the intentional/exploitative thesis of<br />
classical dependency theory.<br />
67 According to Castells, the historians of Latin American note that commercial dependency has four<br />
types: (1) the "enclave economy," (a form of "dependency based on the exploitation by foreign capital<br />
of a natural resource"), (2) agricultural import-export dependency such as the case of Argentine's<br />
cattle production, (3) plantation economy in which the economy is based on large-scate production of<br />
particular crops such as cotton, sugar, coffee, etc., and (4) subsistence economy in which the process<br />
of production in the country and the world market is lacking. This was the case of Saudi Arabia<br />
prior to the exploitation of oil. In the case of the plantation economy, we find a national spatial<br />
structure comprising large rural settlements. The population inhabits the countryside in large<br />
villages linked with small towns which become the control centers. A low level of urbanization is<br />
the norm with the presence of one central, large city. Manuel Castells. "Urbanization and<br />
Dependency in the Third World." Class Notes (Transcribed from audio tape). PLUS 508, School of<br />
Urban & Regional Planning, Los Angeles: University of Southern California (Spring, 1984).<br />
68 The United Nations' report, World Urbanization, Prospects, 1990, estimated Riyadh's population at<br />
2 million in 1990 and 2.7 by 1995, op cit., 192.<br />
69 Nadav Safran (1988).<br />
7<br />
0 Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, 1987, op cit.<br />
Manuel Castells, op cit<br />
72<br />
N.G. Grill, 3.<br />
73<br />
N. C. Grill, 49.<br />
74<br />
Manuel Castells, op.cit
CHAPTER IV<br />
URBAN PLANNING:<br />
NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND CITY PLANNING<br />
In the preceding chapter, I focused on the socio-political and economic processes of<br />
formation, growth and location which primarily determined the shift, organization and<br />
distribution of the contemporary spatial network in Saudi Arabia. The operation of these<br />
forces was largely affected by the oil economy and political circumstance of the nationstate.<br />
The scale of urbanization must not be underestimated. The pace of urbanization in<br />
the Arab Gulf states, with urban percentages reaching 96 percent, has not been matched by<br />
any other major areas of the world. 1 In Libya, eighty-one percent of the population is<br />
urban, more urban than Italy. 2 A consequence is inevitable dependence on Western<br />
planning expertise, due to Western precedence in the field. The restructuring of the<br />
national economy under the aegis of the new nation-state spurred the urbanization process<br />
and Saudi towns and settlements became foci of unprecedented growth, exhibiting<br />
overcrowding, high levels of chronic deprivation and poverty. Generally speaking, the<br />
internal organization of urban forms remained free of public accountability so that urban<br />
development took place in an unregulated and uncontrolled fashion, resembling traditional,<br />
organic forms. The outlying fringe of towns underwent rapid, uncontrolled growth,<br />
lacking infrastructure, public services and social amenities. Old neighborhoods suffered<br />
overcrowding and chronic traffic congestion as traditional tortuous circulation space,<br />
designed for pedestrian and animal transport became clogged under the increasing use of<br />
the automobile.<br />
During the early decades of the Kingdom (1930-1960), new neighborhoods sprouted<br />
housing waves of 'urban villagers' in substandard residential stock, while bedouins pitched<br />
their tents and constructed makeshift dwellings in undeveloped sections of towns or<br />
scattered on the periphery, forming the hilal, communities of relatively homogeneous<br />
inhabitants sharing tribal lineage or place of origin. 3 Under these circumstances, the<br />
government introduced a series of measures to circumscribe urban development and to<br />
direct it toward socially desirable goals. These measures were ad hoc and applied with<br />
limited social and environmental considerations. Later, these efforts developed to what is<br />
currently referred to as urban and regional planning in Saudi Arabia, an elitist and<br />
technocratic activity solely done by the central government.
Ill<br />
My discussion starts with a historical overview of the development of urban planning<br />
in the Western hemisphere. This is meant to set the stage for a comparative development of<br />
the planning profession in contrasting cultures. Overwhelmed by rapid change, local<br />
authorities in many Developing countries relied on Western models to assuage negative<br />
outcomes accompanying rapid urbanization. Western planning consultants were hired to<br />
draft wholesale master and comprehensive plans. For example, in a period of a little less<br />
than two years, an American consulting firm was hired by the Libyan government to<br />
complete thirty-five long term master plans for Libyan towns and cities. 4 Moreover,<br />
Western paradigms have also come into vogue through the training of architects and<br />
planners of the host countries in Western institutions. The unguarded use of imported<br />
architecture and urban planning paradigms presents a paradox. Stefano Bianca wrote<br />
Hence Muslim societies are facing an ambiguous situation: in most<br />
countries, Islam still provides firm religious bonds and a strong<br />
sense of community. On the other hand, western institutions,<br />
political, economic and educational systems have been adopted,<br />
which to some extent contradict the Islamic way of life....The tools<br />
of European civilization imply a value system and an ideology of<br />
their own, which is inseparable from the corresponding<br />
techniques....Therefore, an indiscriminate use of these tools in the<br />
Islamic context will necessarily mean a cultural struggle and<br />
penetration by alien ideological concepts. 5<br />
On the one hand, there is a deep concern over reaffirming traditional values and<br />
bringing identity to the contemporary built environment. On the other hand, due to rapid<br />
development, their was little time to ponder on the device of culturally-based design models<br />
and policies. Instead, governmental planning organs fell on Western models. To Rowe,<br />
the process of contemporary urban development sharply contrasts the past and draws<br />
heavily on post-War Western architecture and planning models. Unlike its Western<br />
counterpart, the Western models employed in Saudi Arabia, have not passed through<br />
critical assessment as they have been maintained essentially in their original forms 6<br />
I. THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN URBAN PLANNING AND THE ROLE OF WESTERN<br />
CONSULTANTS<br />
In Europe, Galantay wrote, "Christianity strove to enhance its identity with respect to<br />
Judaism and to Islam, and fell back on classical traditions by embracing rationalism. Thus<br />
Abelard claimed logic to be the preeminent Christian science and St. Thomas Aquinas<br />
argued that a city must be the 'perfect and absolute assembly of its parts' which encouraged
112<br />
the search for geometrical regularity in town planning and architecture." Rationally<br />
organized towns were reintroduced in the planning of European towns in the 12th and 13th<br />
centuries. The orthogonal grid became associated with a sense of Christian prosperity<br />
while the "Islamic labyrinth" was linked by Christian theologians to evil, "the perfection of<br />
Zion contrasted to sinful Babylon." Galantay argued<br />
During the reconquest of Spain, the narrow streets of Moorish<br />
towns, were decried as "deformitats" which called for street<br />
widening, regularization, and the creation of more public space to<br />
correspond to the extroverted Christian lifestyle....Stereotypes die<br />
slowly and even 19th century orientalists- like Richard Burtoncontributed<br />
to the notion of the Islamic maze as a titillating hive of<br />
sins... 7<br />
"It is sad," Galantay continues, "that this caricatural evaluation has been assimilated by a<br />
number of Western-trained Islamic politicians who consider the Medina as an eyesore and<br />
an obstacle to modernization." 8<br />
Modern urban planning emerged in Europe and North America during the late<br />
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a response to the negative byproducts of the<br />
industrial city. The influx of masses seeking employment and better services in the<br />
industrial city, led to squalid urbanization, for change brought by industrialization was too<br />
rapid for the essentially pre-industrial city system to handle. The industrial metropolis<br />
became a breeding ground for disease, crime and revolutionary sentiments. The debate<br />
over whether the living conditions were significantly worse in the industrial city than they<br />
had been in the countryside prior to industrialization aside, the mass shift from rural to<br />
urban employment resulted in a concentration of deprivation manifest in the proliferation of<br />
the overcrowded urban slums amidst smoke, soot and waterways filled with household and<br />
factory refuse. The persistence of these viles posed a threat to the ruling elite and middle<br />
class, who no longer could be isolated from the squalid conditions of the workers'<br />
neighborhoods.<br />
The laissezfaire approach, which emphasizes a self-regulatory market system with<br />
minimum government intervention, to economic growth during the early period of<br />
industrialization proved insufficient to address those conditions and societal consciousness<br />
arose in search for causes and solutions. In the West, government rule was augmented<br />
following the establishment of a vigorous private sector. Though this took various forms,
113<br />
the modern state, advocating the "public interest," arbitrated between various interests to<br />
maintain a stable, dynamic society to raise subjects' welfare. 9 For example, in their<br />
discussion of the baroque city and urbanism, Hohenberg and Lees noted that "Most of the<br />
capital for actual construction was private." In the United States, prior to the beginning of<br />
this century, urban planning was essentially physical and backed by wealthy private<br />
sponsors. In contrast, in modern non-Western societies, the state, more than private<br />
entities, has become the principal navigator of development. 10<br />
Three responses emanated from the city's deteriorating conditions in the nineteenth<br />
century. 11 First, a rural Utopia or a rejectionist response advocated the return to the<br />
predominantly rural context of the medieval period. The second response took a<br />
compromising approach to reform some features of the industrial society. This response<br />
called for controlling the urban industrial milieu, and eventually such efforts culminated in<br />
such planning approaches as the Garden City movement. The third response was the<br />
radical one. Although it accepted industrialization as a necessity and reality of the times,<br />
the radical response proponents advocated revolt against established means of distribution<br />
of resources in the society. The proponents called for massive reconstruction by which<br />
existing institutions, values, and social mechanisms would be supplanted by a new social<br />
system. Mannheim disparaged the revolt response as wish fulfillments "chiliasm". He<br />
considered them as projections of dreams, "the social Utopias." 12<br />
The evolution of modem Western planning owes considerably to the Utopias of the<br />
nineteenth century. Utopias were based on social theories which advocated certain desired<br />
values and practices by presenting them in an ideal state or society. They were projections<br />
of their authors' conceptions of ideal living habitats. The tradition of Utopian response to<br />
the deteriorating city reflected the need to confront the ailing social conditions of the<br />
industrial city. Utopias sought the eradication of major social malaise brought by rapid<br />
change, through the use of intelligent physical design, a tradition to be copied in future<br />
urban reforms. From Robert Owen's A New View of Society (1813) to Frank Lloyd<br />
Wright's blueprints of the Broad Acre City, such efforts were essentially reactionary. They<br />
envisaged a trouble-free, self-sustaining village that combined the good of the countryside<br />
with the free air of the city, all geared toward the social, educational and employment needs<br />
of the inhabitants.
114<br />
By the end of the 19th century, Utopia idealism took a more vigorous and elaborate<br />
direction. In his influential 1898 work, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform,<br />
Ebenezer Howard launched a new critique to the twin evils of the society, the depopulation<br />
of the countryside and overcrowding in the city. He introduced the Garden City, a place<br />
that combined the positive aspects of both the city and the countryside. He defined the<br />
Garden City as "a Town designed for healthy living and industry; of size that makes<br />
possible a full measure of social life, but not larger; surrounded by a rural belt; the whole of<br />
the land being in public ownership or held in trust for the community." 13 He envisioned<br />
garden city communities of 32,000 people each. Each of the six garden cities would circle<br />
a central comprehensively planned city of 58,000 residents. Howard's ideas resulted in the<br />
building of two garden cities, Letchworth in 1903 and Welwyn in 1919 and in the U.S.,<br />
France, Sweden, Japan and elsewhere.<br />
Concurrently, the degradation of the industrial city aroused scientific research and<br />
inquiry. The literature shows two contrasting approaches to solving the problems of urban<br />
deprivation. The radical approach of Marx and Engels was revolutionary and proposed the<br />
overthrow of the social and political systems which they blamed for turning the city into<br />
dark enclaves of misery and exploitation of the working class. The conservative<br />
alternative, essentially of middle class origin, opted for a greater role by the state. This<br />
alternative perceived it to be the duty of the state to make up for the industrial era's worst<br />
excesses. Planning developed along three trajectories: the 'hygienic type of planning which<br />
gave birth to the Sanitary Reform movement and many national public health acts<br />
incorporated into building requirements which sought to reduce levels of morbidity and<br />
early mortality. 14<br />
Another trajectory was the City Beautiful Movement, a response to laissezfaire,<br />
which emphasized the city as one planned unit, as a work of art, set in a master plan which<br />
specified land use, supplemented by comprehensive zoning ordinances to assure its<br />
implementation. The third approach was the architectural tradition, it perceived the city as<br />
an artifact, a product of sculptured built spaces and forms. It viewed the city more as a<br />
product than as a process. Hausmann's reconstruction of Paris, and the restructuring of its<br />
boulevards for purposes of crowd control belongs to this tradition, as does Burnham's<br />
1909 Chicago Plan, Le Corbusier's monumental Radiant City designs, and the Italian<br />
Futurist New City movement advocated by Marinetti in 1909, a comprehensive high rise,<br />
elevated high speed urban habitat designed on a grand scale. These Utopian designs placed
115<br />
more importance on "means" and implementation as compared to the earlier ones<br />
characterized by unrealistic idealism. The construction of these conceptional cities were to<br />
be attained through the mass production methods made possible by modern technology.<br />
This approach was summarized in Le Corbusier's Toward a New Architecture (1925).<br />
Another approach took the form of extensive central government planning as<br />
exemplified by the British and Western European experiments in new towns. By bringing<br />
public-owned land under state planning agencies, development plans are drafted and<br />
mechanisms for private participation are laid down. In these examples, public ownership is<br />
the key. For instance, Stockholm's ownership of vast vacant land made possible the<br />
development of housing as well as the public transportation system and are good examples<br />
of comprehensive planning. While commended for providing accessibility to the elderly<br />
and the politically underrepresentated groups such as teenagers and housewives, planned<br />
public development has been criticized for several shortcomings including imposing<br />
"technocratic concepts upon a passive clientele...unpopular high-rise housing, a neglect of<br />
social facilities, and in the U.S. extensive displacement of the poor in the interests of<br />
subsidized commercial development." 15<br />
During the 1930s and 1940s, the controversy over the need for government<br />
intervention to bring direct social change and to maximize socially desirable ends reached<br />
its peak. The proponents for intervention included Karl Mannheim, Rexford Tugwell, and<br />
Barbra Wooton who confronted free market laissezfaire supporters represented by<br />
Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises. For them, the debate seemingly settled on the<br />
need for planning in a capitalist society. In a free-market democratic society, the argument<br />
for planning has been justified on four grounds. Firstly, the economic justification is based<br />
on the widely accepted view that markets cannot perfectly attain competitiveness (i.e. the<br />
Pareto efficient allocation is not realized) and due to the notion .of 'market failure'. Both<br />
classical and neoclassical economists have agreed that even perfectly competitive markets<br />
suffer from the presence of (i) public goods, (ii) externalities (spillovers), (iii) prisoners'<br />
dilemma situations (a case in which one's pursuit of his own self interest does not lead to<br />
an optimal outcome for society), and (iv) distributional issues. 16<br />
In short, modern urban planning in Europe and North America was born in response<br />
to the industrial revolution and the squalid conditions brought by the shift from cottage<br />
industry to the large factory mass production enlisting throngs of the working class. The
116<br />
resulting adverse conditions inspired social consciousness in the form of Utopias and<br />
philanthropy, and later in the institutionalization of urban planning. With the improvement<br />
of the physical environment, early planners expected the major social ills in the city to<br />
disappear. In the West, modern urban planning emerged in an open political environment<br />
and reflected the imperatives of its economic systems, and governments' involvement in<br />
urban development in various degrees reflected citizens whose votes affected the political<br />
process. In contrast, in many developing nation-states, planning is de facto activity which<br />
lies within domain of the central state.<br />
II. URBAN PLANNING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES<br />
In Developing countries, rapid transformation occurred amidst dismal political and<br />
economic environments. The transition from traditional, pre-industrial social systems into<br />
modern urban conglomerations was initiated by colonialism and later augmented by the<br />
subordination of internal economies of the newly formed nation-states to the world's<br />
political economic system. The inteijection of foreign powers in the path of cultural<br />
development precluded the development of local processes compatible with and geared<br />
toward local culture's needs. The departure of these colonial systems left behind a political<br />
vacuum which was filled by despotic military regimes and traditional monarchies. In the<br />
wake of Western technology, traditional urban design and building processes were<br />
rendered obsolete, less capable of meeting growth demand under rapid urbanization. The<br />
substitution of the traditional ways of life and building techniques necessitated new<br />
concepts of spatial organization, at the individual building level as well as on the city scale.<br />
Imported planning paradigms and construction methods, coupled with the introduction of<br />
the automobile, aborted old ones and pre-empted indigenous development under inertia.<br />
Overwhelmed by rapid urbanization, the fledgling states took the task of urban planning.<br />
Urban planning has inherently become the prerogative of the state, an activity which has<br />
since remained sealed from the public.<br />
To a very large extent, the colonization of non-Western territories by European<br />
powers forged the map of the modern world. By the time of their departure, these<br />
territories were transformed into distinctive geographic territories with economies<br />
established during colonization. New nation-states emerged supplanting colonial control,<br />
predominantly governed by authoritative political systems. The newly established nationstates<br />
inherited a centralized framework of administration. Regarding this point, Reissman
117<br />
states "A more important problem consequent upon colonialism is that it generally restricted<br />
the development of an effective indigenous leadership." 17 Many Developing countries'<br />
governments are guarded about the extent of their power and influence. They perceive<br />
efforts to uncover society's negative aspects as a form of sedition. In some authoritative<br />
regimes, the authorities may resort to macabre witch-hunt expeditions aimed at individuals<br />
who remonstrate or criticize the state or point out shortcomings and negative traits or<br />
practices of the system. The stability and security of many of these regimes has been<br />
achieved through police power and centralization of authority. Even critical inquiry such as<br />
Jacob Riis' in the US is likely to be suppressed.<br />
Given the centralized nature of Arab countries political systems, the modern<br />
development of the Arab city proceeded with little autonomy. Control of local affairs is<br />
vested in the central government, whereby centralized decisions and policy making are<br />
equally applied in various localities. Therefore, this lack of local superstructure of political<br />
and legal relations is reflected in increasing similarities in settlements forms. G. Bear wrote<br />
The Arab city, like the village, was never an 'organism' but only a<br />
conglomeration, and even today it has few institutions of self-rule.<br />
The Arab town of the Middle Ages was without independent or<br />
autonomous municipal institutions. Since then, the inhabitants have<br />
had some share in their city's management, and in most Middle<br />
Eastern Arab cities there is a baladiya (municipality). But even<br />
now, central authorities have a firm hand on these bodies'; in Egypt<br />
they are composed of representatives elected and appointed by the<br />
authorities,....In Saudi Arabia, too, most of the members of the<br />
municipalities are appointed. 18<br />
The administrative-legal organization of the Arab Middle Eastern city grew<br />
subservient to the central bureaucracy. In most cases, local autonomy is usurped by the<br />
central authority where conflict persists between the various state agencies and interests. 19<br />
Towns and cities' governments have no established procedures and rights to obtain semiautonomy<br />
through charters or to create city governments and exercise political and<br />
economic decision-making over their jurisdiction. This renders these entities dependent on<br />
the central government's bureaucratic guidance and financial aid, which shoulders<br />
enormous responsibilities on the central government and calls for a bloated bureaucracy.<br />
Moreover, a lack of open political life impedes citizens' participation and input at the cost of<br />
great potential for locally creative leadership and effective handling of communities' affairs.<br />
Consequently, the local governments and city municipalities have become emasculated.
118<br />
Instead, the emerging system "is based on dual organization of the municipality and the<br />
province. The most salient feature of municipal administrative system in the Near and<br />
Middle East is the extensive scope of national control ." 20<br />
From the previous review, it was made clear that, in the West, modern urban<br />
planning materialized from the progressive and reform movements headed by politicians,<br />
lawyers, philosophers, idealists and design professionals. Their efforts and views<br />
culminated in the institutionalization of modern urban planning in the early decades of this<br />
century. In the Western context, urban planning matured through subjugating its activity to<br />
open debate in a favorable political environment. The urban planning profession has been<br />
modified over time, incorporating socioeconomic considerations. According to John<br />
Dyckman et al, planning practices<br />
grew up with local government reform, and with the conviction that<br />
such government could be made 'fairer' and more efficient by the<br />
application of rational methods, by the strengthening of an<br />
'impartial' professional bureaucracy and by liberal infusions of a<br />
supposedly value-free science....This is strongly the case if<br />
'rationality' is more broadly rendered to mean confidence that wellconsidered<br />
means will be effective, and that the quality of<br />
governance can be improved by the application of rational<br />
methods. 21<br />
Claus Offe, a German sociologist, distinguishes three processes of policy<br />
formulation: (1) bureaucratic policy making (corresponding to Weber's ideal-type), (2),<br />
policy making through interest group conflict and bargaining, and (3), policy making by<br />
end-means rationality or planning. 22<br />
Urban planning is a decision making process which<br />
deals with the production of a "designated result such as a particular pattern of land use or<br />
specific level of economic growth." 23 In the pluralist literature, planning is viewed as a<br />
method of policy formulation which involves the coordination of means-ends relations in<br />
line of defined objectives. This approach is rooted in the democratic character of the<br />
"pluralist bargaining order-terms that refer to an idealized system of political decision<br />
making, based upon plural sources of power, plural points of access to government, and<br />
plural, competing interests." 24 On the other hand, 'synoptic planning' advocates the<br />
making of decisions by intellectual problem solving. It was disparaged for being<br />
inconsistent with democratic ideals, for it substitutes expertise opinion for public<br />
participation. 25 Writing in 1944, Friedrich Hayek recognized the innate proclivity of
119<br />
planning toward expertise and technically based decision making. Hayek believed such a<br />
tendency is "subversive of both liberty and democracy." 26<br />
Many non-Western countries have blindly adopted physical aspects of Western<br />
planning. This is largely due to these countries governments' need to shift from rural,<br />
traditional economies to modern, diversified economies, as they engage their societies in an<br />
irrevocable process of industrialization. Hie reliance on the mostly technical Western<br />
planning paradigms was largely to protect these states' allocation and investments, for<br />
national development programs enlist enormous national resources, a task which is hardly<br />
sustained without such expertise. John Dyckman et al states, "What is most commonly<br />
expected of the Western planning expertise are the qualities-speed, order, efficiency,<br />
organization, structure, accountability- which lenders, donors and local leaders find<br />
missing in their indigenous management practices. In many countries this is what is meant<br />
by 'modernization.'" 27 Due to its complex technical paraphernalia and elegance, lay<br />
citizens, bureaucrats, and politicians commonly defer to Western planning, though a<br />
profession born within the neoclassical economics. At home, neoclassical economics has<br />
been criticized for its tendency to exclude issues from legitimate political considerations. In<br />
addition, it has been argued that neoclassical (standard) economics encourages a sanguine<br />
view of the status quo and disseminates the comforting illusion that the market is capable of<br />
effectively reflecting the aspirations of the sovereign actors 28<br />
II. PLANNING PROCESS, POLICY MAKING AND URBAN PLANNING IN SAUDI<br />
ARABIA<br />
At best, the planning model of Saudi Arabia resembles the 'synoptic planning'<br />
approach. Urban development in Saudi Arabia is shaped by several factors, one of which<br />
is urban planning, an apolitical activity performed within a given agenda sealed from public<br />
scrutiny. The planning process in the Kingdom is a projection of the central government'<br />
political character. Policy formulation and decision making also fall within the purview of<br />
the bureaucracy, a complex organization encompassing twenty three ministries all which<br />
affect the urban process to various degrees. The King presides at the top of the<br />
bureaucracy which deals with the application of fixed rules to cases. The application of<br />
these top-down decisions has resulted in the production of urban forms that share similar<br />
features, the grid iron layout, rectangular land subdivisions, and utter lack of relevance to<br />
the physical environment, among others. All in all, the Saudi urban planning model is a
120<br />
highly technical one, in the sense that it is devoid of formal public participation (see the<br />
majlis forum in chapter two).<br />
The practice of contracting foreign expertise also extends to the domain of urban<br />
planning. Constrained by time and contract costs, foreign planning consultants tend to be<br />
inattentive to the host society's history, culture and the institutional framework. Many<br />
consultants either rely on mediocre studies or stay aloof from studying local culture and<br />
confronting local politics. These studies' effectiveness depends upon the host country's<br />
governments' willingness to implement the plans and to subject findings and outcomes to<br />
public and professional scrutiny. It also depends on local planners' capabilities to handle<br />
the implementation stages and feedback process, which is usually of long duration. In this<br />
chapter, I will focus on decision making processes that are directly related to the<br />
organization of spatial development, which loosely constitutes the field of urban and<br />
regional planning.<br />
In the Saudi urban domain, the transformation of the built environment and the<br />
resulting rigid character it came to embody was a function of several factors including (1)<br />
the unguarded application of Western planning architecture and planning models, (2) the<br />
lack of local adept expertise and well developed indigenous institutions capable of offering<br />
solutions for the emerging transitional problems, and (3) the overall dismal political<br />
environment incapable of advocating independent initiative and allow for self-evaluating<br />
mechanisms, based rationality and open to popular scrutiny. 29<br />
Faced with a phenomenal rate of urbanization that has been running from 10 to 12<br />
percent per annum during the booming decade of the 1970s, the Saudi government has<br />
resorted to various forms of planning practices to assuage urbanization's negative<br />
byproducts- overcrowding, substandard housing, lack of sewage systems, public and<br />
social services. Between 1950 and 1985, the level of urbanization in Saudi Arabia<br />
increased from 10% to 75%. 30 For example, Dammam, at the center of the oil industry<br />
activity in the Eastern Province, has transformed from a sleepy settlement of 300 huts in the<br />
1930s to a teeming city of 450,000 people in 1986. Ninety percent of Dammam's housing<br />
stock was built during the last twenty years and 35 percent in the last five years (Table, 1).<br />
Riyadh, the capital of the country, sprang from a burgh of 19,000 inhabitants in the 1920s<br />
to a bustling metropolis of an estimated 1.3 million people in the mid-1980s. The<br />
discovery of oil in 1938 has become the catalyst for an unprecedented urbanization process.
121<br />
With oil income available to the central government, such income has been used in the<br />
modernization of the traditional society. During the reign of King <strong>Faisal</strong>, rising oil<br />
revenues became large enough for the government to shift the economy into higher gears<br />
which ultimately expedited the transformation of the physical environment.<br />
A brief discussion of the development of government national planning apparatus and<br />
policy formulation in the Kingdom is needed to elucidate the direct role of the government<br />
in shaping the contemporary built environment. I will review the planning system, its<br />
components and processes in the Kingdom, the understanding of how urban planning<br />
evolved as pliant and confined to the public sector, how it fits into the bureaucratic<br />
organization, and how it has been wrought at the national level. As such, national planning<br />
and urban planning have become instrumental in conveying a noblesse oblige notion of a<br />
paternalistic leadership and views through the making of national policies that have been<br />
proclaimed to be in the best interest of the population and to produce satisfied and<br />
productive citizens. These policies have resulted in profound ramifications on the built<br />
environment. In Saudi Arabia, there are no property taxes or other forms of taxes that local<br />
municipalities can levy on local residents and businesses to support their own services,<br />
save nominal fees such as specific application processing . Instead, the national<br />
government provides all local expenditures including staff salaries and projects. In return<br />
for such a privilege, local initiative is substituted by top-down decisions mandated by the<br />
national government, hence emasculating local government's initiative. 31<br />
As decades unfold, the government assumed a larger role in the economy, hence the<br />
transformation of the built environment. During the early decades of its formation, the state<br />
called upon Aramco to assess the various problems that growth brought with it. Whether<br />
due to little interest or lack of a basic understanding of the local culture, the oil company's<br />
surveyors relied on the gridiron pattern in the laying of the new parts of the traditional<br />
settlements, as opposed to emulating vernacular urban design and planning while<br />
considering modern technology. It was rationalized for its expediency and flexibility for<br />
rapid growth. The imposition of the grid system on the local urban system, with its<br />
setback concept, have since popularized the villa as the preferred residential unit. Both new<br />
concepts called for the utilization of vast area as opposed to the compact old town forms.<br />
For example, the proportion of land required for circulation space was multiplied based on<br />
the anticipation of the increased use of the automobile in the future. This great emphasis on<br />
vehicular circulation contrasts those of the traditional built environment, where circulation
122<br />
space had a secondary status to that of built spaces. In the historical settlement forms, the<br />
configuration of the circulation space was confined to the residual unbuilt space, delineating<br />
the edges of the community and served as open space for social interaction.<br />
Furthermore, in 1951, Aramco and the Saudi government introduced the Housing<br />
Ownership Program (HOP) to help counter the spread of shantytowns doting the rim of the<br />
planned communities. Aramco's Saudi workers were entitled to a free-interest loan<br />
amortized through installments that were taken from stipends. The land was provided free<br />
by the government and potential applicants were required to design their own units. The<br />
HOP set the popularity of the construction of the villa type in the new subdivisions for it<br />
mandated that Saudi employees construct their houses in the newly laid gridiron network.<br />
The project proved successful, for the population associated rising income, prestige and<br />
technological conveniences with the construction of new concrete, detached houses.<br />
Aramco's platted developments for its Saudi working force with their rectangular street<br />
network and detached villa houses became the progenitor which other towns emulated in<br />
their growth. Even in cases where lots were too small to allow for a surrounding yard, the<br />
new homes were adorned with wide windows, small balconies and doors that opened<br />
directly into the infinite rectangular street network, an aberrant to the convoluted tree-like<br />
circulation space of the traditional built environment. Their fenestration ignored climatic<br />
considerations and privacy, neighbors no longer had established procedures to protest<br />
being exposed by next-door buildings' windows and balconies.<br />
For purposes of simplicity, the development of national and urban planning will be<br />
chronologically organized. National and urban planning has developed through stages,<br />
however overlapping. They include (1) the introduction of legislative urban growth<br />
controls and the emergence of the organized municipalities, (2) the construction and<br />
development of new towns and planned communities, (3) the emergence of city master<br />
plans and comprehensive planning, (4) comprehensive national planning and the adoption<br />
of the five-year national planning approach,and (5), the construction of new industrial<br />
towns. But first an overview of the political character and administrative structure of the<br />
government and their relation to the planning system is necessary to facilitate a clearer<br />
understanding of the planning practice in the Kingdom.
123<br />
in. SAUDI GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE AND DECISION, AND POLICY-MAKING<br />
PROCESS<br />
At the top of the policy making structure is the King, who by definition commands a<br />
great degree of control in all decisions. The King is aided by advisors and institutions all<br />
of which form the structure of the decision-making process. The King presides over the<br />
cabinet of the government ministries or Council of Ministers (CM), a legislative body<br />
created in 1953. By 1975, the CM comprised twenty-three ministers heading the various<br />
bureaucratic ministries, departments and agencies. 32 Several ministries and government<br />
departments are vested with the responsibilities of making decisions of direct and indirect<br />
impact on urban development. Despite the considerable purview of these ministries within<br />
the areas of their authority, the King retains the final say and the ability to bypass the<br />
system.<br />
Beleaguered by the increasing urban problems, the government introduced the<br />
municipality, an organization which was created to shoulder the responsibility of<br />
establishing order in the built environment. It was a governmental institution that was<br />
perceived as part of the central bureaucracy and received its financial strength from the<br />
King. Under the Saudi political order, cities and towns are denied legal personality, that is<br />
the right of denizens to.establish constitutional powers delimiting domains of authority<br />
between the central government and the city. Since citizens are not required to render taxes<br />
to the government, city politics were never considered. The traditional forms of autonomy<br />
exercised by the city notables within the quarters were gradually eclipsed by the rising<br />
power of the state, which supplanted them with government organs under its control. 33<br />
The modern civic organizations created under the auspices of the state, such as the<br />
municipality and the imarah (town's governorship), were administrative organs of the<br />
central bureaucracy. 34<br />
The government financed development of modern towns 35 and<br />
therefore held ultimate authority over the form and scope of local control and<br />
administration.<br />
The emergence of concerted efforts at modern, comprehensive (national) planning<br />
activity in Saudi Arabia since the late 1960s and 1970s emanates from the government<br />
decision to shift to a modern diversified economic base. An executive planning board was<br />
first established in 1960. A council of Minsters' Resolution No. 430 mandated its<br />
replacement with the Central Planning Organization (CPO) in 1964. It was entrusted with
124<br />
several tasks including economic analyses and studies, submitting periodic economic<br />
reports on the economy, economic progress and trends, the preparation of the five-year<br />
economic development plans attached with estimates for implementation and forecasts,<br />
which afforded advisory assistance to the King, government ministries and independent<br />
agencies, foreign and local, etc. In October 1975, the CPO was elevated to the Ministry of<br />
Planning (MOP). The MOP is bestowed with various research responsibilities including<br />
the monitoring of development process and the formulation of the five-year development<br />
plans. Designed at the central government, these plans outline the structure of allocating<br />
national resources, by sector, space within a time framework. These developments were a<br />
result of previous several government experiments which go back to the 1930s. The<br />
emergence of the Saudi model of urban planning reflects the Kingdom's cultural<br />
characteristics, paramountly its political centralism and economic affluence.<br />
Formal, comprehensive planning began in earnest in the 1970s. The decade brought<br />
the first national Five-Year Plan which endowed more towns with the status of<br />
municipality, hence increasing the number of such settlements from 54 to 162 by 1980. In<br />
one decade, the first two Five Year Plans provided master plans for 72 cities. They<br />
stipulated civic beautification and infrastructure. The master plans also contained copious<br />
documents that included land use, building codes, traffic requirements, and land<br />
development guidelines.<br />
IV. URBAN PLANNING: MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT, ORDINANCE AND<br />
COMPREHENSIVE ZONING<br />
Modern urban planning per se in Saudi Arabia has its roots in the government's<br />
desire to improve accessibility and provide services in the holy cities of Makkah and<br />
Madinah during the 1930s. These efforts took the form of street widening and<br />
improvements of sanitary provisions to meet the needs of the rising demand for urban<br />
space in the holy cities. The goal was to accommodate more pilgrims. Economically,<br />
pilgrimage (hajj) constituted a substantial component of the nascent, impoverished<br />
government treasury (reaching up to one-third the annual income). As oil revenues<br />
increased, in 1952, King Abdul-Aziz abolished the dues charged to Muslim pilgrims,<br />
forgoing a source of income that brought an approximate $30 million annually. Politically,<br />
these efforts were a reflection of King Abdul-Aziz's (the new Najdi ruler of the holy<br />
places) efforts to cultivate the world Muslims' confidence as the new guardian of the holy
125<br />
sites. The King, who was advised by a coterie of educated advisors from nearby Arab<br />
countries, acknowledged the need to devise a system of regulations and procedures aimed<br />
at enhancing order in the built environment and to monitor growth.<br />
Urban and regional planning in the Kingdom has evolved with two distinct eras (A1<br />
Hathloul and Anis-ur-Rahman, 1985). During the first era (1930 up to early 1970s) urban<br />
planning in Saudi Arabia was essentially an incremental and ad hoc process which<br />
responded to day-to-day problems and needs. Starting with the 1970s, the second era of<br />
urban and regional planning emphasized a form of 'holistic approach' in which emphasis<br />
has been placed on preparation of regional and urban plans based on evaluation of existing<br />
conditions.<br />
Prior to the 1970s, the common practice was platting of subdivisions in the outlying<br />
parts of the towns and cities, many of which were distributed free to those interested in<br />
building their own homes outside the walled towns. As demand for land rose, so new<br />
tracts were thrown at the periphery. So to speak, free land was only available in the<br />
rectangular new annexes at the periphery. In most cases, petitioners for free land had to<br />
abide by the municipal regulations which sanctioned the setback concept, hence<br />
encouraging the villa type. As such, and due to numerous measures that were followed by<br />
local municipalities in complying with statutes issued periodically by the central state since<br />
1357/1938, the grid pattern and the villa on a square lot were gradually adopted through<br />
master plans, zoning regulations and decrees, directives and circulars. 36<br />
It was a formative era because the measures that were taken by the government had a<br />
lasting impact on the future of urban development and planning in the Kingdom. Such<br />
measures were reactionary, essentially taken in response to day-to-day needs and problems<br />
in major urban centers and settlements. It gradually introduced measures and regulations<br />
aimed at controlling growth and enhancing order and scenic qualities in the build<br />
environment. The movement to systematic urban improvements and the adoption of<br />
statutory powers over subsequent urban development presents a turning point in the urban<br />
processes in which the state has assumed a larger role than the putative purview it exercised<br />
in the traditional built environment. The second period dates back to the early 1970s.
126<br />
A. The Formative Era, 1930s and 1940s<br />
Royal Order number 8723 of 1937 (20 Rajab 1357 H) heralded the government's<br />
preemptive right to the regulation of urban growth and development. It sanctioned the new<br />
"Capital Trusteeship and Municipalities" (CTM) as the first formal statute concerning the<br />
regulation of urban growth in the holy city of Makkah, which, during the 1930s and<br />
1940s, was the holy and administrative capital of the Kingdom. The Order specified the<br />
responsibilities of the newly-established municipalities. It specified regulations, measures<br />
and procedures of guiding and monitoring town's new development, beautification works<br />
conducive to scenic qualities; and designating the distribution of sellers in the suq area. It<br />
also mandated that the municipality had the right to monitor housing development; protect<br />
public spaces; widen streets; and create open areas for the public. The municipalities were<br />
given the authority to develop zoning and building regulations and building codes. This<br />
Order was followed in 1941 by the Roads and Building Statute which indicated the<br />
authorities' need for some form of town planning under rising pressure for physical<br />
improvements in Makkah city. "The statute concerns itself mainly with three issues:<br />
planning procedures, building codes, zoning and the right-of-way. It was through this<br />
statute that the setback concept was introduced in Saudi Arabia with the sole objective of<br />
meeting the need for future street widening." 37 Along with the rise in urban growth, came<br />
an increase in state intervention in urban development.<br />
In 1345/1925, the government established Municipal Councils in major cities. The<br />
General Regulation of Metropolitan Municipalities was issued in 1357/1937, the first selfstanding<br />
regulation to deal with municipal organization. In 1382/1962, the Council of<br />
Ministers issued resolution No. 808 which delegated the task of overseeing municipal<br />
affairs to the Ministry of Interior (MI). The MTs Municipal Services Department was<br />
transferred with the Council of Minsters' resolution No. 517 of Ramadan 1382/1962 to the<br />
Agency of Municipal Affairs(AMA). The AMA's was entrusted with the function of<br />
supervising the municipalities' various activities, including water and sewer systems,<br />
drainage of rain water and discharge, and the responsibility of urban planning, direction<br />
and control. In 1395/1975, the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) was<br />
established as an independent, high-level organ, a step that reflected the growing<br />
significance of urban affairs at the apogee of the urbanization process. The MOMRA has<br />
been charged with the development of municipal organizations at qualified urban<br />
settlements and village clusters. By 1985, the ministry has grew to oversee 98
127<br />
municipalities, 43 village clusters and the provision of water and sewer services (in cities of<br />
17,000 inhabitants or more). The MOMRA's Deputy of Town Planning (DTP) was<br />
charged with the task of conducting studies related to urban growth and management<br />
issues, drafting comprehensive regional and city master plans for the various cities, towns<br />
and regions. The total outlays of MOMRA during the first three five-year Development<br />
Plans (1970-85) amounted to SR 174 billion.<br />
Nevertheless, during the early decades of the Kingdom (1930-1950), the<br />
government's input and intervention remained characterized by a virtual lack of locally<br />
developed traditions of government-led urban planning and dearth of financial resources.<br />
The early efforts were essentially sectorial, limited to monitoring city growth and building<br />
activity, especially in the overcrowded cities' cores (early demolishing took place around<br />
the Holy Mosques of Makkah and Madinah, and the Governor's Palace in Riyadh) which<br />
were faced with an onslaught of city-ward migration, proliferation of state organizations<br />
and functions, and the increasing introduction of technology, that is the ubiquitous<br />
automobile. By the 1950s, the automobile had become a primary factor in determining the<br />
landscape of the metropolis. The process of issuing a new regulation resulted from the<br />
need to counter certain problems at a certain locality. This prompted the need for<br />
intervention: a recommendation to a problem must first be sanctioned by the pertaining<br />
ministry at the capital, whose staff, depending on the nature of the problem, may obtain a<br />
royal approval from the Council of Ministers. Prior to the development of fully grown<br />
specialized ministries, the municipality was responsible for various town services, such as<br />
health, road grading and water provision. The police power, however, laid in the Emir's<br />
(governor) puryiew, who, like the municipalities, performed under the Ministry of Interior.<br />
Municipalities implemented numerous eclectic resolutions and ordinances ordained by the<br />
central government. The accumulation of such experience has had a mixed result on the<br />
course of urban development. On the one hand, the accumulated experience meant sharing<br />
useful information. On the other hand, an experience that might have proven practical in<br />
one locality may as well become a binding requirement for subsequent development for all<br />
areas of the country. Procedures to repeal legislation that is not pertinent for some localities<br />
do exist but usually take tremendous effort and require a long time.
128<br />
V. PLANNED TOWNS AND COMMUNITIES<br />
The process of planned communities in Saudi Arabia constitutes the most profound<br />
exercise by the private (oil) company (Aramco) and the government starting in the late<br />
1940s. Comprehensive, national and urban planning and policy making in the modern,<br />
systematic fashion was yet to be used by the 1970s. These planned communities represent<br />
direct intervention by these entities to cope with rapid urbanization. The process can be<br />
divided into (1) early planned American oil towns, (2) planned Saudi workers communities<br />
in the Eastern Province,(3) planned royal suburbs and communities built by the<br />
government for administrative purposes- an experience which will be discussed in Chapter<br />
4, and (4) new towns built by the government for Industrial purposes.<br />
A. Early Planned American Oil Towns<br />
As oil operations by were resumed following the end of World War Two, more<br />
Americans and other nationals were admitted to Saudi Arabia. Aramco constructed three<br />
major settlements at the major oil operations as "outposts of American civilizations." 38<br />
Dhahran was built anew for Aramco's headquarters and housed the majority of Americans.<br />
It was situated on a hilly site, twenty kilometers east of the Gulf shores to the east. The<br />
second major town, Ras Tannurah, was constructed anew on the Gulf coast where a<br />
complex of oil processing facilities were concentrated, including a major refinery. The first<br />
oil ever loaded onto an oil tanker was in May 1939 with the presence of King Abdul-Aziz.<br />
Abqaiq town was located to serve the great oil field inland. In total, these towns comprised<br />
6,400 Americans including some of whom had families.<br />
Due to the wide cultural gap between the Americans and the predominantly rural and<br />
nomadic Saudi labor force, the towns' plans mirrored the oil company's policy of physical<br />
segregation according to ethnicity. Solon T. Kimball wrote, "Each town section is divided<br />
into five distinctive sections that correspond to internal social divisions or economic<br />
functions....Their internal divisions reflected the bureaucratic structure of an American<br />
corporation, divisions that are sharply accentuated by the coincidence of status levels and<br />
national origins." 39 The rational of maximizing oil operations was mirrored in the physical<br />
and social organization of Aramco's towns forms, with the ultimate goal of speeding "the<br />
flow of oil to an industrial civilization." The oil town core comprised the administrative,<br />
commercial, operational and service areas. It was located next to the industrial systems, a
129<br />
bustling plexus/center of immense oil processing operations, using a labyrinth of pipelines,<br />
power connections, and numerous towers needed for refinery, processing and transmission<br />
of oil. The array of commercial services were exclusively geared for the use by the 'senior 1<br />
staff, a group largely composed of Americans and a handful of other nationals. Kimball<br />
viewed the spatial segregation of these communities as a reflection of the wide gap between<br />
two contrasting cultures, the Aramco "civilized" Americans living in the "Senior" planned<br />
communities, and the backward Saudi labor force confined to shantytowns with their<br />
families.<br />
In addition to the the core of operations, there were four other sections, assigned for<br />
residential uses. The first was the 'Senior' staff. It resembled an American southwestern<br />
tradition of planning. In Dhahran's Senior, the residential units were single-family, onestory<br />
dwellings built of wood and stucco with sloping roofs, each home was surrounded<br />
by a lawn and yard and enclosed by a hedge. All units were air-conditioned and adequately<br />
furnished. Dhahran's layout was a combination of grid iron style and curving streets and<br />
cul-de-sacs, and irregular blocks. Streets and walkways were paved, curbed and lighted,<br />
and all serviced with the required community services, recreational facilities and a<br />
controlled access to the camp. The recreational areas possessed an auditorium, a luxurious<br />
club, that included bowling alleys, library and dining area and a terrace for outdoor social<br />
functions. Other towns included recreational areas that had baseball diamonds, tennis<br />
courts, soccer and football fields and golf links.<br />
The senior staff housing units varied in style and size. The higher officials in the<br />
upper echelon of Aramco's bureaucracy occupied larger, elaborate and better equipped<br />
residents. Lower-in-rank American employees lived in modest ones. The higher-income<br />
singles were housed in multi-roomed modern buildings with communal space for cooking<br />
and entertaining. Other "bachelors" were confined to barack-type dormitories which<br />
contained many conveniences. The American residential camps included elementary,<br />
junior-high schools, a hospital in Dhahran and medical clinics in Ras Tannurah and Abqiq.<br />
The second residential area, the "intermediate" camp, was constructed for Aramco's labor<br />
force who were rated primarily "semi-skilled and supervisory." This group was classified<br />
as "other nationals", expatriates from Arab, Mediterranean and African countries. They<br />
were confined to the barrack-type buildings built of concrete and cement blocks. The<br />
"general" camp constituted the third section of the Aramco town. It was inhabited by the<br />
Saudi employees and workers. It was constructed with concrete and cement-block
130<br />
materials, and, like the intermediate section, had modest recreational facilities. Both the<br />
"general" and the "intermediate" residential sectors of the city were designed for bachelors.<br />
The fifth section was neither planned "nor welcomed." It was an assemblage of<br />
haphazardly scattered residential structures built of makeshift, scrape materials, palm-leaf<br />
barastis, and some of cement blocks. "To the Western eyes it is reminiscent of<br />
Hoovervilles of depression days," noted Kimball. As Saudi employees' families were not<br />
considered in the construction or planning of early Aramco towns, Saudis found in these<br />
shantytowns the only nearby place where they could bring their families. Aramco had left<br />
them no choice. Kimball noted,<br />
Here the employees, mostly Saudis, may bring their families. One<br />
can see occasional sheep, goats, and buros, and the camels tethered<br />
nearby may belong to an employee or his visiting relatives. One<br />
also finds an incipient native suk or market, perhaps a garage and<br />
gasoline pump, and other evidences of an emerging indigenous<br />
community life. Both Aramco, and the government are disturbed by<br />
these settlements, and efforts are under way to encourage their<br />
replacements by the development of planned Arab type towns<br />
through subsidies and other devices. 40<br />
Early in the 1950s, Aramco launched its Housing Ownership Program (HOP), as a<br />
step to eradicate the gap of spatial differentiation, though social segregation was to last for<br />
decades to come. Separate planned (or rather platted) communities gradually emerged<br />
around the Aramco "enclaves", however, at standards much more modest than those<br />
available for the senior staff. These communities were mere annexes, subdivisions which<br />
were platted in a rectangular pattern, to allow for the construction of "decent" houses for<br />
Saudi personnel under Aramco's HOP. Unfortunately, no genuine attempt was taken by<br />
Aramco's design team to assimilate local architecture heritage and planning values in order<br />
to recreated new physical environments modified to accommodate modern technology for<br />
the Saudi working force. Instead, the Saudi-Arab worker communities, commonly known<br />
as "cities of laborers" were neither designed with respect to traditional values of physical<br />
design nor incorporated modern (Western) urban design and planning as illustrated in the<br />
fully equipped residential sections built for Aramco's American staff, the 'senior 1 . This<br />
tradition of foregoing architectural heritage and planning values and the laying of openended,<br />
unconfined gridiron network, lacking the necessary community and recreational
131<br />
services, for the new annexes of existing cities has characterized subsequent urban<br />
development. To Aramco's planned Saudi communities we now return.<br />
r<br />
B. Planned Arab Communities in the Eastern Province<br />
In 1935, Al-Khobar was a settlement of fifteen huts. Its pre-oil growth owes to the<br />
migration of members of the Dawasir tribe from Bahrain in 1923. Upon their arrival, the<br />
Dawasirs settled in Al-Khobar and Dammam where they worked mainly in pearl diving.<br />
Prior to the actual exploitation of oil in commercial quantities, AUchobar and Dammam's<br />
growth was largely governed by its population's natural birth growth. Al-Khobar status<br />
improved when in 1935, a small dock was built by the oil company to facilitate the<br />
importation of oil drilling equipment and other materials from Bahrain.<br />
In 1938, in its effort to encourage sedentarization in the potentially prosperous oil<br />
region, the government allotted free land to settlers in Dammam and Al-Khobar. The land<br />
distribution program, the first in the region, granted land to individuals on several<br />
conditions including (1) all citizens have the right to request a piece of land to be built<br />
according to the conditions and regulations, (2) no rent should be levied for the first ten<br />
years, (3) henceforth, annual rent is to be collected, (4) building activity must be completed<br />
before the lapse of a two year period, (4) structures should not exceed one story, structures<br />
on waterfronts can be higher, and (5) that grantees should only use concrete and stone to<br />
erect their homes. Until 1939, Al-Khobar's homes were all huts built of palm reeds and<br />
trunks, with the exception of one structure constructed of rubble rocks quarried from the<br />
sea shore. The small building belonged to the town's Ameer (governor). 41<br />
In 1947, under the surmounting need to house the Saudi laborers working in the<br />
growing oil industry in the country's eastern province, the Governor of the Eastern<br />
Province, Saud A. Bin Jiliewy, requested the help of the oil company, ARAMCO, to<br />
prepare a plan for the towns of Dammam and Al-Khobar. The new extension to the old<br />
organically-built towns were laid out in a grid iron pattern for expediency purposes. Al-<br />
Khobar was planned according to a gridiron layout comprising rectangular lots of 130 by<br />
200 feet serviced by a north-south oriented road system of various widths ranging from 40<br />
to 60 feet wide. The network was connected to a major road spine adjacent to the<br />
waterfront, named Prince Talal street. Under rapid growth, another planned annex was
132<br />
added to the city in 1951, only to be followed by a new extension in 1953. The 1960s and<br />
1970s brought exploding growth to these cities as well as many other Saudi cities.<br />
In the early 1930s, Dammam was a small hamlet of 300 residential huts, nestled on<br />
the Arabian Gulf shores. Now at the locus of the industry, its population historically<br />
thrived on fishing and pearl diving. Its subsequent growth owes to its location next to the<br />
first oil well. Its production of crude oil lured waves of migrants for decades to come. The<br />
traditional compact form of the town was soon to witness a fury of building activity as<br />
more migrants settled in the vicinity of the oil company's drilling and exporting operations.<br />
Under surmounting growth, ARAMCO staff picked a large parcel of land outside the old<br />
organically organized town of Dammam. An adjunct thoroughfare (called then King Saud<br />
Street) was laid paralleling the shoreline with narrower streets of 700-1000 feet width were<br />
laid branching from the main street which formed the major arterials. The interstice blocks<br />
were subdivided into rectangular lots of 300 by 600 feet. By 1950, Dammam's growth<br />
was phenomenal and the municipality was forced to extend the gridiron network to<br />
accommodate the increasing demand for lots. Learning from previous experiment, lot sizes<br />
were considerably reduced to dimensions of 150 by 300 feet. In contrast with the<br />
traditional built forms, the emphasis on vehicular access resulted in a circulation space of<br />
55% of the total land uses. In a mere few years, 1952- 1957, the area of Dammam tripled<br />
from 170 to 925 acres. 42<br />
The planning of new, undeveloped tracts of land continued apace with the increasing<br />
numbers of immigrants flocking the oil region. Outside Aramco's Dhahran planning<br />
compounds' senior complex, a new working class shanty town, Nehedain, of makeshift<br />
structures was built of scrape materials, mud, tin cans, reeds called sarifahs or barastis,<br />
and tents grew rapidly lacking potable water, electricity, and sanitation facilities. Its<br />
squalid conditions and impoverished population contrasted with the high standards to<br />
which Aramco's compound was built, perhaps the major factor which led to its subsequent<br />
relocation to a new site, Aththuqbah, five miles away on the road to Al-Khobar. Following<br />
several outbreaks of fire and under pressure by the oil company which cited the potential<br />
fire hazard to oil installations, ordered the relocation of the Nehedain residents to<br />
Aththuqbah new town. A committee was formed comprising government officials. The<br />
members prepared an inventory of the Nehedain's houses which amounted to 420 homes.<br />
In 1953, the government committee commandeered their property at reasonable
133<br />
compensations plus a thirty percent bonus to help them defray construction costs for their<br />
new homes in Aththuqbah where they were allotted free lots. 43<br />
During the 1950s, more new towns were laid anew to house the increasing number of<br />
workers enlisted by the oil company. By 1952, the Aramco employee population reached<br />
20,400 in 1956, of which 3,000 Americans, 13,400 Saudis, and 3,000 were other<br />
nationals. In 1953, Rahima was planned anew to house Aramco workers who worked in<br />
Ras Tannurah refineries and loaded crude oil into large tankers. In 1955, the town of<br />
Rakkah, a village located between Dammam and Al-Khobar, and in 1956 Othailieah were<br />
planned. Several other towns followed suit such as Annuairaiah, Onack and Saihat (1954)<br />
and Qatif (1960). The gridiron system was the common feature in the design of all of these<br />
planned communities. Concomitant with the planning of new towns and communities,<br />
Aramco introduced its Home Ownership Program (HOP) in 1951 to enable its workers to<br />
build their own homes. The plan provided free-interest loans to build on government land.<br />
Interest-fee loans were extended for the construction of municipal water and sewage<br />
systems. Aramco also provide technical assistance to improve power plants. Such direct<br />
aid by Aramco also resulted in a multiplier factor in these towns' urban economies such as<br />
the construction industry. The HOP created a prosperous market for locally produced<br />
cement, concrete building blocks, and iron grill-work which went into the construction of<br />
these houses. Starting in 1946, Aramco encouraged Saudi entrepreneurs to establish local<br />
businesses geared toward the needs of the oil company.<br />
VI. PLANNED URBANIZATION, COMPREHENSIVE URBAN AND REGIONAL<br />
PLANNING IN THE 1970S<br />
Building on previous experience, the Saudi authorities came to consider the vitality of<br />
dealing with urban development and growth at the national level, thanks to the steadily<br />
improving economic conditions and, in the 1960s', to the reforms during King <strong>Faisal</strong>'s<br />
reign which culminated in the early 1970s in the government's adoption of comprehensive<br />
national planning process based on the five-year development plans and other series of<br />
urban and regional comprehensive plans. With the introduction of regional studies, the<br />
emphasis has been shifting from "national prototype planning" to another one in which<br />
more attention is paid to local perspectives.<br />
A. City Master Plans
134<br />
Due to a lack of indigenous expertise, the government sought foreign consultants to<br />
prepare comprehensive regional and master plans for several important cities and regions of<br />
the Kingdom. In 1388/1968, Doxiadis Associates, Consultants on Development and<br />
Ekistics of Athens, Greece, was contracted to prepare the first master plan for the city of<br />
Riyadh. The agreement stated that<br />
the Master plan study will identify, in quantitative terms, present and<br />
future needs affecting the urban development of Riyadh, will<br />
formulate policies, and will prepare a Master Plan and Programme to<br />
ensure the proper development of the city up to the year 2,000.<br />
The significance of Doxiadis Associates' Riyadh Master and other consultants' plans<br />
for towns and cities is that such plans dealt with the city as a whole, a system of interrelated<br />
social and economic variables extending over space. For the first time in Saudi urban<br />
planning, these plans introduced the tradition of charting future development based on field<br />
studies. The Doxiadis plan was submitted to the Council of Ministers in 1971 and adopted<br />
in 1973. Upon its adoption by the CM it became a legal document.<br />
The Plan introduced a set of zoning laws for the various land uses based on the<br />
assumption that were derived from land market mechanisms in Western societies. 44 For<br />
example, the Plan laid down residential areas postulating modern occupations or classes,<br />
replacing kinship based quarters which traditionally formed the city. It comprised a<br />
physical pattern of two-by-two square miles super-blocks. Originally, the residential<br />
super-blocks contained a sub-center assigned for commercial, recreational and public<br />
services (these core services were never realized). Moreover, the villa, a Mediterranean<br />
housing unit situated in a relatively large lot was indoctrinated, thanks to the setback<br />
requirements attached to the Doxiadis Plan. It has become a binding physical framework of<br />
which has encouraged the already spread-out urban form. In short, it set an irrevocable<br />
process in which the grid has been institutionalized as the preferred pattern for Riyadh<br />
future growth, a progenitor to be emulated by other cities and towns.<br />
The "second era" witnessed a concerted effort to deal with city and regions with<br />
respect to national socioeconomic objectives, thanks to the dramatic increase in oil prices<br />
during the 1970s resulting in expanding government sponsorship of massive infrastractural<br />
works and economic development. Accordingly, cities and towns witnessed<br />
unprecedented growth as the number of their population multiplied. Migrants from rural
135<br />
settlements, nomads and expatriates flocked the country's major towns and urban centers<br />
which placed pressures on the already burdened social services and infrastructure. In lieu<br />
with its commitments to modernize the country and raise its subjects living standards, the<br />
government's allocation in the urban sphere was to get the lion's share of the budgetary<br />
expenditures. Along with the five-year Development plans, the government introduced a<br />
series of comprehensive urban and regional plans. A1 Hathloul and Anis-ur-Rahman<br />
contend "During this successive transformation of objectives and convergence from<br />
national to local perspective, the plans increasingly became more and more space<br />
specific." 45<br />
Albeit this shift, little local input is discerned as opposed to the prevailing centralized<br />
plan-making at the national government level. Local Emirates, municipalities and other<br />
concerned government agencies were consulted for evaluations and recommendations that<br />
central organs took into consideration in budgetary allocations. However systemic<br />
impediments of the growing bureaucracy, hinder many keen efforts. For example,<br />
requests pass through long, rigid chain-like process and likely to get entangled in official<br />
bungling. Since there are no local and city governments and no local income generating<br />
systems, such local entities have to rely on central government's financial backing and,<br />
hence go through the bureaucratic system.<br />
Lacking local expertise in the field of urban and regional planning, the government<br />
had to rely on international consultants to prepare comprehensive regional physical plans<br />
for several cities and towns. "These plans were conceived in the context of national<br />
socioeconomic objectives spelled out in the First Five-Year Development Plan (1970-1975)<br />
and provided useful physical inputs for the public and private development programs." 46<br />
Still, these early attempts in regional planning were short of articulating urban growth<br />
trends at the national level. In light of the rising concern of rapid urbanization, the<br />
government moved to upgrade its Deputy Ministry of Interior for Municipal Affairs to an<br />
independent Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) in 1975. The MOMORA<br />
was to be solely entrusted with functions related to municipal, urban and rural<br />
development. The previously Directorate General of Town Planning was given the status<br />
of Deputy Ministry of Town Planning (DMTP).
136<br />
Apart from the formulation of an entire hierarchy of development<br />
plans, certain other related activities and processes, such as enabling<br />
legislation, plan implementation, creation of urban and regional<br />
planning institutions and on the job training programs, necessary for<br />
institutionalizing the planning process, were also initiated. 47<br />
The DMTP supervised the launching of "Action Master Plans Projects" for seven<br />
major cities in the Kingdom. This effort constitutes the third major endeavor to treat city<br />
development comprehensively, modeled on Doxiadis' Master Plan and regional master<br />
plans for the country's five regions. Each master plan comprises fifteen "technical" reports<br />
dealing with two subgroup of subjects: the "background studies" and reports concerned<br />
with "applied aspects" of urban planning, that is the implementation phase. The DMTP<br />
requested that firms help create planning departments to supervise implementation and<br />
feedback. In addition to these three "generations", MOMRA in collaboration with the<br />
United Nations staff, introduced a three-spike Physical Planning Project aimed at<br />
developing a National Spatial Strategy, a professional training program, and supervising<br />
the international consultants working with the Action Master Plans for the selected cities.<br />
B. National Planning: Five-Year Development Plans<br />
The impact of government preemptive urban decision-making and underwriting of<br />
urban development was shown best during the 1970s and the 1980s. The 1970s brought<br />
an unprecedented world demand for oil. Oil output virtually doubled between 1970 and<br />
1973. Oil prices rose sharply, doubling in the same three years from $1.80 a barrel in<br />
1970 to $5.12 in October 1973, to a whooping $11.65 a barrel as of January 1974.<br />
Accordingly, oil revenues rose from $1.26 billion in 1970 to $3,107 billion in 1973, leaped<br />
to $22,574 billion in 1974, and jumped to a phenomenal $98.1 billion in 1982. 48<br />
In one<br />
mere decade to 1975, the annual budget multiplied one hundred and ten times. 49 This oil<br />
wealth has enabled the government to embark upon vigorous national and urban planning<br />
schemes aimed at increasing the living-standards of the population by all feasible means<br />
(higher income, better housing and hygiene, etc) and by upgrading the built environment<br />
for projected future economic prosperity. Though progressive, these schemes were<br />
wrought without public input.<br />
During the last few decades of its promulgation, however, the Kingdom has pursued<br />
a policy of balanced budgets starting in 1947. Compounded by extravagance spending by
137<br />
the royal family, old-fashioned dispensing of the King's purse reflected the<br />
administration's early stages of callow development. This approach proved insufficient to<br />
run a modern nation. Peter Mansfield noted, "Although oil income was rising steadily,<br />
Saudi Arabia fell heavily into debt, and Aramco stopped giving advances on future<br />
revenues." 50<br />
The reign of King Saud, which was marked with wasteful spending,<br />
witnessed little increase in spending on roads, schools and hospitals. But it was not until<br />
March 25,1958 when Crown Prince <strong>Faisal</strong> assumed vast powers leaving titular authority<br />
to his elder brother, King Saud. It was then when more resources found their way to more<br />
people. However, the bureaucracy was to grow haphazardly since the days when King<br />
Abdul-Aziz himself oversaw the entire administration.<br />
Through its short experience of development, the Saudi polity came to recognize the<br />
significance of planned development to maximize the utilization of national, material<br />
resources and manpower. In 1963 the new Supreme Planning Board was established. But<br />
it was not until 1969 that the Cabinet of Minsters authorized the establishment of Central<br />
Planning Organization. By the late 1960s, King <strong>Faisal</strong>'s reforms were to culminate in the<br />
shift to long-term national planning and policy making as early as 1966. To many<br />
observers, <strong>Faisal</strong>'s sagacious brilliance is rare. 51 He was acclaimed for his success in<br />
leading the "country with gentle insistence from medievalism into the jet age." In one of<br />
his speeches he outlined the future course of comprehensive planning. He announced:<br />
We are going ahead with extensive planning, guided by our Islamic<br />
laws and belief, for the progress of the nation...We have chosen an<br />
economic system based on free enterprise because it is our<br />
conviction that it fits perfectly with our Islamic laws and suits our<br />
country by granting every opportunity to the people giving<br />
incentives to every individual and every group to work for the<br />
common group. This does not mean leaving everything unchecked,<br />
for we will interfere when the Government finds it necessary to do<br />
so, but without harming the basic principles involved and in order to<br />
correct any errors that may have occurred and secure social<br />
justice. 52<br />
For the first time, the government formulated objectives, goals and policies and<br />
emphasized coordination between the various public agencies to attain desirable<br />
development targets in the various sectors of the economy. In 1970, the government<br />
introduced the first of its five-year plans, a document outlining the course of government<br />
investment and allocation by economic sector during the five year period the plan covers.
138<br />
The design of these plans was within the purview of the Central Planning Organization, an<br />
agency that was elevated to a ministry in 1975. The Ministry of Planning was aided by<br />
foreign research and planning advisory groups including the American Stanford Research<br />
Group and the French SECT International. Since 1970, these plans have had the ultimate<br />
goal of diversifying the economy from the previous deadlock reliance on oil production.<br />
While having this major, long-term goal in focus, these five-year development plans have<br />
been means to channel enormous financial resources into the development of infrastructural<br />
capabilities, a platform to facilitate national development.<br />
The comprehensive national planning process in Saudi Arabia is outlined in the Fifth<br />
Development Plan. 53 The Saudi Planning system is predicated on a "philosophy of<br />
achieving economic and social development within the framework of a free market<br />
economy based on Islamic values and concepts." 54<br />
The emphasis on Islamic values, it<br />
was stated in the Plan, has contributed greatly to social, economic and institutional<br />
development and have been reflected in the government's preference for a free market<br />
economy. In line with Islamic commercial principles, the government has extended to the<br />
private sector full opportunities to participate in the development process. National<br />
planning activity in the Kingdom is sought to:<br />
1. provide long term conceptual vision to guide development;<br />
2. provide organizational framework for coordinating die<br />
development efforts of the private sector and the government to<br />
guide and initiate structural change;<br />
3. direct government resources towards achieving the long term<br />
development objectives for the economy and towards ensuring the<br />
availability of essential public services;<br />
4. strengthen the on-going management of the economy through<br />
periodic reviews and preparing for emerging conditions which could<br />
seriously affect the development process 55<br />
The national planning system comprises three key elements. The first element is the<br />
formulation of a national development strategy outlining the long-term objectives and<br />
setting the strategic principles for development. Second, the five-year plans which contains<br />
guidelines and directions to be followed for the next five year period. The five-year plans<br />
are essentially middle-range, intermediary reflections of the national development strategy.<br />
The third is the management of Plan implementation, which essentially deals with feedback<br />
reports to monitor, evaluate and assess the Plan's performance.
139<br />
The five-year plan comprises (1) the Plan Document, an outline of objectives,<br />
policies, and development targets the government deems timely toward assuring a<br />
functioning polity and healthy economy, (2) the detailed operation plans which are reports<br />
that were prepared by the various government ministries' agencies and departments. Based<br />
on previous performance, identification of problems and suggested solutions to current<br />
needs, the various public agencies draft proposals outlining their needs and future action<br />
plans, (3) in addition to the government's major departments, the provincial offices of<br />
governors, emirates, prepare Emirate Reports. These reports deal with and assess existing<br />
socioeconomic conditions and identify future needs, (4) The five-year plan provides<br />
valuable information and policies on the economic course and structural shifts the<br />
government would take during the next five years. Such information and projections are to<br />
be used by the private sector to adapt to business opportunities generated by government<br />
investment. Finally, the last key element in the planning system is the "Management Plan<br />
Implementation" (MPI). The MPI refers to annual reports prepared by the Council of<br />
Minsters, a progress report to monitor, evaluate, and assess the plan's performance.<br />
Though focused on the urban areas, the first five-year, 1970-1975, Development<br />
Plan was the first government step toward a comprehensive planning framework of<br />
national economic development. The plan foresaw the need to follow the systematic<br />
coordination of government investments in the construction of a modern infrastructure, the<br />
upgrading of government services, and the development of human resources. By starting<br />
with these goals, the state sought to lay the grounds for achieving long term strategic goals.<br />
The second plan (1975-80) heralded country-wide planning and development. It had<br />
the goals of (1) the maintenance of Islamic moral values, (2) ascertaining the state's need to<br />
develop its defense system and capabilities and strengthen national security, (3) pursuing<br />
high rate of economic growth, (4) to reduce the Kingdom's dependence on the exportation<br />
of crude oil by diversifying the national economy, (5) developing human resources through<br />
education, technical training and provision of better health services, (6) fostering the wellbeing<br />
of the population and maintain social stability amidst the ongoing rapid change, and<br />
(7) continuing the establishment of physical and social infrastructure systems essential to<br />
the performance of the economy. The second five-year development plan witnessed the<br />
establishment of the Ministry of Industry and Electricity, the Royal Commission for Jubail<br />
and Yanbu, the creation of Saudi Arabian Industries Corporation (SABIC) in 1976. The
140<br />
emphasis on modern industry mirrored the government's interest in minimizing the national<br />
economy dependence on oil exportation through the diversification of the economy.<br />
The third plan (1980-1985) and the fourth plans were essentially a continuation of the<br />
second plan. They aimed at accelerating the construction of the physical infrastructure to<br />
attain the major goal of a diversified economy, less dependent on the precarious, fluctuating<br />
world demand for crude oil. Its emphasis on agricultural self-sufficiency in selected crops<br />
such as wheat and foodstuffs including poultry and diary had a profound impact on the<br />
national urban network by slowing the otherwise mass migration to the major urban<br />
centers. The fourth five-year plan (1985-1990), however, channeled a larger proportion of<br />
expenditures on health, education and training programs to achieve a professional, skilled<br />
manpower.<br />
C. Comprehensive, Urban, Regional and Rural Planning<br />
Finally, the process of urban planning has been extended to include regional<br />
development plans for Hail, Tabuk, Makkah, Qassim, Baha, A1 Qatif, Jazan and Alhasa.<br />
This time it attempted to bring the boundaries conterminous with the administrative<br />
boundaries of the emirates (regions' governed an amir who is now nominated by the<br />
Minister of Interior) to prevent overlapping between jurisdictions which caused several<br />
conflicts and delays. Upon completion, the Kingdom's various regions will be covered.<br />
"When completed, the regional plans will serve as coordinating tools at the emirate level<br />
where most development decisions are taken." The plans will also be used for vital<br />
information upon which future budgetary programming and intra-regional decisions are<br />
supposed to be based and coordinated. 56 Unlike the "prototypical" models of the<br />
municipal subdivisions and previous master plans, based on previous experience, the<br />
DMTP's staff were able to ratify some local architecture and urban land patterns such as the<br />
easing of zoning regulations to allow for the rural way of life, courtyard houses, narrow<br />
and deep lots which are sought for economical development.<br />
D. New Towns Built By the Government For Industrial Purposes<br />
Until recently, the government has followed two approaches to industrial<br />
development which had direct impact on the formation of the contemporary built<br />
environment. The first attempts to impose zoning laws, building codes and growth<br />
controls, stemmed from the government's knowledge - that is the municipality- of the need
141<br />
to sort urban activities into distinct zones. Land use assigned for industrial activity sic was<br />
introduced with the debut of the city master plans. As such industrial space was mainly<br />
allotted for "auxiliary" industries such as auto repair and, "assembly industry" involving<br />
establishments specializing in manufacturing furniture, light fixtures, fabricated metal<br />
products and stone, clay and glass products, geared toward popular demand. As cities<br />
grew, with their growth auxiliary industries increased. In addition to their noxious and<br />
noisily by-products, these industries are run by foreign labor, the majority of which are<br />
bachelors. Prior to the segregation of urban land use according to activity, these industries<br />
were located within industrial use, causing resentment by the conservative population.<br />
In order to encourage these industries to relocate and pick up the increasing demand<br />
for service industries, the government assigned considerable land area in the least desirable<br />
sections of cities and towns as "industrial zones". Depending on the current theme of<br />
government development programs, industrial establishments are offered numerous<br />
incentives, including nominal rents for industrial lots (the government offers such land at<br />
minimal rents as one thousandth the market value). In Riyadh, for example, the industrial<br />
land use amounts to 3.8% of the total (developed and undeveloped), in Jeddah 6.5%, in<br />
Dammam 8%, while in Makkah 1.5%. The proliferation of these "assembly industries"<br />
owes considerably to the government promotion programs aimed at rejuvenating the<br />
industrial sector. The first government promotion program to provide incentives for<br />
assembly (auxiliary) industries was not part of the efforts to restructure the national<br />
economy, rather such industries where merely to provide for increasing demand for<br />
services and assembly manufacturing.<br />
The second major industry-related influence on the shaping of the contemporary built<br />
environment was the construction of new industrial towns of Jubail and Yanbu by the<br />
government. Such steps are viewed as a departure from the previously-followed<br />
"conventional approach." The adoption of the new-city approach was a direct consequence<br />
to the national industrial policy to diversify the national economy, hitherto relying on the<br />
exportation of crude oil. The idea to utilize the locally produced oil and natural gas in the<br />
production of petrochemicals, though goes back to the 1960s, and materialized in the<br />
1970s. In 1970, Petromin picked Jubail, a previously placid fishing town on the shores of<br />
the Arabian Gulf, as the site for the new multi-billion dollar industrial complex. Jubail was<br />
projected to be a growth pole bestowed by its proximity to the Berri crude oil and gas fields<br />
and the deep-water channel which makes anchorage for large-vessel tankers possible. In
142<br />
1973, the U.S. Bechtel Corporation was contracted to draw up a master plan based on the<br />
needs of several industries to be executed at various phases. The presentation of the city's<br />
industrial plans in 1975 coincided with the birth of the Royal Commission for Jubail and<br />
Yanbu, on the Red Sea coast. Yanbu was to be fed with a crude a pipeline crossing the<br />
country to the west.<br />
Bechtel was given a 20 years management contract starting June, 1976. The same<br />
year witnessed the take over of Aramco by the Saudi government. Since its inception,<br />
Aramco comprised a consortium of American oil companies, which had entertained<br />
considerable control on the oil industry. By 1976, the government had gained "de jure"<br />
control of Aramco. According to Steven, "This assumption of control marked a watershed<br />
in the sense that Saudi Arabia was now theoretically in a position to directly implement<br />
policy with respect to oil operations, whereas previously the control of the government had<br />
been exercised in a more informal and indirect way."57<br />
In August, 1976 the Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) was<br />
formed to act as an arm for the Ministry of Industry and Electricity. The subsidiary of<br />
Bechtel, the Arabian Bechtel Company Limited, was assigned the task of preparing<br />
infrastructural plans for the two industrial cities including supervising grant contracts. The<br />
industrial city of Jubail was chosen to house the largest industrial harbor in the world, to<br />
accommodate a population of 300,000 by the year 2,000 working in the petrochemical<br />
complexes, oil refineries, a steel mill, and over a dozen other supporting industries. The<br />
total bill of this adventure is estimated to reach $40 billion. These colossal ventures have<br />
been argued by critics to be risky, given the context of the society's development phase and<br />
world competition. Moreover, although the goal is to diversify the economic base of the<br />
country, such industries are heavily dependent on the country's oil and gas reserves.58<br />
The two multi-billion, mega-projects, oil-industrial complexes of Jubail and Yanbu<br />
comprise two new experiments in Saudi Arabia's urban and regional planning. The<br />
government-built town of Jubail is located on the Persian Gulf. .Originally, it was a small<br />
coastal town with fishing and pearl-diving constituting the mainstay of its inhabitants'<br />
living. A new massive master-planned city was laid in the vicinity of the quaint old town,<br />
on a government-owned site of 1,030 square kilometers. It is projected to house a<br />
population of 290,000 at its final developmental stage in 2010. On the west coast, the<br />
government established the industrial Yanbu, anew. The wholly planned and fully-serviced
143<br />
Yanbu occupies public land of 80 square kilometers. Yanbu, which boasted a population<br />
of 20,000 in 1977, is projected to be inhabited by a population of 150,000 upon<br />
completion in the year 2010. The population is expected to engage mainly in the industrial<br />
complex designed to use cheap energy made available by the construction of a 725-mile,<br />
trans-peninsular pipeline bringing crude oil and natural gas from the Eastern Province. The<br />
preliminary construction cost for both towns, paid for by the government, is $7.7 billion of<br />
the running estimated cost of $12 billion(1983 estimates). The construction stage, starting<br />
1977, required the importation of a large workforce. At the peak of the construction<br />
activity in 1982, the number of foreign laborers involved in the construction of the new city<br />
exceeded 30,000 workers. The cost includes infrastructure and public services, the<br />
industrial plants, and ports as well as 33,000 housing units. 59<br />
The master plans of the two industrial complexes were rationalized to attain maximum<br />
functioning of the towns' urban economy, that is industry. The two industrial complexes<br />
were organized around the exploitation of the rich natural reserves of hydrocarbon and<br />
mineral resources featuring world-scale primary industries, capital and energy-intensive<br />
manufacturing products to participate in the growing world markets. They are also<br />
designed to allow for private sector input primarily in the secondary industries and the<br />
support of light manufacturing industries. 60<br />
The Saudi model industrial towns experiment represents a milestone in the history of<br />
urban and regional planning in Saudi Arabia, with calculated emphasis on economic<br />
efficiency in tune with national economic goals confessed in the Five-Year plans. It reflects<br />
the Saudi government's need to reap greater benefits out of its natural resources in a time of<br />
high world demand. Structurally, the decision to create the new towns reflects drastic<br />
changes underlying urban growth and form; in the traditional built environment the urban<br />
form was essentially governed by local imperatives, while in the modem, policy decisions<br />
are made by the national government and geared toward international market exigencies.<br />
The modern settlements function within a national urban network, they are physical<br />
embodiment of the new nation-state system. Urban forms have transformed accordingly.<br />
VII. ANALYSIS & EVALUATION<br />
In the classical definition of the profession, urban planning has been basically<br />
concerned with the location, character, intensity and land needed for the various urban
144<br />
functions. 61 This emphasis on the spatial aspects of physical design has had a definite<br />
impact on the early development of urban planning with the city as the dominant focus.<br />
Soon, such architectural urban design and other civic-minded solutions to urban<br />
predicaments proved ephemeral. With experience, such emphasis has shifted as urban<br />
issues have attracted various disciplines such as economics, urban politics, sociology and<br />
urban geography. It became realized that unless urban planning was extended to the<br />
planning economic and social resources, its solutions to urban growth problems would be<br />
incomplete.<br />
The traditional Arab-Muslim city, or medina, organization reflected the emphasis on<br />
the privacy of the family and the semi-autonomy of the tribe. Quarters developed were<br />
distinguished and personalized reflecting their inhabitants who had a great say in the<br />
building of their neighborhoods and the running of their internal affairs. 62 The design of<br />
city master plans and building codes lack established connection with the religiously-based<br />
building processes of the past, namely, the concern over privacy and traditions. The<br />
contemporary metropolis is a result of the pressures of rapid urbanization, reliance on<br />
Western models of architecture and planning, the economic peculiarities of oil and the<br />
Kingdom's political system.<br />
While the embryo of systematic intervention in the built environment goes back to the<br />
municipal decrees of the 1930s, the genesis of modern comprehensive planning reposes on<br />
the introduction of the city master plan and the five-year development plan both launched in<br />
the early 1970s. As such, the history of development of urban planning in Saudi Arabia is<br />
a tripartite one which comprises the following stages, (1) the earlier municipal legislation of<br />
urban growth, (2) the building of planned communities, and (3) the comprehensive, topdown<br />
approach to urban development. In their own terms and given the short history and<br />
external influence, these efforts were impressive. However, shortcomings abound. These<br />
plans were perfunctorily wrought by foreign consultants first, and later by callow Saudi<br />
planners and technocrats educated and trained at Western institutions and aided by foreign<br />
expertise. Due to time constraints and costs, foreign consultants were less likely to allot<br />
considerable effort to understand cultural process in their host societies. Aside from the<br />
copious studies on existing conditions, problems and trends, given the political<br />
imperatives, their solutions were little more than rationalized, colorful maps for the various
145<br />
land uses backed with detailed zoning regulations. 63 Such sorting of land uses have been<br />
largely based on assumptions peculiar to land market in Western societies.<br />
These plans were a manifestation of assumptions such as those of Western welfare<br />
economics which view zoning as a way for public authorities to rectify defects (e.g.<br />
negative externalities) in the land market, such as the separation of incompatible land uses.<br />
For example, Doxiadis Plan created large residential tracts with subdivisions that gave few<br />
residential units per acre in the northern Riyadh while residential uses with more units per<br />
acre were located in the south-east parts of the city. Lots were rectangular, and the city was<br />
zoned so that the northern areas were given larger lots, hence encouraging higher-income<br />
households to live in the north and lower-income groups in the unpopular southern part of<br />
Riyadh where lots were smaller. The Plan introduced an economic social order to the city,<br />
one that sorts income groups in space, in contrast to the mixed and semi-autonomous<br />
traditional quarter system. Hitherto such income-based division, in contrast to sociallybased<br />
traditional organization, not applicable to the traditional Arab-Islamic built<br />
environments. It also institutionalized the concept of the setback, thus encouraging the<br />
villa, a housing unit surrounded by open space.<br />
The fission from the traditional design standards of the medina was culminated by the<br />
adoption of Doxiadis' City Master Plan for Riyadh in 1973 by the Council of Ministers.<br />
The approach of contracting Western consultants to prepare master plans was in vogue in<br />
many Third World and Developing countries. They were archetypical solutions to rapidly<br />
expanding cities. Master city plans are long-range, multi-phase conceptualizations of a<br />
town's future growth. They constitute comprehensive land use and infrastructure<br />
development plans, projected in tune with vigorous national economic growth schemes, all<br />
sought to facilitate economic prosperity and social stability through manipulating the spatial<br />
system. Along with the housing loans provided through the REDF, Riyadh's new Master<br />
Plan institutionalized the grid and indoctrinated the villa as the preferred form of laying new<br />
districts by setting rectilinear lot-sizes, and enforcing set-backs regulations. 64<br />
Yet, as was the case in many Developing countries whose societies undergo massive<br />
transformation, these plans were more technical documents than realistic programs which<br />
reflect the communities' individual needs and the actual requirements of these cities. They<br />
reflect an elitist form of decision-making process in which planners attempt to meet central<br />
authority goals and claim foresight on behalf of those affected by their decisions. A recent
146<br />
report by the prestigious High Commission For The Development of Arriyadh (HCDA)<br />
reads:<br />
Past development projects [due to rapid growth] soon became<br />
obsolete...public utilities and other development projects were often<br />
designed and built without reliable existing data or an up-to-date<br />
systematic development strategy. Private investment in commercial<br />
and industrial projects were often made by imitation and intuition<br />
without accurate measures of the expected economic returns. 65<br />
This corroborates Brian Berry's observations on the usually perfunctory physical<br />
planning approaches employed in Third World and Developing countries. "It is a planning<br />
at the municipal level within highly Centralized national government." 66 The approach was<br />
often "sectorial or project oriented" (for example, documents that illustrate land use,<br />
transportation, or a housing project). These plans were usually assembled by international<br />
consultants without diligent regard to conte;:t\ial imperatives or a deep study of<br />
consequences and their relationship with the surrounding urban networks. Foreign<br />
schemes abound and Western-born models such as those of the "City Beautiful" planning<br />
approaches are marketed by foreign consultants. Moreover, these efforts do not coincide<br />
with national planning because the latter tend to be economic and the former (the municipal)<br />
tend to be physical (Berry, 1973) 67<br />
SUMMARY<br />
Several factors have forged the Saudi planning model. The government has opted a<br />
policy of managed free-market economy, which they justify as being consistent with<br />
Islamic values as explicitly laid in each five-year development plan. Technically, this<br />
model closely resembles the "indicative planning" approach employed by France and<br />
elsewhere. The indicative planning approach is justified as offering information required to<br />
guide investment and make other rational market choices. In the model, the top planning<br />
commission(s) begins the planning process by setting preliminary overall targets, while<br />
outlining the general course during the following five years that each plan is to last.<br />
Two characteristics of the Kingdom's urban planning, in particular, and national<br />
planning, in general, can be outlined. First, urban planning remains an activity wrought at<br />
the central or national government level in isolation from local city government and general<br />
public input. As such urban planning has been essentially technical, one that relies on
147<br />
imported models, chiefly Western. The Saudi planning model aims at aiding in the<br />
allocation of national resources, coordination of various government agencies' activities in<br />
the built environment in light of the national five-year development plans. As far as goals,<br />
it is a 'functional' mode of planning in which planners assume the goals to be given in a<br />
situation and are rational with respect to the means only. 68<br />
Second, despite the touted commitment to the preference for the application of Islamic<br />
Shariy'ah, as the sole principle on which policy making system is predicated, such<br />
commitment has been confined to loaded officials' announcements, it yet been extended to<br />
the sphere of urban planning. Traditionally, as in the case of the Islamic city, the state has<br />
maintained a somewhat laissez faire position toward the local affairs of building processes.<br />
Such attitude was evident in the structural organization of traditional Arab-Muslim towns<br />
comprising autonomous quarters of which internal affairs were left to residents discretion.<br />
The modern practice of city master plans and government-ordained building codes lacks<br />
established connection with the Islamically-based building practices of the past, namely, the<br />
concern over privacy. While modern Saudi built environments have ignored efficiency<br />
(e.g. no property taxes, sprawl and disregard for environment), the form of traditional built<br />
environments reflected climatic solutions and adhered to social-religious values.<br />
Yet, the contemporary metropolis is a result of the pressures of rapid urbanization,<br />
heavy reliance on Western models of architecture and planning, the economic peculiarities<br />
of oil and the Kingdom's political system. The transformation of the medina to the<br />
contemporary metropolis has been a byproduct of the modernization process consistent<br />
with the leadership's vision, influence and affluence. All in all, the government planning,<br />
of which urban planning is one facet, has been open to technically-rational innovations, as<br />
long as such practices do not involve the questioning of the established government's<br />
preemptive right to decision making, allocation of national resources and the distribution of<br />
power and wealth.
148<br />
Notes to Chapter IV<br />
1 Michael E. Bonine, "The Urbanization of the Persian Gulf Nations." In The Persian Gulf State: A<br />
General Survey, edited by Alvin J. Cottrell, C. Edmund Bosworth, R. Burrell, K. McLachlan, and<br />
R.M. Savory (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press), 272.<br />
2<br />
On the figure of Libya see Ervin Y. Galantay, "Islamic Identity and the Metropolis: the Search for<br />
Continuity," The Proceedings of the International Conference on Urbanism in Islam Vol. 1,5-24<br />
(Tokyo, Japan: October 22,-28,1989), 7.<br />
3 Ahmed A. Shamekh, Spatial Patterns of Bedouin Settlement in Al-Qasim Region, Saudi Arabia<br />
Unpublished Ph.D. <strong>Dissertation</strong> (University of Kentucky, 1975).<br />
4 John Friedmann, "Intention and Reality: The American Planner Overseas," A1P Journal (May 1969):<br />
187-194.<br />
^<br />
Stefano Bianca. "The Threat to Historic Islamic Cities Through Western Style Development: The<br />
Case of The Holy City of Medina," Islamic Quarterly 2 (1982), 109.<br />
6 Peter G. Rowe discusses this 'paradox' in his article "Dual Aspects of Tradition in Saudi Arabian<br />
Housing Development. In Housing Culture and Design: A Comparative Perspective edited by Setha<br />
Low and Erve Chambers (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 303-334.<br />
7 E. Y. Galanty, (1989), 6.<br />
8<br />
Ibid., 7.<br />
9 G. Clark and M. Dear distinguish between four (functional) theories of the state: (i) "supplier' of public<br />
or social goods and services; (ii) "regulator and facilitator' of the functions of the market place 1 (iii)<br />
social engineer', the state intervenes in the economy for its own policy objectives; and (iv) 'arbiter'<br />
mediating between the society's classes. "The State in Capitalism and the Capitalist State". In<br />
Michael Dear and Allen J. Scott (eds.) Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society (London:<br />
Methuen) 1981. pp. 45-61.<br />
1<br />
0 P. M. Hohenberg and L.H. Lees. The Making of Urban Europe, 1000-1950 (Cambridge, MA:<br />
Harvard University Press, 1985), 157; John Hancock, "Planners in the Changing American City,<br />
1900-1940," In American Urban History: An Interpretive Reader with Commentaries (New York:<br />
Oxford University Press, 1973); L. Reissman. The Urban Process: Cities in Industrial Societies (New<br />
York: The Free Press, 1970).<br />
11<br />
David Clark. Urban Geography (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1982).<br />
12<br />
Quoted in Reissman (1970), op. cit., 42.<br />
1<br />
3 This definition was adopted by the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association in 1919 with Hoard's<br />
approval. Ebenezer Howard. Garden Cities of To-morrow (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1946), 26..<br />
1<br />
4 Peter Self, "Urban Planning". In The Social Science encyclopedia, edited by A. Kuper and J. Kuper<br />
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 876.
149<br />
15<br />
Self (1985), 877.<br />
16<br />
Ibid.<br />
L. Reissman (1975), op. cit., 156<br />
G. Bear, "The City" In Readings in Arab Middle Eastern Societies and Culture, edited by Abdulla M.<br />
Lutfiyya and Charles Churchill (Paris: Mouton. 1970), 641. In fact, in Saudi Arabia, all heads and<br />
members of municipalities are appointed by the central government.<br />
19<br />
M. Bonine, (1980), op. cit.<br />
20 Tarik M. Al-Soliman. "The Characteristics of Planned Communities and Their Impact on Urban<br />
Development and Residents Perceptions". In Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi Arabia, edited by K.<br />
M. Al-Ankary and El-S. El-Bushra (Berlin: Gebrudner Borntraeger) 1989. p. 62.<br />
21 John Dyckman, A. Kreditor and T. Baneijee, "Planning in an Unprepared Environment: The Case of<br />
Bahrain," TPR , Vol. 55, No. 2 (1984), 216.<br />
22 The term bureaucracy refers to a system of organization "characterized by hierarchical chain of<br />
information gathering and command, conscious adaptation of means to ends, intraorganizational<br />
specialization, and separation of ownership and management." In addition to bargaining and democracy,<br />
bureaucratic organization is a non-market process that supplements market mechanisms in a managed<br />
capitalist society. John Elliot. Comparative Economic Systems (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth<br />
Publishing Company, 1985).<br />
23 Foglesong, op. cit., 15. Foglesong espouses a Marxian approach to explain the meaning and<br />
significance of the rule of planning and planners. He argues that neither the 'pluralistic-liberal<br />
paradigm 1 nor the progressive development planning approach can deliver a full understanding of the<br />
emergence of urban planning in a capitalist society. Rather, urban planning is best understood through<br />
Marxian analysis which emphasizes the structures and contradictions of American capitalist democracy.<br />
Foglesong probes questions such as how and what type of powerful interests were incorporated into<br />
planning policy and what the role planners play in such a context.<br />
24 ibid., 16.<br />
25<br />
The term "synoptic planning, "was coined by Charles Lindblom in his criticism to decision making<br />
processes by intellectual problem solving. It involves the identification of goals and policy means<br />
which most efficiently attain with the goals. Lindblom argues for what he terms as "muddling<br />
through" approach to policy making. For example, he denies the rational comprehensive planning<br />
model as an ideal, argues for the replacement of 'validity as a criterion in decision-making process for<br />
agreement, and calls for political market Choices rather than knowledge (In A. Faludi (1983)). In his<br />
later works (1977) he modified his position on planning to accommodate for a degree of national<br />
economic planning as a way to maintain democracy.<br />
26 in Foglesong, op cit., 8.<br />
27 Dyckman et al, op cit., 215.
150<br />
28 Klosterman, op. cit.; M. M. Feldman, "What Kind of Economics For What Kind of Planning (1987):<br />
5-20.<br />
Friedmann (1961); Dyckman et al (1984), op. cit..<br />
30 K. M. Al-Ankary and El-S. El-Bushra, op. cit., Table 6, p.10. Concerning this figure, the authors cite<br />
Grill, (1984), p. 2; El-Bushra (1980), 215; Muawad (1987), 190; Population Reference Bureau, Inc.<br />
(1987).<br />
It must be emphasized here that local public departments, such as the municipality, do exercise certain<br />
powers within the domain of defined operations. Local department or agencies can press for certain<br />
exemptions or pass recommendations to their regional or national headquarters. But such requests must<br />
be ratified by high ranking ministry executives, if not by the Council of Ministers. What is lacking is<br />
system by which residents can exercise considerable influence on the urban process at the local<br />
community level.<br />
32 The creation of the Council of Ministers was the final stage in King Abdul-Aziz' national consolidation<br />
of the Kingdom (Royal Decree date October 9,1953 (I Safar, 1373 H)). Fouad Al-Farsy. Saudi<br />
Arabia: A Case Study in Development. (London: KPI) 1986. Paul J. Setevns "The Interaction between<br />
Oil Policy and Industrial Policy in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning,<br />
And Industrialization , edited by R. El Mallakh and D. H. El Mallakh, 27-45. (Lexington, Mass.<br />
Lexington Books, 1982).<br />
3 3<br />
Ahmed H. Dahlan, "The Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers: Its Environment, Its Role and Future,"<br />
In Politics, Administration, and Development in Saudi Arabia, edited by Ahmed, H. Dahlan, 61-80<br />
(Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1990).<br />
34<br />
N.H. Samman, "Saudi Arabia and the Role of the Emirates in Regional Development" In Politics,<br />
Administration, and Development in Saudi Arabia, edited by Ahmed, H. Dahlan, 85-96 (Brentwood,<br />
MD: Amana, 1990).<br />
35<br />
Aidros A. S. Al Sabban, "Saudi Arabia Municipalities: History, Organization and Structure," In<br />
Politics, Administration, and Development in Saudi Arabia, edited by Ahmed, H. Dahlan, 97-127<br />
(Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1990).<br />
36<br />
Al Hathloul, 1981.<br />
37 Saleh A. al-Hathloul and Anis-ur-Rahmaan, "The Evolution of Urban and Regional Planning in Saudi<br />
Arabia. "Ekistics, 312 (May/June 1985), 206.<br />
Solon T. Kimball, "American Culture in Saudi Arabia" The New York Academy of Sciences Vol. 18,<br />
No. 5,469-484 (March, 1956).<br />
39<br />
Kimball, op. cit., 471, 73.<br />
40<br />
Ibid, 473.<br />
41 The use of concrete structures and cement blocks was introduced in 1950 for the first time in the<br />
Eastern Province. Mr. Ahmad Al-K'aki imported skilled builders from Lebanon and Syria to build his
151<br />
big multi-story apartment buildings with commercial spaces on the street level on prospering Khalid<br />
Street in Al-Khobar. He hired an Arab architect, Niqulla Salem who introduced the Mediterranean<br />
multi-story style to the region. In the new residential units, no space was assigned for livestock for<br />
household production, a storage room for dates and foodstuffs, or a water well. Unlike the traditional<br />
introverted homes, the new units were adorned with wide windows and doors opened onto wide, straight<br />
streets, all to meet the new building codes of the municipalities. The architectural style that was opted<br />
by Salem was more suited to the Mediterranean region than to the hot and humid climate of the Eastern<br />
Province. The new style was to inspire mass emulation. Abdullah N. Al-Subaie, The Discovering of<br />
Oil and its Impact on the Social Life in the Eastern Province, 1352/1933-1380/1960: A Study in<br />
Social History. Second Edition. (Riyadh: Asharief Press, 1989.), 160.<br />
42 Ibid, 170.<br />
43<br />
Al-Subaie, 1989.<br />
44<br />
As will be discussed in detail in the chapter on Riyadh, the Doxiadis plan was based on experience<br />
accumulated in Western physical urban planning. Lots were rectangular, and the city was zoned into<br />
areas each with a certain lot sizes- so that the northern areas were given larger lots, hence encouraging<br />
higher-income households to live in the north and lower-income groups in the unpopular southern part<br />
of Riyadh where lots were smaller. As such the Plan introduced an economic plan to the city, one that<br />
sorts income groups in space, in contrast to the mixed and semi-autonomous traditional quarter system.<br />
The plan institutionalized the concept of the setback, thus encouraging the villa, a housing unit<br />
surrounded by open space.<br />
45<br />
Saleh A. Al-Hathloul and Anis-ur-Rahmaan, 206<br />
46<br />
Ibid., 209.<br />
47<br />
Ibid., 206.<br />
4<br />
$ Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Planning. 1983. Achievements of the Development Plans:<br />
1390-1403 (1970-1983), 2.<br />
4<br />
9 Interview with the Saudi Minister of Financial Affairs and National Economy, Al Ahram, Cairo,<br />
Egypt (July 26,1975), 5, cited by Al-Farsy, op cit, 82.<br />
50 Peter Mansfield. The New Arabians (Chicago :J.G. Ferguson Publishing Co, 1981), 163<br />
51<br />
Willard A. Beling. King <strong>Faisal</strong>: and the Modernization of Saudi Arabia, edited by Willard A. Beling<br />
(London: Croom Helm, 1980).<br />
52 Fouad A. Al-Farsy. "King <strong>Faisal</strong> and the First Five Year Development Plan". In King <strong>Faisal</strong>: and the<br />
Modernization of Saudi Arabia, edited by Willard A. Beling (London: Croom Helm, 1980), 61.<br />
53 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Planning. Fifth Development Plan, (1410/1990-1415/1995),<br />
399.<br />
54<br />
Ibid, 3.
152<br />
55<br />
Ibid, 399.<br />
56<br />
Ibid.<br />
57 Paul J. Stevens "The Interaction between Oil Policy and Industrial Policy in Saudi Arabia". In Saudi<br />
Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning and Industrialization, edited by R. El Mallakh & D. H., El<br />
Mallakh (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1982), 27.<br />
58 Paul J. Stevens, ibid. Critics point to the difficulties that accompany switching speedily from a<br />
government-led economy based on oil exports and infrastructure investment to a free market in a span<br />
of two decades. They question the success of the Kingdom's commitment to attaining a free market<br />
economy modeled on the West while at the same time placing due emphasis on preserving its Islamic<br />
heritage. For a comprehensive discussion on this issue see "Saudi Arabia: Riyadh and Jeddah Business,<br />
"The Middle East (August, 1991)<br />
59 Stuart McMinn, John Robertson, and Hassan Reda. "Socio-Economic Development of the Yanbu<br />
Sub-Region, Saudi Arabia: The Impact of the Construction Workforce". Third Planning Review. Vol.<br />
5, No, 4, November, 1983, 311-332.<br />
60 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 1989. Ministry of Planning. Achievements of the Development Plans:<br />
1970-1987 and Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. Introductory Information.<br />
61 Abdul Khakee, "Urban Economics, Urban Geography and Planning." Planning Outlook 24 (1981):<br />
72.<br />
62<br />
Akbar (1988), op. cit.<br />
63<br />
Friedmann (1969); Dyckman et al (1984), op. cit.<br />
64 In Riyadh the villa type comprises 37.9% of the residential stock. Source: High Commission for the<br />
Development of Riyadh 1987. Land Use Survey: Summary Report (Riyadh: Al Shathry Consulting<br />
Engineering).<br />
65 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. High Commission For The Development of Arriyadh. Demographic<br />
Transportation Land Use And Economic Studies For The City Of Arriyadh: Executive Summary<br />
(Riyadh: National Offset Printing Press, 1987.), 4.<br />
66 Brian Berry The Human Consequences of Urbanization (London: Macmillan, 1973), 104.<br />
67 it must be noted here that there is tremendous effort, especially on the part of the HCDA and the<br />
Deputy Ministry for Municipal and Rural Affairs' Deputyship for Town Planning to come up with<br />
more detailed and accurate data base systems. Such efforts are led by highly dedicated Saudi and foreign<br />
professionals committed to create planning schemes compatible with the socio-political and economic<br />
context of Saudi Arabia.<br />
6^ Friedmann (1966), op. cit.
CHAPTER V<br />
MAJOR TRADITIONAL URBAN ATTRIBUTES AND THE EMERGING<br />
URBAN FORMS<br />
Modern cities are characterized by their high level of internal differentiation. The<br />
ever changing modes of urban activities are sorted in space. Living standards and styles,<br />
working conditions, supply and demand, all are parameters which shape the spatial map<br />
of the city. Sets of zones, and residential neighborhoods are formed or transformed<br />
exhibiting peculiar physical qualities, functional organization, and distinctive<br />
demographic composition replete with social character and problems. Such spatial<br />
features are repeated, though no one composition completely resembles another.<br />
However, cities do show overall similarities, which point to correspondent factors<br />
underlying the formation of their urban tissue. Work, residential, recreational and service<br />
activities all compete for place in space. The understanding of internal patterns,<br />
processes and structures of such built environments has attracted scientific inquiry. In the<br />
West, several theoretical approaches have been devised to deal with urban queries and to<br />
unravel the very processes that shape the spatial map. 1 Such theoretical discourse has<br />
been transmitted by Western and Western-educated planners to many non-Western<br />
societies in the form of master plans and proposals for solving urban problems and to<br />
guide development.<br />
In the previous chapters, I discussed the cultural setting of the new nation-state: its<br />
modern history, socioreligious institutions, political structure, economy and the resulting<br />
mode of national and urban planning. I now turn to the emerging urban forms. Like<br />
many developing and Third World countries experiencing rapid economic growth, urban<br />
population has increased in Saudi Arabia. As previously mentioned, the Saudi<br />
government turned to Western expertise to tackle negative aspects of urbanization.<br />
Western planners, overlooking local urban traditions, considerably altered the traditional<br />
built environment and encouraged the wholesale adoption of Western-inspired urban<br />
forms.<br />
As shown in Chapter Three, traditional built forms were reflected in towns'<br />
dominant subsistence economies, which barely fed their denizens, a fact which explained<br />
the rural-pastoral homeostasis. Towns lacked economic vigor to spark urbanization.
154<br />
However, lying in one of the backwater regions of the aging Ottoman empire, most of<br />
Arabia's traditional settlements floated in a semi-political vacuum. Generally speaking,<br />
settlements were ruled by tribal dynasties. The larger princely settlements reflected the<br />
magnitude of power nodes, such as Riyadh, Diriyah, Buraidah, and Hail in the north.<br />
These settlements of petty traders, craftsmen and peasants and other smaller settlements,<br />
in one form or another, joined other major centers in mutual economic and security<br />
agreements. The politically dominant towns served as centers of sub-regions which<br />
included their own hinterland of smaller villages. Also, the traditional system of<br />
affiliations and loyalties between the inhabitants of Najdi towns ascribed to an intricate<br />
network of tribal associations.<br />
In this chapter, I will discuss dominant cultural attributes of traditional built<br />
environments in Arabia. In the following chapters, I will examine how the modernization<br />
programs under the new nation-state have substituted centralized forms of bureaucratic<br />
organization, government-subsidized urban economies, and Western forms of architecture<br />
and urban design and planning for traditional cultural attributes. It must be emphasized,<br />
however, that the modernization of the contemporary Saudi built environment is a result<br />
of the emergence of the national political economic structure which relied on Western<br />
technology to appeal to the rising aspirations of the population and to tackle rapid<br />
urbanization.<br />
I. TRADITIONAL CULTURAL URBAN ATTRIBUTES<br />
Traditional Muslim built environments exhibited several characteristics. They<br />
included (1) a considerable degree of autonomy in the running of local affairs, (2)<br />
subsistent economies, (3) traditional forms of land ownership marked with spontaneous<br />
conversion of undeveloped land, and treating land as a social resource, (4) socially<br />
informed and environmentally compatible organic growth, (5) self-help and communitysupported<br />
production of mixed-income houses, and (6) a great degree of the<br />
responsibility for providing public services fell on the shoulders of the inhabitants with<br />
minimum intervention by the governing body.
155<br />
A. Semi-Local Autonomy and Government and Control<br />
Traditional town rulers enjoyed semi-autonomy and inhabitants exercised exclusive<br />
rights in the regulation of local growth. Amirs had substantial local powers in the control<br />
of local affairs of settlements. The organization of a settlement's form largely comprised<br />
sub territorial enclaves denoting quarters dominated by large families represented by<br />
notables who were consulted by the amir in local and inter-settlements matters. Under<br />
the traditional form of leadership, local rulers relied on a combination of personal<br />
discretion, Islamic legal advice, consultation with prominent town inhabitants, and if<br />
necessary, coercion to maintain their power. In some cases, authority of amirs spilled<br />
over and influenced tribes and villages living within their vicinity. As such, the<br />
"...environment was shaped through mutual agreement and time-tested convictions with<br />
minimum intervention from authorities." 2<br />
B. The Economy<br />
Agriculture was the mainstay of most of Arabia's settlements, while coastal<br />
settlements added fishing and other maritime means of livelihood. Makkah and Madinah<br />
were exceptions. The consecration of Makkah and Madinah as holy cities following the<br />
advent of Islam in the seventh century A.D. bestowed prosperity on the two towns, thanks<br />
to the pilgrim-related economy. Still, most of Arabian settlement economies were limited<br />
to simple forms of bazaar economies of the Middle East: a family organized activity,<br />
typically a risk-minimizing one rather than profit-seeking venture. Due to dispersed<br />
political control, geographic isolation and the precarious harsh environment of the desert,<br />
economic growth was inadequate to stimulate economic prosperity and urbanization.<br />
Riyadh and Huraimla typified the norm in central Arabia, in which a majority of the<br />
population was involved in agriculture whose surplus fed a small population of literati,<br />
petty traders and craftsmen. Inhabitants bartered commodities (e.g. grain and dates) in<br />
exchange for services and goods, especially in central Arabia. The use of specie and<br />
coins was rare. 3<br />
Traditional Muslim towns relied on Islamically established methods of collecting<br />
taxes (e.g. zakat) and fees from those living within their confines and the hinterland. 4<br />
Such teachings guarded individuals against exorbitant taxation, hence limiting revenues<br />
to political leadership. 5 Islamic institutions, specifically, waqf (religiously-inspired
156<br />
foundations whose benefits were dedicated to the public) were instrumental in paying for<br />
buildings and the running of bridges, schools, drinking fountains, mosques, roadhouses,<br />
all of which today are shouldered by the central government. 6 In short, traditional town<br />
economies were informal, intervention by political authorities was minimal. The<br />
informality was derived from freedom of entry, reliance on local resources, family<br />
ownership, small-scale operation, intensive labor and skill acquired through<br />
apprenticeship<br />
C. Urban Planning and Design<br />
In traditional built environments, town building was largely the outcome of<br />
customary building practices based on an accumulation of locally developed experience<br />
and adaptation to local resources. In comparison to modern built environments, land uses<br />
were limited, paramountly residential. Endogamy and kinship, rather than land prices<br />
sorted inhabitants in the settlement. Animated technology explained the compactness of<br />
built forms and the lack of transportation technology impeded sprawl, a common feature<br />
in Saudi Arabia's contemporary forms. Concern with security and control placed a<br />
premium on space. Circulation space was minimized, narrow and functionally<br />
proportionate to pedestrian flow. It was a residual of residential and other built spaces. 7<br />
At the level of individual buildings, town architecture conformed to Islamicallyinspired<br />
social norms, which reflected on the overall patterns of town morphology. 8 For<br />
example, fenestration conformed to mutually tacit agreements of respect for privacy<br />
between neighbors. 9 Internal organization of space reflected climatic concerns, for<br />
instance, the presence of a courtyard, and especially in well-to-do households, genderspecific<br />
as well as ecologically compatible concerns. The emphasis on clustered and<br />
attached residential units of non-regular lots fed by a tortuous and shaded street network<br />
contributed to a benign macroclimate in the torching summer of Arabia, as opposed to the<br />
microclimatic approach in the modern individual villa model and other free-standing<br />
buildings using modern technology (e.g. electricity and insulation) leaving large areas of<br />
the city prone to adverse weather conditions.<br />
While growth adhered to experience and social norms, physical organization of<br />
towns according to a preconceived plan, with distinct uses and a program of<br />
implementation, was unknown. No central (e.g. royal) statutes, no large-scale
157<br />
development, no master plans, and no strong legislative controls existed. None of the<br />
apparatuses typical of modem urban planning under an established state were developed.<br />
The modern modes of transportation and systematic intervention and large-scale urban<br />
production under the auspices of a powerful central state seemed, prior to the discovery<br />
of oil, centuries away. Finally, adding new land uses such as houses, commercial uses or<br />
farmland was done only after securing the affected parties' rights.<br />
D. Land Ownership and Distribution.<br />
Settlement growth was slow and simple, residents encroached on raw land as need<br />
arose. Incremental appropriation of new land conformed to the slow demographic pace,<br />
increases in population were occasionally countered by abrupt natural disasters and<br />
random fatal clashes among settlements' populations and or with marauding nomads.<br />
Austere, subsistence economies offered limited financial resources, a factor which<br />
diminished the economic viability of town expansion to the political leadership. Under<br />
such conditions, urban growth was economically irrelevant, for land was perceived as a<br />
social resource, rather than for its exchange value. Moreover, the Islamic principle of<br />
shufah was acknowledged under the Islamic legal code. Under the shufah principle, a<br />
neighbor was given priority to buy next door properties at the given exchange price. As<br />
such, shufah helped form quarters which housed relatives though they belonged to<br />
different incomes categories.<br />
Documentation of growth, legislation and building activity was virtually<br />
nonexistent. Typically, ownership was established once converted into urban or<br />
productive uses. Legal registry of property was seldom needed, if required it was usually<br />
handled by the town's clergy. Property title was based on conventional recognition by the<br />
community. 1 ' 3 Land ownership was identified with its users. If a dispute arose, witnesses<br />
were summoned and the amir or the qadi resolved the dispute. Finally, lots were<br />
irregular, development (e.g. buildings and farmland) determined land layout and,<br />
ultimately, the town's configuration (whereas in modern built forms, lot dimensions are<br />
set beforehand, taking the form of large parcels laid at one time.
158<br />
E. Home Ownership<br />
In traditional towns, homes were built by residents according to simple building<br />
practices utilizing mostly available and locally produced building materials. As the size<br />
of a household increased, rooms or new dwellings were built, and if space was available,<br />
attached to old ones. Conversely, following the death of a head of a household, family<br />
members were allowed to subdivide a house, or an estate, between those eligible under<br />
the Islamic legal system of inheritance. If the will stipulated a partition of property<br />
among family members, a large house was converted into smaller units. Consequently,<br />
new afniah (e.g. courtyards and semi-private spaces abutting the house) and alleys were<br />
made to provide for accessibility to the new units. Willy-nilly, this accounted for the<br />
modifications of already built buildings resulting in the tree-like, tortuous passages, and<br />
the numerous cul-de-sacs feeding clusters of residential units in a typical Muslim city.<br />
Occasionally, a gate was installed at the beginning of a cul-de-sac leading to a cluster of<br />
homes belonging to an extended family.<br />
In the case of the construction of an annex or a new house, family members,<br />
relatives and neighbors helped both physically and financially in the construction effort.<br />
As in the case of marriage, a household head could borrow from individuals to help pay<br />
for the needed material or labor. No loaning institutions (e.g. banks or public agencies)<br />
existed. In central Arabia, houses were built using millennia-old construction methods<br />
(load-bearing walls of sun-dried mud bricks and tree trunks, branches and palm reeds).<br />
Construction took a relatively short time, for example, fifty days for a mid-size house. 11<br />
Better off households could hire a professional builder to do the construction.<br />
F. Public Land Use and Infrastructure<br />
"In traditional societies," Eric Monkkonen wrote, "individuals shared enough<br />
central cultural conceptions to create and maintain an operating vision of order." 12 In<br />
traditional Muslim towns, inhabitants maintained their neighborhoods. Cities that served<br />
as seats for princely powers and centers for a larger periphery, were endowed with<br />
economic advantages and tax income. They were bestowed with public baths, street<br />
lights, paved roads and waste water disposal systems, such as sewers, which were largely<br />
paid through imposed fees and taxes. Also, provisions for public facilities, such as<br />
mosques, water, shelters and schools were largely made possible through voluntary
159<br />
charities, waqf. For instance, in Riyadh, early in this century, there were 42 water<br />
fountains and washing facilities (masagi), all provided through the institution of waqf,I 13<br />
However, towns in poor regions lacked infrastructure. In such regions, settlements were<br />
little more than dormitory communes of mere self-supporting residences and pedestrian<br />
precincts: settled communities whose members were glued by a mutual concern for<br />
survival. Inhabitants collectively participated in the maintenance of their habitat and<br />
contributed to decision making affecting their everyday lives. 14<br />
Islamic teachings offered moral incentives which encouraged a sense of<br />
responsibility among the faithful. For example, the moving of objects that could<br />
potentially harm passers by was highly encouraged and directly related to God's pleasure.<br />
It was documented that Prophet Mohammed said, "A man was walking in a street who<br />
found a branch of thorns and removed it, then Allah thanked him and forgave his<br />
misdeeds." 15 Maintenance of streets and elimination of refuse was performed by<br />
residents' who were bound by mutual commitment, the equivalent of modern time's<br />
imposed penalties by the municipalities against those who committed infractions. 16 Solid<br />
waste was channeled into underground trenches while washing water refuse was routed<br />
into dug holes and left to vanish in the hot weather. 17<br />
H. MODERNIZATION ECLIPSES SOCIETY'S TRADITIONAL URBAN FORMS AND SPURS<br />
THE METROPOLIS<br />
The traditional form of habitation characterized Arabia's landscape for centuries<br />
until the dramatic developments of this century when gradually the above cultural<br />
attributes were dwarfed under the emerging nation-state and its far-reaching<br />
modernization efforts. The modernization programs of the Saudi government first<br />
focused on the development of the bureaucracy and national security capabilities. By the<br />
1950s, direct urban development became an integral part of the state's intensive<br />
modernization. Western planning consultants employed urban models implicitly based<br />
on preconceived notions of urban land use systems found in free market economies. As<br />
Dykman et al noted,
160<br />
In Western parliamentary or elected democracies, for example, the very<br />
notion of planning presupposes the existence of a political market; interest<br />
group representation; a culture of 'rationality;' and a bureaucracy committed<br />
to Weberian reason, or a rational application of means to received ends.<br />
These conditions are taken as the essential environment in which the<br />
implementation of all policies, including planning policies, must be<br />
realised. 18<br />
In the following three chapters, I explore the urban transformation of three Saudi<br />
urban settlements that vary in population size, urban economies and genesis. While<br />
imported technology (e.g. transportation, electricity, etc.) was changing the face, pace and<br />
space of the contemporary Saudi built forms, the government has been the larger force<br />
and catalyst of this urban transformation. It manifests itself in the underwriting of nationwide<br />
modernization, thereby triggering urbanization. I will discuss in detail the impact of<br />
oil industrialization and government modernization programs on the creation of Arar ab<br />
initio, and the transformation of the local agrarian economies of Riyadh and Huraimla's<br />
into a modern planned settlements.<br />
In the case of Saudi Arabia, the implementation of Western urban planning has<br />
proved inattentive to the country's physical context and incongruent with the prevalent<br />
political environment. 19 As shown in this study, the Saudi major cultural attributes (i.e. a<br />
traditional monarchy ruling an Islamically-inspired society, largely relying on oil<br />
revenues) must be contrasted to those prevalent in Western capitalist democracies. This<br />
study aims at increasing knowledge of non-Western societies and addresses the complex<br />
role played by the state. I stress caution against "packaged" universal approaches to<br />
urban planning and development. As previously mentioned, the emerging urban planing<br />
paradigm in the Kingdom, while retaining aspects of Western planning such as<br />
infrastructure and transportation planning, has been duly centralized, emphatically<br />
apolitical and highly technical. At the same time, the centralized character of the state<br />
emasculated local control and initiative in the various communities of the country, thanks<br />
to the preponderance of the central state's fiscal strength, based largely on oil revenues.<br />
The underwriting of local urban economies by the central government eclipsed traditional<br />
subsistence economies of cities, towns and settlements.<br />
Since the Saudi government does not collect taxes, investment in long-range, largescale<br />
infrastructure and industrial projects and social services (housing, education, health,<br />
culture, etc.) are deemed a sort of noblesse oblige. 20 Bestowed with oil affluence and
161<br />
faced with increasing world demand for oil by the industrialized world, the Saudi polity<br />
has sought modernization of social and infrastructure developments to attain "economic<br />
independence." In theory, industrialization involves a whole set of political, social,<br />
demographic and economic consequences of profound magnitude which alter the physical<br />
environment. A social revolution of this magnitude requires a supporting ideology<br />
geared toward progressive reforms in the society's organization and critical values. In<br />
Huntington's words,<br />
Economic development encourages industrialization, expands transportation<br />
and communication, spreads literacy and education, and improves<br />
urbanization, all of which lead to a rise in political consciousness, the<br />
mobilization of new groups into politics, and the multiplication of political<br />
demands. 21<br />
In the West, various democracies supplanted the older forms of oligarchy and<br />
monarchy. In the Middle East under the aegis of colonial powers (c. late eighteenth and<br />
the first half of the twentieth centuries), great leaps to modernization were wrought by<br />
traditional elites vying to adapt to the changing socio-political aspirations of their<br />
populations and economic changes brought by world market conditions. 22 As such,<br />
modernization brought with it societal metamorphoses reflected in the emergence of the<br />
middle class which played a vital role in the political sphere 23 In Saudi Arabia, the<br />
emergence of the middle class owes its character to the modernization programs<br />
orchestrated by the government. 24 The government's generous allocation of oil revenues<br />
in modernizing the society and the built environment must be seen as a legitimizing<br />
factor a traditionalist political system is arguably to undertake to stave-off threats to the<br />
political status quo. 25 Commenting on the November 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque<br />
in Mecca by Islamic insurgents, Nadaf Safiran wrote<br />
After putting down the insurrection by force, the regime responded,<br />
typically, with some measures designed to appease the underlying concerns<br />
of the rebels and to enhance its image as an enforcer of tradition, and others<br />
designed to reassure new classes, whose interests were bound with<br />
continuing development and change. The new classes included an industrial<br />
proletariat, a mercantile bourgeoisie, and a so-called new middle<br />
class....Because that class has fed directly or indirectly on government<br />
expenditures rather than being itself a major source of government revenue<br />
through taxation, it has so far lacked the incentive that has prompted<br />
Western bourgeoisie to seek participation in and control of political power. 26
162<br />
In Saudi Arabia, the state has contributed immensely to the production of space,<br />
hence market models cannot be solely accounted for to fathom the transformation. The<br />
internal organization of urban function and space has been greatly affected by the<br />
government's views on how to allocate national resources mainly derived from oil. This<br />
oil and its petrochemical by-products are a national, natural asset and the state deems that<br />
the population should share in their bounty. To assure control, the monarchic<br />
government has led the modernization, combining tradition with modern technology.<br />
Foreign firms and think tanks were called upon for advice to plan and to lay the<br />
foundation for "modern" cities in the Kingdom. The urban sphere was effectively used to<br />
convey the central authority's efforts toward modernization. Yet, Western consultants'<br />
comprehensive plans have carried with them values and conceptions peculiar to the West,<br />
about its market processes, social-political convictions and climate. The Saudi economy<br />
is a highly managed form of capitalism, an off-shoot that blurs state and tradition (which<br />
cannot be separated from religion) and takes the present distribution of wealth as given.<br />
No taxes are imposed by the government, which relies solely on oil wealth for its<br />
expenditures. In return, the government has retained its prerogative to orchestrate<br />
development while retaining traditional elements conducive to its power and control.<br />
The aforementioned cultural attributes will be discussed in the following chapters as<br />
I explore the major developments that caused the transformation of Saudi built forms. As<br />
major themes, these cultural attributes will be examined in light of the changing role of<br />
the state in the society at large and in modern urban development. I will focus on<br />
government program impacts on the elements which characterized traditional built forms.<br />
The inevitable emergence of the centralized nation-state with substantial powers and'<br />
through profound modernization programs engendered itself on the society's urban<br />
systems.
163<br />
Notes to Chapter V<br />
1<br />
Six major approaches can be identified. First, is the ecological-competitive approach. It attempts to<br />
account for the struggle which presses on the "natural" proclivity of social groups to compete for<br />
territory. Second, is the "trade-off" approach, rooted in neoclassical economics. It emphasizes the<br />
mapping of intra-urban land uses under market-pricing mechanisms. Land is viewed as a commodity<br />
and its status reflects supply and demand forces. The third and fourth approaches, social area analysis<br />
and factorial analysis, are extensions of the basic ecological view. They investigate the social and<br />
economic factors underlying intra-urban structures. The fifth is the conflict/management approach<br />
which seeks the understanding of spatial organization using political science, power analysis and<br />
conflict in society. It goes beyond the static and impersonal forces largely emphasized by the<br />
approaches dealing with the market mechanisms and the equilibratory tendencies of the ecological<br />
approach. It ponders the role played by influential groups and the character of constraints imposed<br />
upon actors in the city. Finally, there is the Marxist approach which attempts to explicate the<br />
production of space as a function of class struggle and the accumulation process. The capitalist class'<br />
adamant efforts to reap greater profits through manipulation of rents, inevitably result in a geographical<br />
outcome exhibiting contradictions peculiar to a capitalist society. For the purpose of simplification the<br />
first four can be lumped into one group, the substantive, static "socioeconomic" approaches, and the<br />
last two as the "intentional" paradigms. See for example, D. Clark, Urban Geography (Baltimore: The<br />
John Hopkins University Press, 1982).<br />
2<br />
J. Akbar, Crisis in the Build Environment: The Case of the Muslim City (Singapore: Concept Media Pte<br />
Ltd, 1988), cover page.<br />
3 This was mainly in most settlements of pre-Saudi Arabia. The use of coined money increased in<br />
1344H./1924 when under King Abdul-Aziz, local money was produced. Al-Washmi, op. cit, 111.<br />
4<br />
For detailed sources of revenue in the Islamic city, see Ahmad A1 Abbadi, "Min Mathahir al-Hayat al-<br />
Iqtisadiyah fee al-Madinah al-Islamiyah" [Aspects of Economic Life in the Islamic City] A 'lam Alfikr<br />
(April/May/June, 1980): 127-160.<br />
5 Compare this to the medieval European city, in which a patrician elite class maintained control over<br />
lower classes. According to Sjoberg (I960:), "Regressive taxation is well ingrained in the feudal<br />
order, firmly buttressing the existing class structure." G. Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City, Past and<br />
Present (Glencoe, 111: Free Press, 1960).<br />
6 As mentioned in Chapter two, Muslims, emulating Prophet Mohammed, have traditionally looked to<br />
the life after death for eternal abode. This notion of "utopia" had a major impact on individuals' lives<br />
and ultimately on the production of uniform physical environments. TTie waqf institution is rooted in<br />
the documented Hadeeth quoted after Prophet Mohammed who said, "When a person dies, his work<br />
[accumulation of deeds needed for salvation in the hereafter] terminates except for three things: ongoing<br />
charity, useful knowledge, or a good son who prays for him." Also, the Prophet said, "The work<br />
and good deeds of a believer that continue after his death are: disseminated knowledge, leaving a good<br />
son [i.e. who prays for him], or a Qur'an for inheritance, a mesjid which he built or a house for<br />
travellers, opening a stream, or a charity created from wealth which continues after death." This saying<br />
was documented by Ibn Majah. Source: B. Hakim. Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning<br />
Principles (London: Kegan Paul International, 1986), 149. As such, residents, therefore, competed in<br />
establishing charities.<br />
7<br />
I emphasize here that my discussion of cultural attributes underlying urban processes may not<br />
necessarily be taken as an argument for the application of traditional principles- as they are- to the
164<br />
modem Saudi city. Clear understanding of traditional principles must carefully precede gradual<br />
application of pertinent values. They must be tested in light of social desirability and political<br />
visibility and their compatibility with the modern technology.<br />
8 Prophet Mohammed's teachings were so comprehensive that they dealt with the construction of<br />
buildings. For example, he stated, "God did not order us to cover stone or clay." Also, Prophet<br />
Mohammed prohibited a person from sleeping on an unscreened roof or terrace. A commitment to<br />
follow the Prophet's guidance would necessarily imply adding screens to houses roofs, an element<br />
which affects facades' configuration. Translation in Hakim (1986), 150.<br />
9 In the Holy Qur'an, Allah says, "Say to the believers that they should lower their gaze and guard their<br />
modesty, that will make for greater purity for them, and God is well acquainted with all that they do."<br />
(24:30). Also, Prophet Mohammed was quoted as saying, "He who looks into a house without die<br />
occupants' permission, and they puncture his eye, will have not right to demand a fine or ask for<br />
punishment." He also said, "On the Day of Resurrection lead will be poured in the ears of anyone who<br />
eavesdrops on others who dislike him." Source: Hakim (1986), 151.<br />
10 Prophet Mohammed's rulings on the condition of ownership is binding to most schools of<br />
jurisprudence which serve as the basis of the Islamic legal system. He was quoted as saying,<br />
"Somebody who gives life to a dead [undeveloped] land can claim it, and no tyrant has rights to it."<br />
This Hadeeth (saying) was narrated by Abu Dawood via Bin Azzubair, source, Hakim (1986), 149.<br />
According to Akbar (1988: 26-32), most of Islam's school of jurisprudence endorse the revival of dead<br />
land outside urban area without state consent. However, one of the four schools qualifies this rule: the<br />
appropriation of undeveloped land that lies within urbanized area requires permission of the state. The<br />
state does not have the right to landownership unless parcels are given to it voluntarily by owners.<br />
11<br />
This construction period was to build a 3,000 square cubit house (1 meter = 2.4 cubits). Small houses'<br />
area averaged 90 square meters (500 square cubits), and soil used to produce mud bricks were taken<br />
from the foundations' soil. For a detailed description, see A. A1 Washmi. Arriyadh: Madinah wa<br />
Sukkan, Kaifa Canat wa Kaifa Aa'shou, (Riyadh: National Guard Printing Press, no date of<br />
publication): 22-49 (in Arabic).<br />
12<br />
Erik Monkkonen. America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities & Towns, 1780-1980<br />
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), 90.<br />
*3 According to Islamic teachings, water is a public good. Prophet Mohammed said, "Muslims are<br />
partners in three things: water, pasture and fire." Narrated by the companion Abu Hurairah. Translated<br />
in Hakim (1986), 148.<br />
14<br />
The explicit recognition of the individual responsibility toward his/her neighbors is said to have a great<br />
impact on traditional Muslim built forms (Akbar, 1988). Prophet Mohammed warned against<br />
indifference to neighbors, let alone harming them. Also, Islamic teachings strongly called for<br />
cleanliness as an aspect of faith. Prophet Mohammed was quoted as saying, "Keep yourselves clean as<br />
Islam is clean," and "God be praised is good and He loves goodness, [He is] clean and He loves<br />
cleanliness, perfect and He loves perfection, so clean your 'fina.'" Fina refers to an open space such as<br />
a courtyard or the immediate space outside a house. It was also narrated that the Prophet said, "Avoid<br />
the three accursed: exerting in the streams, in thoroughfares and in the shade." This Hadeeth was<br />
narrated by Abu Dawood via Ma'adh, who heard it from Mohammed.<br />
Translated by the author with modification from Hakim (1986), 147.
165<br />
The relationship between neighbors is highly guarded in Islam. In the Qur'an Allah says, "And serve<br />
Allah. Ascribe no things as partner unto Him. [Show] kindness unto parents, and unto near kindred,<br />
and orphans, and the needy, and unto the neighbor..." (Qur'an, 4:36). Several quotes from Prophet<br />
Mohammed point to this close-to-sacred relationship. Mohammed was quoted as saying, "He whose<br />
neighbor is not safe from his harm and dishonesty, will not enter Paradise." He also said, that "The<br />
archangel Gabriel kept exhorting me about the neighbor to the point that I thought he would grant him<br />
the right of inheritance." He also said, "By Allah, disbelieves a person who sleeps with a full stomach<br />
while his adjacent neighbor is hungry. Mohammed was also quoted as saying, "In the Day of<br />
Resurrection, the first adversaries are two neighbors."<br />
17<br />
Muslim jurists relied on incidents involving Prophet Mohammed's experience and expanded them to<br />
similar cases. For an illustrative discussion on Muslim jurists' ruling concerning harm and cleanliness<br />
in the Islamic city, see Chapter 1, "Islamic law and neighborhood building guidelines," in Hakim<br />
(1988).<br />
John Dyckman, A. Kreditor and T. Baneijee. "Planning in an Unprepared Environment: The Case of<br />
Bahrain" TPR 2 (1984): 214.<br />
19<br />
For discussion of applicability of "Western-developed urban models, see B. J. Walter "Planning for<br />
Whom" In Urbanization, National Development, and Regional Planning in Africa, edited by S. El-<br />
Shakhs and R. Obudho, 93-109. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974; John Freidmann, "Intention<br />
and Reality: The American Planner Overseas," A1P Journal 3 (May 1969): 187-194.<br />
20 The government collects the Islamic taxes (zakat). They are levied on invested capital (2.5%),<br />
livestock and some types of personal property and belongings, such as gold, silver and jewelry, among<br />
others. The government's reliance on oil revenues diminishes its needs for revenues from zakat. There<br />
is no income or sales tax. Still, some government departments require fees in return for rendering<br />
services such as application processing, permit issuing and the like.<br />
2<br />
* Samuel Huntington. Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968):<br />
159.<br />
22 See for example, Janet Abu-Lughod, Rabat: Urban Apartheid In Morocco (Princeton: New Jersey:<br />
Princeton University, 1980); M. Bonine, "The Urbanization of the Persian Gulf Nations," in The<br />
Persian Gulf State: A General Survey, edited by Alvin Cottrell, C. E. Bosworth, R. Burrell, K.<br />
McLachlan, and R. M. Savory, 225-278 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1983); and Saad<br />
Eddin Ibrahim, "Cairo: A Sociological Profile," in The Middle East City: Ancient Traditions Confront<br />
a Modern World, edited by A. Saqqaf, 209-226 (New York: Paragon, 1987); S. El-Shakhs,<br />
"Development Planning in Africa: An Introduction," in Urbanization, National Development, and<br />
Regional Planning in Africa, edited by S. El-Shakhs and R. Obudho, 3-12. New York: Praeger<br />
Publishers, 1974; and Bob J. Walter, op. cit.<br />
23 In many Developing countries, the middle class has contributed to coup d'e'tats and advocated<br />
revolutionary change once it reached a mature level (Heller and Safran, 1984).<br />
24<br />
Ibid.<br />
25 Samuel Huntington. Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968):<br />
155.
166<br />
According to Safran, between 1970 and 1980 the new middle class had increased from 22,200 to<br />
86,200, or from 2.5 percent of the Saudi labor force to 7.2 percent. Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The<br />
Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 226.
CHAPTER VI<br />
RIYADH: FROM WALLED TOWN TO METROPOLIS<br />
I. RIYADH'S DEVELOPMENT: 1900-1953<br />
A. The Walled Town<br />
Riyadh's significance in modern history dates back to 1240H/1824, when it was<br />
chosen by Imam Turky Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud for his new settlement.<br />
The decision was taken by Imam Turky following the destruction of Diri'yah, the previous<br />
power base of the Saud house, the ancestral father of today's A1 Saud clan. 1 In 1744,<br />
Mohammed Ibn Saud, with the aid of a maverick religious teacher, Mohammed bin Abdul-<br />
Wahhab, agreed to expand the domain of Ibn Saud on the principles of Islamic reforms,<br />
commonly referred to in the West as Wahhabism. 2 The two men's expansionist drive<br />
based on religious reform intermittently spanned two centuries, during which the control of<br />
Arabia was dominated by A1 Saud. This control was discontinued between 1883 and<br />
1902, when the Ottoman's viceroy Ibn Arrasheed of Hail in north Arabia, was able to lay<br />
control over Riyadh, causing Abdul-Aziz's father, Abdul-Rahman Bin <strong>Faisal</strong>, to flee to<br />
Kuwait, and hence closing the second realm of the A1 Saud's dynasty (1824-1891).<br />
However, following propitious regional and worldwide political tides, Abdul-Aziz, at the<br />
age of 19 years old, managed to recapture Riyadh in 1902 and started a series of battles,<br />
conquests and treaties with Arabia's influential tribes and towns' rulers which ended with<br />
him being the King of a new nation-state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.<br />
King Abdul-Aziz's campaign to consolidate the country under his control concluded<br />
with the ejection of the Hashimites from the Hijaz (Western Saudi Arabia) in 1925 and the<br />
eventual suppression of the Ikhwan's (Islamic brotherhood) rebellion in 1929. 3 On<br />
September, 23 1932, the country was officially named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.<br />
Riyadh, then a little walled town, which served for close to thirty years as the springboard<br />
for King Abdul-Aziz's campaigns for the conquest and the unification of the country,<br />
retained its status as the seat of the government in conjunction with Makkah, the religious<br />
capital.<br />
Riyadh, which lies about 600 meters above sea level, is located at the heart of the<br />
Kingdom's central region of Najd. The city is 460 kilometers west of Dammam on the<br />
Arabian Gulf and 1,100 kilometers east of Jeddah on the Red Sea. Riyadh lies on a
168<br />
plateau, 25 kilometers wide, overlooking the Hanifah wadi (valley), one of the major<br />
arterial wadis (Batha, Ghuberah, Wubayr and Namar) transversing the region. Wadi<br />
Hanifah is the most important wadi in the whole region of Najd. The spine-like dry water<br />
bed of wadi Hanifah threads together scattered agrarian settlements constituting the fertile<br />
region of Al-A'arid. Riyadh thus lies at the confluence of these major wadis, whose<br />
seasonal, intermittent rainfall supplied the oases with rainwater, barely sufficient to sustain<br />
subsistence agriculture, the mainstay of the Najd's agrarian society. These arterial wadis<br />
and their tributaries endowed the town with a water source making possible the<br />
development of crops and palm date farms hence giving the mud town its name Riyadh,<br />
which literally means 'gardens'.<br />
In an account of her historical crossing of the Arabian peninsula from sea to sea in<br />
1937, Geraldine Rendel, wrote:<br />
To land in Saudi Arabia is to enter both an older and a newer world. An older<br />
world, because its social philosophy still holds so much of the best of the<br />
Middle Ages; a newer one, because it is one of the newest of the larger postwar<br />
states...Ar Riyadh is surrounded by mud-brick walls with towers at<br />
intervals. We entered the city by the Thumairy Gate, which leads up a wide<br />
street with high houses of mud and limestone built straight onto the road, to<br />
the Palace Square. 4<br />
According to Rendel's account, Riyadh's form corresponded to the familiar layout of<br />
traditional (preindustrial) Islamic cities. 5 It consisted of a central mosque, a palace, the<br />
commercial complex, suq, and residential uses. King Abdul-Aziz's palace dominated the<br />
focal point of the walled, walking city. The palace, which was higher than the rest of the<br />
town's buildings, was a fortified structure with two 'massive' towers and was surrounded<br />
by a network of smaller mansions, occupied by the royalty, accounted for a considerable<br />
part of the city area (Figures 6.1, 6.2).<br />
The Bazaar abutted the Palace square from the east. The northend was closed by a<br />
double colonnade, misbah. Next to the square was the Great Mosque, which in addition to<br />
the other eleven neighborhood mosques served the religious needs of the population. 6 Due<br />
to the increasing number of transients who paid tribute to the King, the market grew<br />
disproportionately to the town's remaining areas giving the town a population of 60,000 at<br />
the end of the fifth decade. The suq comprised a series of clustered tiny shops with<br />
dimensions, each about five feet wide by six feet in length containing goods, coffee pots
169<br />
iMusmak<br />
Built Area<br />
'-'r.identiriod La wet<br />
GATES<br />
1. Suwailim<br />
2. Dhuhairah<br />
3. Thurrairi<br />
4. Giri<br />
5. Unidentified<br />
6. DuKnnah<br />
7. Hi identified<br />
8. Hiraigib<br />
9. Mathbah<br />
Mosques<br />
This plan is prepared by the author to construct the physical layout of old Riyadh, based on information gathered from<br />
literature, a small scale f 1:60000) aerial photograph taken by ARAMCO in 1950. and other photographic mapping of 196-1<br />
by the Ministry of Petroleum and Minerals. The layout of ccniral areas and of areas adjacent to the wall, was difficult to<br />
identify, because of the heavy destruction to which these pans were subjected.<br />
Figure 6.1<br />
Riyadh still a walled town in 1950. Source: Al-Hussayen (1989).
170<br />
RIYADH CITY<br />
and environs 1987.<br />
Figure 6.2<br />
A. Riyadh during the 1930s, Source: Daghistani (1985); B. the eastern (Batha) side of the<br />
wall where Aththemairy Gate existed. Source: El-Haj (1989).
171<br />
and saucepans, wooden chests of tea or other foodstuffs, carpets and the like. The market<br />
area also contained stalls where people would purchase hot tea or coffee. More commercial<br />
exchange was transacted in the open space formed by the built area. Merchants and<br />
craftsmen used their houses in which to conduct their occupations and transactions,<br />
assigning an outside room for storage, production and exchange (Figure 6.3).<br />
The town square was used for a variety of public functions including the housing of<br />
Bedouin who, following the traditions, were allowed to camp for three days with free<br />
subsistence. Although the green-belt of farmland surrounding the walled city seemed more<br />
valuable than the mud complex, the city owned capital and political stock sufficient to<br />
justify the defense system to protect its inhabitants from frequent outsiders' attacks. The<br />
walled city also housed those working in guild crafts and the literate, who made their living<br />
by teaching religious texts and writing skills. Finally, the walled town was distinctive for<br />
its limited land use specialization. Multiple functions could be executed in a single space.<br />
For example, the mosque served as a place for worship as well as a school and the<br />
community gathering place. The shop, which was part of the merchant's residence, was<br />
used for production tasks and also for exchange.<br />
In addition to the busy core, there were seven major neighborhoods, hilal. 7 These<br />
walled districts reinforced the segmentation of the major social groups comprising the<br />
towns social composite. The dwellings faced inward to the quiet and cool courtyard,<br />
presenting blank walls to the street. The relatively commodious, multipurpose and lightfilled<br />
courtyard offered a microclimate of cool breeze and shade which contrasted with<br />
scorching temperatures outside. The courtyard served several familia functions and<br />
conformed to the social emphasis on privacy. This compact mass resembles a mosaic of<br />
solid and void formed by shaded and open surfaces and built volumes, interspersed by<br />
courtyards, and conformed to societal imperatives. At dusk, the city was sealed from the<br />
outside world and town life was reduced to naught with the closure of the gates.<br />
The traditional form reflected the emphasis on social factors of the population such as<br />
kinship. For example, residents' concern over social ties explained the juxtaposition of<br />
low-income and well-to-do households and the construction of smaller and larger houses<br />
next to each other. In the absence of land speculation, land was perceived for its use value,<br />
not exchange value, as a social resource and not a commodity. Ostentation was seldom<br />
displayed by the few privileged families, reflecting the overriding sense of privacy in a
172<br />
>^«rrr<br />
iiSV<br />
)&&&£<br />
trnmfm<br />
Figure 6.3<br />
The old suq (market) was located outside the major mosque and comprised small<br />
structures. Source: El-Haj (1989).
173<br />
town inhabited mostly by the underprivileged. Due to technological limitation, vertical<br />
expansion was not feasible and buildings were attached to one another to take advantage of<br />
the existing adjoining wall and to minimize walking distance. The clumping of buildings is<br />
intensified by the limited space allowed for circulation, mere passageways for humans and<br />
animals. The meandering, narrow circulation space was confined to the residual interstices<br />
between the built quarters.<br />
The urban outcome of the traditional form was natural. Builders recognized<br />
technological means (building methods and the transportation mode), and economized in<br />
both dwelling space and circulation space. With towns people's security at stake, the<br />
tortuous network was carefully laid down for defense purposes, it was puzzling for the<br />
unaccustomed intruder. Such defensive measures were the product of centuries of<br />
inherited experience. The end product was a compact town with clearly defined open<br />
spaces, social turfs, edges, neighborhoods, and quarters, easily discerned by locals. The<br />
compact traditional building process placed great value on efficiency: the carefully arranged<br />
street network and houses paid due respect to means, nature and social values. The<br />
collective respect for contextual factors was a matter of survival in a desert environment.<br />
Riyadh was essentially a single-material town: sun-dried mud was used for all the<br />
buildings giving it a rare architectural unity. The walled town was estimated by H. St.J.B.<br />
Philby to measure 700 yards along its north wall, and about 650 yards east-west, or<br />
approximately 100 acres. He estimated the town population at 19,000 people in 1919. By<br />
the 1930s it reached 30,000.<br />
B. The Social Fabric<br />
The walled town of Riyadh prior to the promulgation of the nation-state in 1932, was<br />
typically preindustrial, one that lacked inanimate technology and maintained a rigid class<br />
structure. The prevailing society was virtually entirely dependent on animate sources of<br />
energy, human and animal. Due to the lack of modern technology, division of labor was<br />
minimum, most of the population were peasants tied to the land, supporting themselves and<br />
a small elite. This dearth of specialization precluded the development of a complex class<br />
system. Najdi towns' social systems had a ruling squirearchy, a religious literati and the<br />
general populace, largely involved in agriculture. Aside from paying taxes to influential<br />
regional rulers, the rulers of these settlement enjoyed full control of their subjects. While
174<br />
Najdi town rulers set the pace for those who lived under their influence in the towns and<br />
associated farm hinterlands, tribal chiefs shared power with the town's squirearchies, a<br />
balance that was evident in the symbiosis the two major societal powers maintained. This<br />
multiplicity of power precluded the emergence of a political leviathan that could impose<br />
itself on all and manipulate the isolated regions' population into one nation. Within Riyadh<br />
proper, social power was crystalized in the ruler and an upper privileged class comprising<br />
the religious strata. Both commanded the key positions in the social structure.<br />
Riyadh was a subsystem, it was part of the broader social order comprising rural<br />
areas and pastoral nomads. In addition to its' somewhat more developed physical<br />
structure, Riyadh's political vitality and economic centrality supported a social structure<br />
constituting craftsmen, merchants, clergy and political aristocracy whose matrimonial<br />
lineages both contributed to its prominence and determined the status of other families in<br />
the town. Unlike the conjugal family unit characterizing the class structure of an industrial<br />
society, the Najdi family structure was rigid, one which was based on the extended family<br />
system which in turn fit into a complex network of a larger tribal organization, sometimes<br />
straddling both those of towns and the nomads. The family was a comparatively closed<br />
and inward-oriented, patriarchal unit. The husband ruled the unit and presided over its<br />
outside engagements. The women spent a great deal of their daily life in familia tasks<br />
within the confines of the household or the farm.<br />
The traditional (Najdi) society, though classless and casteless in the literal sense, has<br />
a social division of classes that has been maintained for centuries. The ruling elite derived<br />
their command and power from a well established tribal majority. The larger families<br />
whose members belonged to known tribal branches are derived from and organized into<br />
gabilis, locals who belong to well-established and extended families whose pedigrees are<br />
documented. There are also the khadhiris, families of "doubtful" origins. They do not<br />
belong to the known Arab tribes. They descended from one or a combination of African,<br />
Persian, or Indian origins and the like. There was also the slave population, largely of<br />
African descent. They were bought or exchanged in the barter economy of Arabia or taken<br />
as prisoners of war. These social divisions were deeply entrenched in the social fabric and<br />
straddled both the social and economic spheres, so much so that some occupations became<br />
associated with each social group. However, it must be noted that due to Islamic<br />
teachings, a degradation into a caste-like segmentation was drastically alleviated. Sjoberg<br />
(1960) agrees. He stated "Undoubtedly, the egalitarian orientation of the traditional
175<br />
Muslim center, when compared to the Hindu city, has induced in the former somewhat<br />
greater vertical and horizontal mobility." For example, there were no impediments for a<br />
khadhiri dweller to excel in business. He could join the religious stratum, by seeking<br />
education, and gain scholarly status earning him a status unmatched by a gabili denizen. 8<br />
The fourth social group was the bedouins whose contact with towns' inhabitants was<br />
precarious, ebbing between hostility during drought times or amicability during times of<br />
abundance. Traditionally, bedouins perceived the settled town life as a rut and its incomeearning<br />
occupations and life styles as demeaning. This cultural perception had hitherto<br />
limited bedouins' interaction with towns' people to the form of simple trading activity<br />
exchanging goods following the Friday congregational prayer. With modernization, the<br />
lines between such social groups have increasingly been blurred. Moreover, the impact of<br />
modernization on the Saudi family structure is profound. Currently 67 percent of Riyadh's<br />
households are nuclear families. 9<br />
C. Early Suburbanization, Uncontrolled Development: A1 Murabba'<br />
The preindustrial walled town's social diversity was limited by the latent potentialities<br />
offered by its desert ecology, coupled by the utter lack of advanced technology conducive<br />
to a well established division of labor. The emergence of a developed, complex power<br />
structure under King Abdul-Aziz, coupled by the flow of oil revenues, paved the way for<br />
far-flung changes in the society's cultural aspects, including that of urban development.<br />
These changes were reflected in the physical expansion of communities in the town. The<br />
importation of modern technology constituted a major factor in the creation of large,<br />
permanent urban communities outside the wall. The improvements in water-drilling<br />
technology allowed for agricultural surplus, freeing peasants and bedouins to engage in the<br />
increasing work opportunities in the modern economy. Transportation technology and<br />
road building enabled farmers and bedouins to deliver crops, livestock and other foodstuffs<br />
to the growing town.<br />
During the 1940s and 1950s, better security, economic growth and more imports of<br />
automobiles inexorable loosened the ties that once bound the urban functions of society to<br />
tightly defined cores: decentralization began to operate. Modern transportation technology<br />
and communication then set in motion the process of suburbanization. In addition, modern<br />
telecommunication has been substituted for the face-to-face contact and physical movement
176<br />
of the older city. The political security under King Abdul-Aziz guaranteed order needed to<br />
facilitate economic progress and specialization in the society. The relative political stability<br />
coupled with improved economic conditions under King Abdul-Aziz triggered a city-ward<br />
migration, hence increasing the demand for more dwellings. Riyadh was soon to grow<br />
beyond its walls. H. St. J.B. Philby wrote:<br />
In olden days people had been forced to congregate together in towns and<br />
villages for mutual protection against the prevailing insecurity and had built<br />
walls and kept them in repair. The peace of modern times had resulted in an<br />
universal flight to the palm-groves with the resultant break-up of the village<br />
community, which was now satisfied with Riyadh as the great shoppingcenter....<br />
10<br />
Riyadh's rising prosperity came with the King's decision to keep it as the political<br />
and administrative capital of the nation-state but at the cost of crowding. The royalty stood<br />
at the apex of the new wealthy class eager to abandon the compact, walled center. King<br />
Abdul-Aziz was the first to set the fashion for this desert suburbanization. In 1938, at his<br />
behest, a new palatial complex, al Murabbaa', was built to accommodate his growing<br />
administration, two miles northwest of the walled town. The royal compound included a<br />
spacious mansion, a royal guest house, administrative buildings and a garage for himself<br />
and his royal entourage. The royal suburb was linked by a concrete motor track to the old<br />
town. For the first time ever, the automobile was imposed on the pre-industrial urban<br />
form, and accounted for in subsequent development (Figure 6.4).<br />
One more reason behind this spate of early immigration was the improvements,<br />
though meager, in beter services made available by the fledgling government. This resulted<br />
in attracting local migrants to the new national capital seeking the hospitality of the royalty,<br />
city services, and work opportunities. Shantytowns emerged in the vicinity of the city in<br />
addition to the nomads who camped in the open space within the walled city. In such a<br />
desert environment, water had a crucial factor in the fueling of city-ward migration. The<br />
increasing oil royalties enabled the King to order the installment of motor-driven pumps to<br />
obtain water from deep grounds, hitherto inaccessible by animated means. As new water<br />
supplies were tapped using the new technology, herdsmen and ruralites alike rushed to the<br />
growing captial. D. van der Meulen, a Dutch diplomat who spent time in the Kingdom<br />
from 1940 to 1952 captures the situation of the day. He wrote
177<br />
In the oases and towns, property owners were shown how to improve their<br />
estates....Teams of well drillers were soon busy in and around Ar-Riyadh.<br />
Water was provided for men and camels at public drinking places inside and<br />
outside the towns. The surrounding tribes soon learnt that Ar-Riyadh could<br />
in [the] future be depended upon for water. The first necessity of life being<br />
thus assured, the King in his widely-famed generosity would take care of the<br />
second necessity: food. So they set up their tents near the walls of the town<br />
and of the palace with the ever-flowing water and the food-distribution centers<br />
near-by. The town spread far out into the desert....people now started to<br />
build houses on the desert plateau. They were now no longer tied to the<br />
vicinity of the old wells, for the new pumps would provide water. On<br />
patches of desert gravel people built their new houses and put mud walls<br />
around them as soon as the drillers had made sure that water could be raised<br />
with pumps. Then within their walls the desert would disappear, for water<br />
makes the desert of Arabia blossom everywhere.... 11<br />
Serving as a major driving force behind suburbanization, water drilling technology<br />
helped in the provision for water in abundant quantities, a factor which in turn encouraged<br />
the germination of new development in the vicinity of the walled town.<br />
In the past the population's obsession with security nurtured a xenophobic attitude.<br />
This was expressed in the maintenance of the town's wall. Once political and economic<br />
conditions prevailed, those who could afford it sought houses outside the wall. In such a<br />
relatively distant area (i.e. distant from the old walled city), owners established the custom<br />
of building a wall around their houses, an urban element which came to dominate the<br />
modern landscape. Traditionally, houses were built attached, sharing the outside walls<br />
with their neighbors. As already noted, such practice was opted for reasons of space<br />
limitation, and security as well as climatic, houses shielded others from the scorching<br />
desert heat. A wall was often built around the town whereas in some cases, house walls<br />
comprised some portions of the settlement's outside wall and a free-standing wall was built<br />
to fill in the gap in cases of an open space. Farms also were surrounded by walls, though<br />
more to demarcate property lines and to provide privacy- for women shared the<br />
responsibilities of tending crops and livestock- as well as to protect against scavenging<br />
livestock, rather than for protection from looters.<br />
Another cultural factor that was behind the increasing popularity of Riyadh and thus<br />
the flurry of immigration is the custom of distributing largesses and food by the King. The<br />
practice, which was rooted in Arab culture, is an expression of chiefdom. As more<br />
revenues poured into the royal capital, the King skillfully used them to win the fealty of
178<br />
tuiittk"!<br />
Figure 6.4<br />
(1) The palaces of King Abdul-Aziz in the walled town; (2) the King's new al-Murabbaa'<br />
palace (c. 1939); (3) court's members such as the King's brother construct new palaces<br />
outside the walls. Source: El-Haj (1989).
179<br />
tribal chiefs and influential town rulers (henceforth, umara: singular amir) According to<br />
Mansfield, "Oil revenues were part of the Kings' Privy Purse, and he continued to<br />
dispense them with the same openhanded generosity to his family and to loyal shaykhs as<br />
when there were no more than a few hundred gold sovereigns in his coffers." 12 During the<br />
1940s, the royal palace of al Murabba' radiated opulence in an impoverished society that<br />
experienced the nadir of depravity. Riyadh was soon to endure thousands of well-wishers<br />
at a time, mostly bedouins who camped in the towns vicinity waiting for the royal palace to<br />
approve their annual subsidies.<br />
The well-to-do citizens of Riyadh found relief outside the wall from the cramped<br />
quarters within the city. The royalty, who were among the first to reap the benefits of<br />
affluence, used their wealth to create insulated enclaves beyond the city proper, hence<br />
escaping the constraints of traditional commonplace urban life. Members of the court<br />
sought the surrounding farms to construct recreational outing pleasure compounds. New<br />
"urban villagers" brought increasing alienation to the previously quaint settlement's<br />
residents who virtually all knew each other. The surrounding green belt, to which the<br />
city's name, Riyadh (the gardens) referred, was the first casualty of that expansion.<br />
Hamlets sprouted in close proximity to the town, and soon grew into suburbs.<br />
During the 1940s and 1950s, the city witnessed waves of rural migrants and<br />
foreigners, mainly from nearby Arab and Muslim countries, who flocked to the growing<br />
Saudi capital. They were lured by employment opportunities in the growing government<br />
sector, improved educational institutions and job openings in the lucrative commercial<br />
sector and ancillary industries. While the nationals preferred the newly-built traditional<br />
"mud communities" sprouting outside the city walls, foreigners opted for the (newlyintroduced)<br />
multi-unit apartment buildings. The new apartment buildings were soon to dot<br />
the major thoroughfares, creating a formidable barrier that encircled the mud communities<br />
and filled in the interstices between the radiating tarmac roads. Urban in-migrants squeezed<br />
into the already tiny homes and encroached into what ever open space was left as housing<br />
production failed to cope with the large demand.<br />
Nevertheless, Riyadh maintained its preindustrial compactness during the 1930s and<br />
1940s due to technological limitations and a financial squeeze. The majority of Riyadh's<br />
denizens walked to work. Since walking was the only mode available for most of the city<br />
dwellers, it determined the shape and size of the city prior to the demolition of the wall in
180<br />
1950. Although a 1950 map shows a compact traditional town, filled up to the walls, mean<br />
houses straggled along the dirt road tracks leading out the main gates. Meanwhile, royal<br />
court estates sprang up outside the town, forming nuclei for future communities such as<br />
Ashshmisy, Annasriyah, Al-Bedi'ah, and Al-Oraija (Figure 6.2). The increasing use of<br />
the automobile contributed greatly to the explosive horizontal expansion of the compact city<br />
into sub-nuclei dotting the city rim, while uncontrolled ribbon-development set the pattern<br />
for the town's road network for decades to come.<br />
At the core, on top of the compact, even grain form of the town, the new industrial<br />
and commercial ways of the modern era of the nation-state had begun to lay some of the<br />
patterns of the coming metropolis- especially the beginning of a downtown, characterized<br />
by some multi-story high-rise buildings containing commercial, apartment and<br />
manufacturing units . By 1948, electrical lights were used to illuminate Riyadh's main<br />
streets and squares.<br />
At the fringe, communities proliferated, exhibiting contrasting standards. The<br />
'modern' sections of the city were carefully planned and constructed by several ministries<br />
without coordination with the Municipality of Riyadh, or other established planning<br />
authority. Such large scale development fell virtually within the jurisdiction of the<br />
individual governmental agencies, who gave its development priority and attention.<br />
Characteristically, early modern communities were platted following a Royal decree or at<br />
the behest of the King. As government's needs for modern facilities grew- such as an<br />
airport, a hospital, or a military complex— tracts of land were platted for the construction of<br />
the new buildings. New development generally took place at the periphery where most<br />
undeveloped land belonged to the government. New "planned" peripheral developments<br />
were usually serviced by well-paved and landscaped thoroughfares comprising the<br />
spikelike major tarmac roads which continued into the outskirts (desert). These<br />
thoroughfares, some of which led to other major regions and important cities within the<br />
Kingdom, took the form of radiating tentacles, reaching out for resources that contributed<br />
to the city's impressive growth.<br />
D. Demolishing The Wall: State Intervention and Inception of Urban<br />
Transformation, c. 1950s<br />
Riyadh's growth during the early decades of the Kingdom (1930-1960) reflected the
181<br />
improved economy and its increasing centrality and preponderance in the national system.<br />
Ribbon development proceeded swiftly along the new tarmac roads leading to the new<br />
Royal complex of al Murabbaa'. The new airport, six kilometers to the north of the walled<br />
town, and the railroad station, located three kilometers to the east, all served as magnets of<br />
future growth. Major roads radiated from the town to the surrounding towns far in the<br />
desert. In addition to the gradual loss of architectural heritage, the green belt was sacrificed<br />
to accommodate an ever-growing immigrant population. This was at the expense of the<br />
palm groves which were mercilessly cut to make room for new dwellings to accommodate<br />
an ever-growing population, drawn mainly from the indigenous population. The value of<br />
land rose sharply until it exceeded the value of the date harvest; their palm groves were cut<br />
to make room for dwellings. Soon after, the new hilal (singular hillah), communities,<br />
were to acquire their own name and character, some of which were inhabited by residents<br />
of the same towns of origin, such as Hillat al Qusman and Hillat Addawasir. In addition to<br />
the royal al Murabba estate, which took the royal aura, the new suburb, al Futah, housed a<br />
score of the King sons' palatial mansions on the road connecting al Murabbaa' with the old<br />
walled town. Other suburbs were soon to emerge reflecting the growing population of the<br />
city and the improved economic conditions- all had to accommodate the automobile. 13<br />
Batha community was the first to house newcomers from outside the city. It grew on<br />
the eastern side of the wall to meet the new element of the population, a growing working<br />
class composed of chauffeurs, mechanics, semi-skilled and unskilled labor forces,<br />
expatriates who flocked to the country to work in the nascent, yet burgeoning government<br />
apparatuses and in the labor market it created. They were immigrants coming from Arab<br />
and Muslim countries drawn by the lure of good salaries. Comprising such a<br />
heterogeneous population, Batha was lamented by Philby as "an unpleasant community, a<br />
running sore on the flank of the society which, at that time and every level, was a model of<br />
good manners and moral rectitude". 14 Soon the erstwhile sparse mud communities were to<br />
coalesce into one compact mass.<br />
Immigrant mud communities proceeded apace, repeating the traditional forms of the<br />
typical sinuous circulation system, while bedouins shantytowns' were strewn about with<br />
little attention paid to uniformity. New streets were laid out as needed, usually following<br />
the tracks naturally established by men and animals as they took the most convenient paths.<br />
Overwhelmed by growth, the nascent Riyadh's municipality staff resorted to the gridiron<br />
system to plat a new community at the southern side of the wall. In 1944, the Manfohah
182<br />
community was the first in the history of Riyadh to be platted by the new municipality<br />
according to a gridiron layout in order to control the fast growing population of bedouin<br />
and rural migrants. Land was subdivided into residential lots of 8-by-8 meters and<br />
serviced by streets, eight meters wide. The platting of land into rectangular or square lots<br />
for residential uses was the easiest, cheapest and most clear way of dividing land for rapid<br />
development.<br />
Interestingly, this very first land sub-division was laid to house bedouins and other<br />
underprivileged immigrants, not the established residents of the city. By then, the<br />
privileged opted for the north and west sides of town, following in the steps of the early<br />
attempts by the King and his kin, and in the vicinity of the newly built administrative<br />
buildings. Though aimed at curbing unplanned, illegally constructed groups of houses and<br />
tents at the periphery, the Manfohah experiment was later to be limited to new subdivisions<br />
for land speculation. The sprouting of squatter settlements housing bedouins and<br />
immigrants, continued to tarnish Riyadh's development for decades to come.<br />
This urban development would have not occurred had it not been for the improved<br />
political and economic conditions of the country. King Abdul-Aziz's firm control helped<br />
sustain the political cohesion of the country during its impoverished, boisterous formative<br />
decades before the discovery of oil. His avid leadership was further bolstered when oil<br />
production was finally attained in commercial quantities in March 1938, heralding the end<br />
of centuries of austere poverty and enhancing the country's autarchy. But it was not until<br />
the end of WWII when, in 1946, substantial dividends were to start reaching the<br />
government treasury.<br />
After his visit to Egypt in 1945, King Abdul-Aziz returned with an overwhelming<br />
admiration for Egypt's prosperity. During his visit, he was presented a Dakota plane as a<br />
gift from President Roosevelt during their summit meeting at the Suez Canal. With more<br />
national income derived from the increasing oil revenues, he returned with a firm resolution<br />
to rejuvenate his poverty ridden, backward country. At his behest, a landing ground was<br />
laid for his plane, and a 577 kilometer railroad was constructed, connecting Riyadh with<br />
the Persian Gulf. With the arrival of the first train from Dammam in 1951, the economic<br />
position of Riyadh was greatly enhanced, due to the sharp drop in transportation cost,<br />
without which the movement of essential commodities and the future modernization of the<br />
desert town would have been impossible. The new landing airfield was soon to develop
183<br />
into a nuclei of the Matar suburb, six kilometers north of the old city. In 1950 King Abdul-<br />
Aziz ordered the wall system to be demolished to allow for the expansion of the new<br />
neighborhoods. Alas, no attempt was made to save some of its parts, gates or the land<br />
which it once stood.<br />
Construction of the rail road station and the airfield added to the political centrality of<br />
Riyadh in the nation's modern urban system. The locational vitality of the city was to be<br />
further enhanced during the 1950s and 1960s by the national road system which was<br />
knitted in a way confirming the city's pivotal location in the heart of the Kingdom. This<br />
was evident in the increase in government appropriations for roads, which jumped from<br />
SR66.2 million in 1961 to SR474.1 million in 1967.15<br />
Despite its' notable increase in size, Riyadh expanded in accordance with local<br />
cultural building principles, in a compact form adhering closely to religion and traditional<br />
social norms. This compatibility can be attributed to several reasons: i) the poor economy;<br />
ii) the relatively homogeneous population composition, mainly comprising locals; iii) the<br />
adherence to traditional, bland architecture and rudimentary building materials; and iv) the<br />
fact that social values were still governed by stern Islamic principles, with great emphasis<br />
on privacy and community cohesiveness shown in the introverted dwellings built around<br />
the courtyard, the design of fenestrations with respect to neighbors' privacy and right of<br />
passage, and solid facades with high windows showing a blind face to the meandering<br />
streets. The circulation space took a secondary significance to the residential space, though<br />
increasingly it accommodated the automobile. The 1950s were yet to usher in an<br />
unprecedented progressive construction flurry beginning with the Capitol. The rate of<br />
economic growth of the city surpassed that of the country's economic growth as a whole.<br />
Between 1950 and 1968, Riyadh enjoyed steady economic growth reaching about 126<br />
percent in comparison to that of 1950 (Doxiadis, 1968). The old seven neighborhoods of<br />
the walled town became 22 neighborhoods (hilal) by 1966 and were serviced with<br />
municipal amenities, and by 1990 this number jumped to 141 neighborhoods (or submunicipalities).<br />
16<br />
E. Urban Planning: Municipal Legislation, and Early Urban Growth<br />
Controls, c. 1950s<br />
By definition, organic growth means that a town developed from, or was based on
184<br />
village settlements. Until the introduction of municipal regulations, building codes and the<br />
application of platting new land subdivisions, the forms of Saudi towns were effectively<br />
determined by the collective will of its individuals. Early growth corresponded to<br />
contextual imperatives; structures and buildings were built around original walking routes<br />
and respected property lines, all with respect to topography. Under pressure of growth,<br />
Riyadh began to endure overcrowding as more immigrants squeezed into the available<br />
buildings. Upon arrival, some countrymen shared their homes with relatives or contracted<br />
amateur builders to construct traditional mud houses. The quaint residential passageways,<br />
originally built for walking traffic, were transformed into raucous streets, in which<br />
pedestrians and cars competed for access, so that residents inhaled dust composed of<br />
animal manure and car exhaust. Alleys, streets and empty lots served as playgrounds for<br />
children and youth as well as places for garbage and other household refuse. This growth<br />
was soon to be followed by small, expediency-grid residential developments interspersed<br />
by small corner-stores, dakkakeen, as the tempo increased around the 1950s.<br />
Like all other municipalities, Riyadh Municipality lacked political control over its own<br />
territory and instead reflected the interests and views of the state leadership. 17 As early as<br />
1932, the King ordered the establishment of a small office to handle perfunctory civic<br />
tasks. In 1933, this office was elevated into the Municipality of Riyadh to oversee new<br />
urban development, a process which amounted to little more than land subdivision, permit<br />
processing, street cleaning, and garbage pickup. The scale of operation dramatically<br />
expanded in the following decades. The Municipality was expanded in 1953 to the wellstaffed<br />
Amanat Madinat Ar-Riyadh (The Trusteeship of the City of Riyadh) headed by a<br />
royal family member, appointed by the King. The Amanah reflected the national<br />
government's views toward development: a commitment toward the betterment of the city,<br />
all paid for by the state, all justified as noblesse oblige on behalf of the King.<br />
The Amanah's activities included the preparation of undeveloped land for future<br />
growth, overseeing the implementation of building codes and issuing construction and<br />
small business permits, sanitary ordinances and other hygienic regulations. As such, the<br />
Amanah essentially practiced growth-control rather than planned development. At the<br />
periphery, Municipal staff systematically subdivided residential lots into a grid system of<br />
lots with a minimum 500 m 2 and street widths of 15 meters. The wealthier northern and<br />
western parts of the city were zoned for concrete structures with setbacks, while poorer<br />
southern and eastern mud communities were left to grow without such controls. Planning,
185<br />
as practiced by Amanat Ar-Riyadh did not mean the allocation of the city's scarce resources<br />
over a span of time, that is five or ten year projections. Rather, since municipalities' funds<br />
(such as staff salaries and activities) were mostly provided by the national government,<br />
mayors and other officials did not endeavor to coordinate with the economic side of urban<br />
development. For example, new public and private investment in the city did not conform<br />
to any integrated program for housing, open space, public utilities, transportation,<br />
municipal services, employment and welfare. 18 The municipal planning was disjointed<br />
and marked by lack of an integrated network of circulation, open and recreational space and<br />
civic facilities. In short, the decades prior to the wealthy 1970s witnessed the production<br />
of sterile urban environments with no frills.<br />
Decisions pertaining to large scale development or concerning building activities .<br />
laying within property owned by the government were taken by respective departments.<br />
This left the Amanah with jurisdictions only over routine practices (such as the issuing of<br />
building and business permits, inspection, and documentation) mainly at the center and the<br />
surrounding districts. The Amanah's "growth control" tasks were carried out by a limited<br />
number of magistrates who followed royal instruction. The staff was composed of Arab<br />
engineers and, later of Saudi technocrats. The energies of the small Municipal staff were<br />
consumed by day-to-day needs of residents, private and public construction contractors,<br />
determining street grades and set back lines, and land owners obtaining approval for land<br />
subdivisions, and small businesses filing for business permits. The Municipality was an<br />
organization that applied banal bureaucratic procedures to urban development, devoid of<br />
traditional values and citizens' participation, both of which previously helped shape<br />
processes underlying traditional forms. The reinstatement of these cultural attributes would<br />
have alleviated the rather centralized, governmental process, but this did not occur.<br />
F. Land Tenure<br />
The departure from traditional environmental patterns was evident in the adoption of<br />
rectangular land subdivision, which was opted to accommodate the flurry of migration.<br />
Land subdivision constituted the main process by which undeveloped, so-called "white"<br />
land, whether rural or public was converted into urban use. Historically, Arab-Muslim<br />
towns grew incrementally, converting outlaying land into built space by residents, a<br />
process which conformed to net population growth. As Riyadh and other major Saudi<br />
cities underwent rapid population growth (averaging 9 percent per annum) the pressure for
186<br />
new urban land intensified. This was manifest in horizontal sprawl, compounded by the<br />
population's preference for the single family dwelling, the generous housing subsidies,<br />
bureaucratic procedures, all of which encouraged the modern leap-frog development pattern<br />
(Figure 6.5 ).<br />
Technological improvements (e.g. the introduction of the automobile) fueled urban<br />
sprawl, a contrasting pattern to the compact medina. To meet such expansion, the<br />
Municipality shifted to the wholesale adoption of the land subdivision process. Starting<br />
with Manfouhah, in 1948, Riyadh's Municipality devised its first tract development based<br />
on rectangular street and residential blocks. As noted earlier, it was a grid of convenience,<br />
the quickest and most equitable way of laying out new annexes to rapidly growing towns<br />
or those laid down anew. Moreover, with an increased demand for land, land speculation<br />
became a new venture for personal riches, and land subdivision with the grid proved a<br />
good means for the growing, profitable land market.<br />
Old mud buildings were demolished in the historical center and vast tracts of land at<br />
the periphery were subdivided by land owners and sold in a land speculation frenzy that<br />
siphoned large amounts of the population's savings. For land owners to liquidate their raw<br />
land in the lucrative land market and to qualify for government-paid services, they were<br />
required to obtain approval from the Municipality. The Municipality subjected such land to<br />
its planning-by-laws procedures which governed the layout of the subdivision, mainly the<br />
freeing of thirty percent of land for public uses such as streets and, depending on the size<br />
and location of the land, open space and land for public services. Land owners were not<br />
obliged to build necessary infrastructure, for it was the responsibility of the government.<br />
Consequently, "land has been subdivided with diminutive reference to any rate of<br />
development or occupancy, which has resulted in an enormous proportion of the<br />
subdivided plots remaining vacant." 19<br />
Several factors accounted for the suburban development and speculation. First, the<br />
relatively sudden demand for land was brought about by the government itself to fulfill its<br />
developmental targets as outlined in its ambitious first three five-year plans. The<br />
implementation of the first two national development plans (1970-1980) emphasized the<br />
need to establish infrastructure deemed viable for the realization of economic independence<br />
in the near future. The government's investment in the physical and social infrastructure<br />
had the impact of oscillating demand for urban land throughout the Kingdom. These
187<br />
[AOH<br />
\*-\K il<br />
1975<br />
Figure 6.5<br />
Riyadh's spike-like growth followed the roads radiating to major cities and towns (dotted<br />
line denotes Doxiadis' 1971 Plan). Source: SECT
188<br />
development plans facilitated the tremendous economic growth in the Saudi cities' urban<br />
economies, sponsoring a heavily subsidized private sector and housing programs for<br />
individuals. 20 The housing programs, especially the Real Estate Development Fund,<br />
encouraged citizens to build and buy new housing units, essentially single-family units at<br />
the periphery.<br />
The implementation of the five-year plans also allowed for massive public<br />
expenditures earmarked for the construction of new government projects, some of which<br />
were mega projects, including complex, modern road systems, government agencies'<br />
headquarters, public housing, military and educational facilities and the like. For example,<br />
the newly built Diplomatic Quarter occupied an area of eight square kilometer; the<br />
construction of the King Saud University's new campus added an area of nine square<br />
kilometers to the city's map; and development of the King Khalid International Airport at<br />
the city's northern side, devoured 250 square kilometers within the city's confines.<br />
Moreover, bureaucratic regulations made it difficult for a government agency to buy or<br />
switch a land it owns. If a need to build a new project arose, such agency either uses the<br />
land they have, or they must face the prospect of lengthy, procedural red-tape to exchange<br />
such land, a factor that contributed to scattered growth. Instead of seeking lands that were<br />
already vacant within the serviced lots, such agencies were forced to build new projects on<br />
whatever land they had, for if they waited, government funds might be taken away by the<br />
end of the budgetary year.<br />
Second, prior to the 1970s, most of the peripheral land was allotted to a few elite<br />
figures. These citizens were to reap tremendous profits in the booming decades of the<br />
1970s and early 1980s. Consequently, large sums of savings were channeled into the<br />
urban land market, hence resulting in a real estate frenzy, following the rise in demand for<br />
land generated by the inauguration of housing programs and other large scale development<br />
sponsored by the government. Alas, great amounts of citizens' savings could have been<br />
saved had the government directly disposed of such public land to citizens at real<br />
(noninflated or subsidized) prices and used the money in the realization of programs of<br />
beneficial outcomes to all societal members. Also, this approach could have helped cut<br />
housing costs for many otherwise qualified loan recipients, for land cost accounted for up<br />
to half the cost of building a new house.<br />
Third, the enlarged city area, despite the prevalence of large portions of undeveloped
189<br />
land, reflected the Saudi economy. Although predicated on religious rationale, the<br />
government does not impose property or income taxes. The collection of Islamic taxes,<br />
zakat, has not been attempted on an organized and comprehensive level. This can be<br />
attributed to the fact that the state relies on oil revenues for the majority of its income. As<br />
such, land owners felt no pressure to liquidate their properties or invest in the development<br />
of their vacant lots to cover taxes. This tendency to hoard un-taxed land for future<br />
speculation, has immensely contributed to the spreading of the city's area (Figure 6.6).<br />
Thus, land owners filed for land subdivision at the municipality only to have it on the<br />
market waiting for a lucrative cycle of real estate speculation. The boom of the 1970s<br />
ended in a painful bust that caused substantial loss to many citizens.<br />
Fourth, religious factors contributed to land speculation which led to the platting of<br />
more land than the actual need. The Kingdom's population is largely composed of<br />
conservative, practicing Muslims. The lack of Islamically-sanctioned, competing<br />
investment opportunities for citizens to invest their savings led many individuals to invest<br />
in the high, quick-yielding land market. Islam's teachings, as defined by the leading<br />
religious scholars, prohibits interest-bearing investment practices that are risk-free,<br />
predetermined returns. Those who seek such approaches are considered sinners and,<br />
unless they cease such investment, are promised retribution by Allah. 21<br />
Finally, by the 1960s, the land market had become an easy access to riches. For<br />
example, land prices rose especially at the business central district CBD area, where they<br />
were reported to range between SR 1,000 and SR 3,000 per square meter in the core, and<br />
dropped to SR 100-500 for residential land immediately adjacent to the core, while, at the<br />
periphery, land prices varied between SR 50 and SR 150. Increasingly, economic forces<br />
concentrated opportunities within the core while at the same time making that core<br />
increasingly expensive and unfavorable to the rising ranks of the population. The flight to<br />
the periphery, where affluent members of the society lived in palatial compounds, was<br />
inevitable. Yet, it was during the 1970s that land prices skyrocketed, reaching as high as<br />
SR 1,000 per square meter at the periphery.<br />
The combined effects of government allotting large tracts of public land to just a few<br />
tycoons and of government implementation of vigorous modernization programs, and the<br />
society's stem religious convictions, all forged the modern land tenure. Under salubrious<br />
socioeconomic circumstances, rapid urbanization ensued and with it came a capitalist
190<br />
Figure 6.6<br />
Riyadh 1976. The 1970s government modenization programs fueled a frezied speculation<br />
in the land market. The process of land subdivision proceeded beyond the 300 square<br />
kilometers denoting Doxiadis Plan of 1971 (dotted line deontes Doxiadis Plan.). Source:<br />
SECT International/SEDES (1977).
191<br />
notion, that is, the realization of land for its exchange value rather than its use value,<br />
characteristic of traditional built environments. Now, land became the means for capital<br />
accumulation, but without levying taxes (e.g. zakat), the prospect of socializing such a<br />
social resource was eliminated. Had such a tax been imposed, it could have been utilized<br />
by the public municipality to defray the social cost associated with development.<br />
The implication on the city spatial structure was logical, denizens sought the<br />
periphery for cheap land, and for public services guaranteed by the government. The<br />
resulting urban form was rational, a repeated pattern of land subdivision marked by lack of<br />
uniformity and leap-frog urban sprawl. In 1986 undeveloped land accounted for 64<br />
percent of the city's metropolitan area. This sprawl has been tempered by the well-devised,<br />
hierarchical road network forming the framework binding the city's scattered parts.<br />
However, the failure to implement the Doxiadis plan's super-block system of orthogonal<br />
residential districts, each including its own subcenters (these subcenters originally were<br />
meant for residents' shopping areas, schools and recreation), precluded the possibility of<br />
creating balanced spatial structure for the city as a whole, comprising a dominant central<br />
CBD complemented by these subcenters.<br />
This form of sporadic development in the 1940s following the inception of the<br />
Kingdom in the 1930s, was exacerbated in the 1950s, and took momentum in the<br />
construction boom decade of the 1970s. The outcome is that vast areas of the city are<br />
vacant (currently, 54 percent of the subdivided area is undeveloped). This was<br />
encountered in 1986 when the Council of Ministers adopted what they called the Urban<br />
Domain (No.13, 9/1/1406 H. (1986)) to put growth under check. The U.D. was adopted<br />
in response to incessant building activity at the periphery, which was guaranteed free statepaid<br />
public services and infrastructure. The new UD was applied to 199 major Saudi cities<br />
and towns, in a serious attempt to counter future sprawl.<br />
G. The Emergence of New Architecture and Building Methods<br />
Traditionally, Najdi towns were constructed from load-bearing mud bricks while<br />
roofs were built of wood beams, over which was placed branches, bushes and mud in<br />
three layers. This ancient building technique limited a room's size to a few yards and<br />
buildings heights to a maximum of three stories. Building materials were largely obtained<br />
from the surrounding environment and assembled according to traditional methods. The
192<br />
limitation of local ingredients and stern architecture reflected the desert environment and<br />
dearth of technological know how. Interior design was typical. Several rooms opened to a<br />
colonnade surrounding the courtyard, creating a micro-climate of shade and cool air. A<br />
kitchen was built adjacent to a roofless area reserved for livestock. The house roof was<br />
used for sleeping in the hot summer nights as well as for other familia activities (Figure<br />
6.7).<br />
Under the combined effects of improved economy and political stability, traditional<br />
building industry could not match Riyadh's unprecedented population growth. With<br />
increasing oil production came improved income and prospects for growth in the nation's<br />
cities seemed inevitable. The oil company, the government, and wealthy merchants<br />
anticipating rising demand for built structures, turned to external supplies for new building<br />
materials and techniques. Likewise, new architectural design concepts and styles were<br />
copied and sought, for such styles were deemed suited to the new building materials and<br />
techniques. Social status was also increasingly associated with new, modern building<br />
methods and design (Figure 6.8). Reinforced concrete allows for wider spans, hence<br />
larger rooms. It also allows for larger, wider windows to be filled with the newly imported<br />
glass, uncommon in traditional construction. Electrical wiring and modern plumbing<br />
became synonymous with the imported architecture. Large structures could not be realized<br />
by using traditional mud bricks and modern technology substituted passive cooling<br />
methods (e.g. the courtyard) which constricted design to few options. Now, large<br />
windows could be boldly made without concern for heat or sandstorms, thanks to the<br />
widespread use of modern air cooling systems.<br />
The need for tending livestock within the household to provide for its food gradually<br />
diminished, thanks to the rise in imports of foodstuffs now available at most<br />
neighborhoods' dakakeen, small grocery shops. Consequently, the enclosed, roofless<br />
space for livestock in the traditional Najdi house disappeared as a household element.<br />
Along with the courtyard, it was transformed into an outer yard encircling the villa, howsh<br />
or hadiqa (garden), which was formed by the new setback requirements. 22 The howsh, or<br />
the outer, open space surrounding the detached villa and enclosed by the outer wall, now<br />
serves as a playground for children, and may contain a swimming pool, or parking space<br />
for the car, and has become an established de rigueur. The modern walled housing unit<br />
constituted a compromise between the Western villa and the Middle Eastern-Muslim<br />
tradition of enclosure. The size of the howsh has now come to symbolize the status of the
193<br />
It<br />
I<br />
j<br />
i<br />
1<br />
i<br />
1<br />
i<br />
Bv gy- -<br />
1<br />
ilifRr^x wj «<br />
<br />
| ft v J****• i- * x, 1<br />
ivv, IlM j «vL «<br />
«sea9»»» #*-•/ . £<br />
^SE^C'# !<br />
-y- '<br />
Figure 6.7<br />
Riyadh (c. 1940s): "Traditional suburbanization" adhered to conventional architecture with<br />
modifications to accommodate the automobile. Note the Juxtaposition of larger residences<br />
nest to smaller ones. Indoor spaces circulated a courtyard which served social purposes<br />
and suited the harsh environment of the desert. Roofs were used for sleeping in the<br />
summer by extended families, which called for subdividing the roof into smaller spaces.<br />
Source: Daghistani (1985).
194<br />
Figure 6.8<br />
The proliferation of the villa house as the preferred form of residence was a result of the<br />
population's improved living standards, acculturation, introduction of new imported<br />
building materials, zoning regulations and adaptability with new technology. Source:<br />
Author (1991).
195<br />
household itself. Wealthy people desired larger lots or combined several small lots into one<br />
large one, and many built their homes at principal arterial streets as an expression of status.<br />
The less endowed citizens built their residences on narrow streets and alleyways behind<br />
large mansions.<br />
Acculturation, that is the impact of external cultures on the local population, has<br />
played a major role in the shift to contemporary architecture and urban design in Saudi<br />
Arabia. For example, during the 1940s, the American ambassador resided in a house in<br />
Jeddah, on the West coast, that was built by a wealthy Syrian merchant. The house was<br />
built with aberrant architecture and used imported building materials. Its style (a detached<br />
structure with balconies and fenestration that suited moderate climate) was largely<br />
borrowed from the villa house, dominant in the Mediterranean Arab countries (Figure 6.9).<br />
Its architecture was an aberration to the prevailing Jeddah house adorned by latticed<br />
windows. The role of wealthy Saudis in shaping contemporary architecture cannot be<br />
underestimated. In the early 1950s, a wealthy Saudi, named Ahmad Kaki, hired a<br />
Lebanese architect, Niqula Salam to design a multi-story apartment building in Al-Khobar.<br />
He hired skilled builders whom he brought specifically to construct his buildings. The new<br />
style was built with steel-reinforced concrete structures (foundations, slabs and beams) and<br />
with walls of cement bricks. 23 Skilled laborers applied electrical and modem plumbing<br />
installations to these new structures badly needed by the oil industry. Soon after, the<br />
affluent nationals began to incorporate the new construction technology, one of the various<br />
novelties the nation's rising income helped introduce.<br />
Government policies and propaganda played a major role in enforcing the use of new<br />
building materials. 24 For example, the first royal decree ever issued by the new state to<br />
regulate land distribution was the fourteen-point ordinance of 1358h/1938. It spelled out a<br />
set of conditions attached to allotting new land to citizens in the cities of Dmamam and Al-<br />
Khobar, at the locus of the industrial activity. It was an effort to encourage the settling of<br />
laborers. It was mandated that recipients use either stone or cement blocks in the<br />
construction of their units. 25 Using imported expertise, the government sought the<br />
construction of large complexes for its ministerial departments, military complexes and the<br />
like, all relying on mass-produced cement and steel construction methods.<br />
Under conditions of expediency, the American oil company (Aramco) used modem,<br />
imported building materials to construct its new industrial complexes, towns and
196<br />
mmm®,<br />
Figure 6.9<br />
American Ambassador's house in Jeddah. This and other modern residences were built by<br />
wealthy Saudis who inspired emulation by the masses. Source: M. Williams (1945)
197<br />
communities. Aramco introduced assembly plants to produce building materials locally.<br />
Moreover, the oil company built luxurious guest houses for its visitors, among whom<br />
many were royal family members. The commodious, well furnished and air-conditioned<br />
accommodations were supplied with swimming pools, lawns, terraces and other<br />
architectural elements and design concepts hitherto unbeknown to the isolated society.<br />
Soon the King and other royal family members were to demand the construction of similar<br />
buildings serviced with Western conveniences. King Saud's palatial complex at Al-<br />
Nasiriyah was an example of this process and an exemplar that was emulated in subsequent<br />
development. The rich were next to emulate the modern architecture which was deemed<br />
suitable for the times. The superiority of the versatile cement and steel construction was<br />
unmatched by the standard method of mud design.<br />
Thus with the improvement of the national economy, residents started to experiment<br />
with new design styles and building materials. New construction methods and materials<br />
(concrete, cement tiles and bricks) were introduced at an increasing pace. The standard,<br />
essentially one-material, mud house was supplanted with the villa, built with reinforced<br />
concrete structure adorned with glass, marble and other finishing materials forming the<br />
gingerbread facades of contemporary, stucco houses, commonly referred to as the villa.<br />
The contemporary villa is a two-story, closed mass box, onto which many additions<br />
and adornments can be grafted to suit individual needs and tastes (Figure 8). It offers a<br />
broad range of spatial and functional arrangements, thanks to the versatile method of<br />
reinforced concrete. In most cases, residents are left to improvise their own facades<br />
without intervention by the municipality. However, many Saudis entrusted the design and<br />
construction of their homes to incompetent designers and contractors, resulting in a<br />
hodgepodge, pretentious and gaudy architecture. Developers sought the construction of<br />
residential compounds and apartment buildings with ghastly styles. Individual house<br />
builders and major contractors paid the minimum to hire architects, drafters and novices<br />
who found in the construction boom an ample opportunity to experiment with whatever<br />
styles and forms they could imagine.<br />
The villa became the conventional style in most Saudi cities, towns and villages alike.<br />
It comprised several rooms organized around the family room, saalah, usually located at<br />
the center of the home. Downstairs, there exists a duality of space attesting to the<br />
segregation between sexes. A front section is usually preserved for guests, predominantly
198<br />
men. It includes a vestibule which leads to the majlis (a formal reception area), a large<br />
dining room, a space for washing hands and a bathroom. The remaining part of the house<br />
is the family space. In addition to the central saalah, it includes a women's receptionsetting<br />
area, a kitchen, bedrooms and a private bathrooms. The women's reception room<br />
may also be used as a winter family room, so within the same house, space is used for<br />
different functions and sexes at different seasons. The upper floor is exclusively used for<br />
sleeping. An outside annex comprising several rooms may be used as a larger kitchen for<br />
larger families and to avoid cooking odors within the house and allow for male servants to<br />
use the outside utility rooms such as laundry and storage rooms. A front side annex may<br />
also include space for entertainment, guest rooms and a bath. Traditional architecture has<br />
been supplanted with modern eclecticism, one which exhibits rigid organization of internal<br />
space and, mostly shoddy, prosaic and gaudy outer forms fusing discordant elements and<br />
styles into a "messy whole."<br />
The tendency in developing countries in which "new forms and materials because of<br />
their 'high' status are adopted and preferred to traditional solutions though traditional<br />
solutions frequently respond more effectively to climate" is well documented. 26 The<br />
prevailing traditional architecture was linked to the austere poverty of the past and so<br />
perceived as anachronistic. The wholesale adoption of imported architecture was captured<br />
in the comprehensive study which preceded the construction of the Diplomatic Quarter. In<br />
1978, commenting on the new paradigm, the authors stated,<br />
In fact, regarding the appearance of modern Riyadh as a city, it seems that in<br />
recent town planning and house designs, persistence of traditional principles<br />
of Najd urban culture would have been more desirable than the wholesale<br />
adoption of western architectural styles which present-day Riyadh features. 27<br />
The new imported paradigms were associated with modernization, a loaded term<br />
which, among others, meant the introduction of new, imported design concepts, building<br />
technology and convenient living styles, all conformed to the new modernization<br />
philosophy of the state. 28 Modernization was the motto of the nation-state, a broad,<br />
elusive concept that justified the flooding of the traditional society with up-to-date<br />
materialism and technological know-how. The gap between traditionalism and modernism<br />
apparently has been too wide to be comprehended by a the majority of the society. Cultural<br />
alienation resulting from churning masses into cities was defused by repeated<br />
consumerism. Largely, modernization came at the cost of gradual substitution of local
199<br />
heritage in an era of technological openness to the outside world, especially to the building<br />
technology. Individual structures, transportation and other land uses which comprise<br />
modern urban forms, were first to exhibit the incorporation of new trends in<br />
modernization. In short, the new architecture, though synthetic and spacious, became<br />
synonymous with, and a symbol for, modernization.<br />
The commodious suburban villa, set in an ample lot and served with wide paved and<br />
lighted streets summed up the blend of property, union with the family, status and<br />
modernity. On the city scale, the accumulation of these stern forms has created a<br />
forbidding aura which has altered the quality of the contemporary built environment. Still,<br />
the suburban villa, though lacking the picturesque setting of its Western counterpart, offers<br />
a contrasting quality to the crammed substandard mud residences of the old communities<br />
increasingly occupied by single casual laborers and other immigrants.<br />
II.<br />
BUILDING THE ROYAL CITY, I950S-1960S<br />
A. King Saud (1953-1964): the 'Master Builder'<br />
From a mere pre-industrial, placid burg, Riyadh expanded to a bustling hive of<br />
incessant building and construction. From its primeval penury, the Capital became the<br />
showcase of government pride, conveying a sense of legitimacy for the growing influence<br />
of the government in an era witnessing the crumbling of monarchies in nearby Middle<br />
Eastern countries. In the fiscal year of 1947-48 the annual national income was SR 215<br />
million. By 1952-53 it rose to SR 758 million. By 1955, revenues reached SR 1,335<br />
million. With the growth of the government treasury during the 1950s, the Capital was the<br />
first to snatch its share of government allocation. It was the seat of the Royalty and the<br />
government. "Riyadh and its Dependencies" occupied a budgetary category of their own<br />
amounting to SR. 152 million, the highest among the thirteen official budget categories for<br />
the 1952-53 fiscal year totaling SR. 758 million. This was best shown during the reign of<br />
King Saudi who inherited the growing polity from his father. King Saudi sought the<br />
modernization of the country, first and mainly in the physical sphere, hence starting a<br />
tradition of Saudi urban "euthenics".
200<br />
1. Annasiriyah: The Royal Suburb<br />
The modernization of Riyadh is epitomized in the new urban development programs<br />
during King Saudi's reign. H. St. (1959) hailed King Saudi's zeal for building. During<br />
the King's worldwide travels, he "had acquired a taste for elegant buildings and ornamental<br />
gardens; and it was while he was still crown prince that he sponsored the first real<br />
experiment in the modernization of Riyadh." 29 As noted, he started with the construction<br />
of his own royal estate, a four-acre garden plot called Nasiriyah, three miles to the<br />
northwest of the old city. Soon after, this little estate was expanded "into a hundred-acre<br />
pleasaunce of lawns and flower-beds, tree-lined avenues and bowers of flowering shrubs,<br />
orangeries and orchards...to say nothing of its swimming pools, its tennis courts and other<br />
recreational facilities." 30 To Philby, Nasiriyah represented the first step toward the<br />
"modernization" of Riyadh. It was here that Saud "decided to develop an estate worthy of<br />
his high rank and his progressive views." The walled royal suburb housed scores of<br />
colossal, opulent palaces and 405 villas. It included a large mosque and a fine school<br />
completed with modern facilities. At a later stage a zoo was even added. The bill of<br />
Nasiriyah was exorbitantly high reaching SR 44 million ($11 million), a phenomenal price<br />
for the 1950s.<br />
Considering the context, time and scale of Nasiriyah's development in the history of<br />
the Saudi Arabian urban development, Nasiriyah can be considered as the Saudi Arabian<br />
version of Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. With its aberrant<br />
architecture and its wide boulevards laid mostly on a grid street layout, Nasiriyah<br />
profoundly altered the traditional urban order and served as a lasting progenitor, a model<br />
for future emulation in other urban development. The builders of Nasiriyah had sought to<br />
satisfy the King's hunger for modernization and prosperity (Figure 6.10).<br />
2. Al-Malaz: Planned Community for Administrative Purposes<br />
The modern section of Riyadh is best exemplified in the birth of the new suburb, al<br />
Malaz. Following the transfer of government ministries to Riyadh in the late 1950s, the<br />
government sought to attract the Hijazi government employees to Riyadh. At the behest of<br />
King Saud, a 500 acre satellite suburb, al Malaz, was inaugurated four kilometers to the<br />
north of the walled city. Extolled as the New Riyadh, the al-Malaz project was a largescale<br />
housing development encompassing 754 single family houses, 180 apartment units
Figure 6.10<br />
Riyadh: King Saud's royal suburb, Annasiriyah (c. 1950s) was built with aberrant<br />
architecture. Source: Daghistani (1985).<br />
!$ * wSIV<br />
Figure 6.11<br />
The row of ministries was part of the government's Al-Malaz ("New Riyadh") large-scale<br />
project during the 1950s. ITie architecture and urban planning used in Annasiriyah and Al-<br />
Malaz inspired monumental scale adoption of the new paradigm in subsequent<br />
development. Source: Daghistani (1985).
202<br />
for married employees and approximately 160 apartment units for unmarried employees.<br />
New Riyadh included public buildings such as a municipal hall, a library, fire station,<br />
schools, markets and recreation and health facilities (Figure 6.11,6.12).<br />
The al Malaz development signaled a departure from the old laissez-faire attitude and<br />
heralded a new era of government intervention in the housing market as a major supplier,<br />
financier and subsidizer. The villas were sold to government officials at long-term loans.<br />
The al-Malaz planners followed the gridiron network with a hierarchical street network<br />
comprising a 180 foot wide highway bifurcating the new suburb, major roads of 100 feet,<br />
collector streets of 60 feet and service passageways of 30-45 feet. This network fed<br />
residential blocks of 150 by 300 feet which were subdivided into rectangular lots of 25 feet<br />
deep with lengths varying from 25,75, to 110 feet. Due to its complexity and scale, the<br />
Al-Malaz project can be considered as the major attempt to coordinate the allocation of<br />
several urban elements in space, with special attention to the overall urban system. As<br />
such, unlike the laying of gridiron residential annexes in the Eastern Province's towns, the<br />
Al-Malaz model was characterized by its diversified functional elements which were built to<br />
enhance Riyadh's centrality in the nation and boost its administrative capabilities (Figure<br />
6.11). This intervention was to culminate in the massive housing programs yet to be<br />
introduced in the mid-1970s, with the establishment of the Real Estate Development Fund<br />
(REDF). By the end of the 1950s, Riyadh boasted a population of 300,000, and covered<br />
an area of about 100 square kilometers as opposed to the original 100-acre 'heart of Arabia'<br />
(Figure 6.12).<br />
3. Urban Reconstruction at the Historical Core<br />
The core had its share of King Saud's zeal for reform and he committed himself to the<br />
task of remodeling that part of the capital. Increases in population and government ushered<br />
unprecedented economic growth in the historical core. Both catapulted demand for<br />
consumer goods which caused the expansion of a modern downtown area, and the sorting<br />
by location of some economic activities hitherto unbeknown to the traditional population.<br />
Economic growth also resulted in the development of some fairly distinctive residential<br />
districts reflecting a sociospatial stratification of a modern urban society, though with a<br />
great deal of spatial intermingling still extant.<br />
The traditional fabric was the first to suffer from rapid change. The historical clay
203<br />
LOCALITY<br />
PLAN V<br />
Figure 6.12<br />
Al-Malaz was built to house the government's civil employees in Riyadh. The platting of<br />
the large-scale development featured a gridiron subdivision and the villa model which were<br />
was widely copied in subsequent land subdivisions by land owners and municipalities<br />
throughout the natibn. It was a radical shift from traditional architecture and urban<br />
planning. Source: A1 Hathloul (1981).
204<br />
mosque and the large area of houses around it were leveled. On their ground a new, larger<br />
mosque was built of concrete, with two tall minarets. The old palace of Imam Turky was<br />
replaced by a huge complex comprising housing and law-courts, offices for the governor<br />
of Riyadh and audience chambers for ceremonial occasions. Modern shops were erected<br />
lining the streets converging on the new center and radiating from it. The old, unassuming<br />
clay houses were dwarfed by new, pretentious high-rise buildings. Other mud houses<br />
were gradually demolished to make way for vehicular roads, as well as for concrete and<br />
masonry buildings. The scene of the demolishing activity was recorded by H. St. Philby<br />
in April, 1960. He wrote to a friend<br />
I spent my 75th birthday watching the bulldozers knock down half of my<br />
property for a new road through the town. The house itself has been spared,<br />
though deluged with dust, but all the courtyard, guest rooms, garage and<br />
servants quarters are gone. I am not going to move.... 31<br />
A road program was undertaken to link al Murabaa palace, Nasiriyah, and the new<br />
airport, along with the railway station by a wide two-way boulevard, divided by a central<br />
line of flower beds. The traditional walled city's narrow, crooked streets were looked<br />
upon as an anachronism, therefore an impediment to progress. Its unsuitability for the<br />
modern era was made obvious by increasing motor traffic. In general, "the resulting<br />
physical patterns of development are no longer 'incremental' and irregular, but rationalized<br />
to exigencies of the new technological order" (Brown, 1980).<br />
King Saud's aplomb in the country's power hierarchy meant the rising significance of<br />
Riyadh, his ancestral headquarters, thus the restructuring of the Country's national urban<br />
network. Historically, the Western region of the Arabian Peninsula is the birthplace of<br />
Islam and the ground of the two Holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. It has been<br />
considered the heart of the Muslim world. Nevertheless, as we saw, Riyadh was adopted<br />
permanently as the nation's capital, following King Abdul-Aziz's victorious conquer of<br />
Hijaz in 1926, leaving titular significance to Jeddah and Makkah despite their previous<br />
epithets as administrative and religious capitols. In 1953, Riyadh's status as the seat of the<br />
Saudi government was further enhanced by the government's decision to transfer the<br />
government ministries and other agencies to Riyadh from the cosmopolitan Jeddah, the<br />
littoral commercial center on the Western coast and gateway to Makkah. An imposing row<br />
of modern buildings to house the new ministries and the growing military apparatus,<br />
including a staff college and military hospital, was built by the government on the road
205<br />
leading to the airport.<br />
In contrast to the traditional architecture, both in style and scale, the modern row of<br />
ministerial structures were built to show sturdy engineering and flatulent exhibitionism, an<br />
exercise in vanity reflecting the rising influence of the nation-state. Three more hospitals, a<br />
maternity clinic and several institutions were built to cope with the increasing demand for<br />
health care. Furthermore, Riyadh's vitality was enhanced by significant water discoveries,<br />
making the city more attractive for city-ward migration especially during the long drought<br />
years between 1957-1964.<br />
City-ward migration continued apace approximating significantly high levels of 9 per<br />
cent per annum between 1968 and 1977, or an annual increase of 93,000 inhabitants. 32<br />
This resulted in the spatial expansion of Riyadh. The city expanded by annexing nearby<br />
villages to the south and east. In the north, new, planned districts proliferated to<br />
accommodate the rapid increase in population. The expansion took two basic types:<br />
ruralized, sparsely controlled growth of low income districts and planned development.<br />
The ruralized section was likened to Abu-Lughod's findings on Cairo.<br />
...the housing in these ruralized districts is grouped mainly in small villagelike<br />
clusters, and the buildings are primarily one or two stories in height and<br />
are made of bricks or mud-bricks. In fact, these districts resemble Arabian<br />
villages more than they resemble the modern section of Riyadh in their<br />
physical and socioeconomic features. 33<br />
B. King <strong>Faisal</strong>'s Socioeconomic Reforms: 1958-1974<br />
Despite the remarkable strides in physical planning and urban development, the 1950s<br />
and 1960s were distinctively disharmonious. The combined effect of incessant migration,<br />
the introduction of the automobile, the application of banal urban growth controls by the<br />
municipality and the increasing cleavage between income distribution shredded the<br />
historical harmony of the mud town, expediting its demise. The incremental growth had<br />
lost its pace as the leap-frog growth pattern took place in the form of construction of palatial<br />
suburbs and governmental land uses which continued to lead sprawl, and were built at a<br />
scale and style duly contrasting those of the historical core, itself undergoing more<br />
demolishing of its mud buildings to allow for the construction of roads, apartment<br />
buildings and shops.
206<br />
Riyadh's population increased from 82,000 inhabitants to 300,000 by 1968, out of<br />
which seventy percent were migrants. As oil revenues multiplied, society's living<br />
standards improved. Increase in car ownership during the 1960s was phenomenal,<br />
fluctuating between 24 percent and 40 percent in the period 1962-67; the number of<br />
vehicles jumped from 3 per 1,000 inhabitants to 8.8, despite the very high increase in the<br />
city's population. 34 The number of registered vehicles continued to increase dramatically<br />
in the following decades. It increased by twenty fold between 1971 and 1987, from about<br />
168,000 cars to 4.5 million nationwide. To seize this growth, the national road network<br />
was expanded vastly from 5,000 kilometers in the mid 1970s to 90,000 in 1987, 35<br />
Unfortunately, however, the increase in car ownership led planners to perform major<br />
demolition in the historical city. H. St. J. B. Philby, who first came to Arabia in<br />
November 1917, and spent the rest of his life in the country, correctiy augured the city's<br />
future growth. During the late 1950s, Philby gave a good sense of this process of change<br />
at its inception:<br />
...watching and recording, step by step, the process of change, at first<br />
gradual and tentative, but later with ever increasing and almost reckless<br />
tempo, by which the transformation scene which greets the visitor of today<br />
has been achieved. It still is very far from complete and there is no knowing<br />
how far it will go; but building, and ever more building, is the order of the<br />
day: to say nothing of the accompanying demolition of old-style houses (of<br />
clay) to make room for the concrete and stucco monuments of exotic Western<br />
architecture. 36<br />
The 1950s and 1960s were also decades of political turmoil and economic crises.<br />
Since the founding of the Kingdom in 1932, the King and the royalty were the major<br />
recipients of oil revenues, thus spearheading the trend of change. Mansfield stated, "The<br />
effect on some of the royal princes, of whom there were now more than 2,000, was<br />
devastating. They wanted to acquire all the products of Western consumer society as soon<br />
as they saw them, and there were plenty of unscrupulous salesmen ready to provide them at<br />
inflated prices." 37 By the mid 1950s, the royalty's prerogative right to oil wealth resulted<br />
in widespread resentment by the population, increasingly exposed to outside ideas and<br />
political values. Feeling the soaring popular resentment, the monarchic state felt the need<br />
for reforms. Unable to steer the nation, King Saud was forced to step aside as senior royal<br />
family members agreed it was time to shift gears.<br />
His successor, King <strong>Faisal</strong>'s contribution had more indirect than direct repercussions
207<br />
on the urban scene. His reforms were structural, aimed at long-term socioeconomic goals<br />
to stabilize the agitated masses. They were political to circumvent the anti-establishment<br />
political tides that swept the Middle East compounded by the indulgence of royal elites. He<br />
swiftly embarked upon prudent steps to play down the widening gap between the elites and<br />
the majority. Upon accession in 1964, <strong>Faisal</strong> ordered Annasiriyah's wall to be<br />
demolished, an element he viewed as a physical embodiment of royal indulgence and of the<br />
bifurcated society.<br />
During the 1960s, the growing demand for housing had already brought about<br />
change from small-scale, sporadic uncontrolled individual street development to the layout<br />
of extensive tracts of land based inevitably on the gridiron. Aside from the government<br />
employees' suburb of al Malaz and the royal suburb of Nasiriyah, both built during King<br />
Saud's reign, Riyadh's suburbanization did not take the form of a "coherent whole."<br />
Subsequent growth lacked predetermined attention to open space, public services and<br />
community facilities. As need arose for a school, a health clinic or a police station, the<br />
government had to either buy or rent residential buildings and convert them according to the<br />
new need or rent them. It was not until the 1970s, when improved government revenues<br />
allowed for the provision of open space and recreational facilities.<br />
The modernization of Riyadh abided in the following decades paralleling the<br />
expansion of the government bureaucracy. The number of government employees grew<br />
from 36,800 in 1968 to 84,500 in 1977, to 185,600 in 1986. By 1988, the government<br />
sector comprised 205,000 out of the City's total employed man power of 518,200,<br />
including non-Saudis. Riyadh's share of national government workers rose from 40 per<br />
cent in 1977 to 45 per cent in 1986. Moreover, average annual income of government<br />
employed personnel was SR 63,400 ($16,900), 22 per cent higher than the average in the<br />
private sector. 38 It is this growth in government bureaucracy and privileges which<br />
constitutes the backbone of Riyadh's urban economy. The spatial order of the city has<br />
grown containing a projection of this preponderance of government power and leadership<br />
values. The 1950s' motto of 'New Riyadh' became the 'City of Future' in the affluent<br />
decades of the 1970s and 1980s.
208<br />
HI. PLANNING THE 'CITY OF FUTURE': THE INTRODUCTION OF CITY MASTER<br />
PLANS AND EFFECTIVE URBAN POLICIES IN THE 1970S AND 1980S<br />
The impact of preemptive government decision-making and underwriting of urban<br />
development was shown best during the 1970s and the 1980s. The 1970s brought an<br />
unprecedented world demand for oil. Oil output virtually doubled between 1970 and 1973.<br />
Oil prices rose sharply, doubling in the same three years from $1.80 in 1970 to $5.12 in<br />
October 1973, to a whooping $11.65 in January 1974. Accordingly, oil revenues rose<br />
from $1.26 billion in 1970, to $3,107 billion in 1973, leaped to $22,574 billion by 1974,<br />
and jumped to a phenomenal $98.1 billion in 1982. 39 The improvements in the national oil<br />
economy was translated into construction boom that swept Riyadh, in particular and the<br />
Saudi cities, towns and villages, in general (Table 6.1).<br />
Table 6.1 illustrates the dramatic increase in construction activity in Riyadh compared<br />
to the total number of permits issued by municipal authorities in the Kingdom. According<br />
to the census of 1974, Riyadh had a population of 666,000 inhabitants, approximately 10<br />
percent of the nation's population estimated at 7 million. 40 . Especially during the early<br />
1970s, Riyadh's share of construction permits was considerably high compared to the<br />
number of permits issued by municipalities nationwide. In 1974, the year in which an<br />
official population census was compiled and also the year which followed the phenomenal<br />
increase in world oil prices, Riyadh was the first among the nation's settlements to benefit<br />
from the oil bounties, evident in the 30 percent share of the total numbers of construction<br />
permits nationwide.<br />
A. Urban Economy: Government Growth and Industrialization<br />
Riyadh's growth continued unabated, corroborating the preponderance of the state<br />
input in the development of the national urban system. In the decade ending 1977, the<br />
city's population more than doubled reaching 690,000 inhabitants. Between 1968 and<br />
1977, rapid population growth closely paralleled economic growth. The total number of<br />
jobs rose from 75,000 to 180,000 during the same period, while the broad structure of<br />
economic activity remained similar to that of the 1960s. The tertiary sector (government,<br />
trade and commerce) accounted for 76 percent of this composition- 33% was government,<br />
commercial activities and other services 28%, transport 8%, and utilities 1.5%. In 1977,<br />
the government sector employed 60,000 persons, while commerce and construction
Table 6.1<br />
Number of Permits (Construction, Renovation & Walling (Fencing) Issued by Municipal<br />
Authorities in Riyadh, Arar and Huraimla Compare to the National Total<br />
City Permit 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987<br />
Type<br />
Riyah Constailicn 2,155 3,467 3,885 6,124 8,284 9,813 11,206 11,231 11,433 12,154 5,057 4,781 1237 11,211 11,340 2,722<br />
Rcnovaiai 115 109 629 2,062 1,496 897 571 296 n 1 2 - 46 3 171 10<br />
Wiling 837 379 367 364 476 534 1,054 879 863 919 685 300 411 779 878 157<br />
Total 3,107 3,955 4,881 8,550 10,256 11,244 12,831 12,406 12,325 13,074 5,760 5,081 12,704 11,993 12,389 2,889<br />
Aar Cosnmnicn 137 139 49 60 333 533 857 705 758 694 316 m 145 1,077 431 299<br />
Renovcn 6 11 6 2 10 24 - 5 16 174 33 37 33 32 40 34<br />
Walling 88 98 32 43 129 311 741 584 415 566 196 51 10 51 49 26<br />
Total 231 248 87 105 472 868 1,598 1,294 1,189 1,434 545 336 248 1,160 520 359<br />
Hutinila Gnstnrticn 15 10 23 45 28 49 16 160 58 na 95 114 88 88 56 64<br />
Raivalicn - - - - - 2 3 1 1 na 4 1 - 3 2 3<br />
Wailing 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 1 68 na 31 24 24 21 16 28<br />
Total 16 11 24 48 30 53 21 162 127 na 130 139 112 112 74 95<br />
Nationl Total 14,540 17,097 18,303 27,983 44,650 67,346 70,970 58,497 63,780 83,518 72,021 77,463 78,884 76,763 63,227 48,927<br />
Oil Revenues 1,885 2,775 4,430 22,574 25,676 30,755 36,540 32,234 48,435 84,466 70,479 37,352 31,470 18,323 13,555 -<br />
Source: Ministry of Interior, Municipal Affairs, Statistical Administration, Municipal Atatistics, 137211972-1406119S6 (Riyadh: Ministry of<br />
Interior), MOMRA, Municipal Statistics, 140911989 (Riyadh: MOMRA Publising Press), Ismail Duais (1986), 127.
210<br />
employed 37,000 and 26,000 respectively, indicating the preponderance of the tertiary<br />
sector over the industrial. In 1987, the number of government employees increased to<br />
183,000. This figure comprises 39 percent of the city's employed labor force, totaling<br />
474,000. Seventy-eight percent of the Saudi working force was employed by the<br />
government. 41<br />
Table 6.2 illustrates Riyadh's beneficial status of being the seat of government. The<br />
table lists the funds allocated for the provision of municipal services in some Saudi cities.<br />
In 1975, Riyadh boasted a population approximating 700,000 and its Municipality (Amanat<br />
Madinat Arriyadh) received SR 2.6 billion while Jeddah, populated by 600,000 was<br />
allotted only SR 1.3 billion.<br />
In terms of Riyadh's non-governmental economic growth, that is the private sector, it<br />
ranks first in terms of the number of industrial establishments among the nation's cities. In<br />
1963, the city had 6,894 non-government private establishments enlisting 15,400<br />
employees. By 1976, Riyadh had 30,611 private establishments. In the same period, the<br />
City's labor force engaging in urban activities tripled from 94,991 to 272,376. 42 Table<br />
6.3 exhibits the growth in number of establishments and employees in selective Saudi<br />
cities. The tremendous growth in the private sector corroborates the intensity of urban<br />
growth in the Kingdom's major cities in general and Riyadh in particular. In 1981, Riyadh<br />
possessed 74 percent of the Central Region's private establishments alone and housed 89<br />
percent of the Central Region's labor force employed by the private sector. The Capital<br />
contained 21 percent of the Kingdom's total private establishments (surpassing Jeddah by<br />
1,960 establishments) and 27 percent of the private sector's labor force. This attests to the<br />
massive benefits bestowed upon the city for being the seat of the government.<br />
Yet, the consumptive nature of Riyadh is evident in the fact that only 16 percent of the<br />
City's consumer goods are made and assembled by its specious industries (which employ<br />
8% of the City's manpower); 76 percent are imported from outside the country and 8<br />
percent are imported from the country's regions. Moreover, 70 percent of Riyadh's<br />
production is consumed locally. In short, the markedly active urban economy heavily<br />
depends on the government. Both the private construction sector, which employs 30<br />
percent of the City's private man power, and the private service sector 24 percent, rely on<br />
state spending (Table 6.3).
Municipally<br />
population<br />
(1940s)<br />
Table 6.2<br />
Funds Allocated for the Provision of Municipal Services in million SR<br />
Selected Major Cities (1975-1988) And Population Estimates<br />
population<br />
(1974)<br />
1966 1975 1976 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1988<br />
Riyadh 30,000 666,840 36.8 2,630 1,401 1,700 1,145 2,404 3,455 3,375 1,929 1,907 688<br />
Jeddah 30,000 561,104 36.2 1,296 936 688 660 765 1,954 1,901 1,901 1,286 90<br />
Makkah 80,000 366,801 43.1 1,866 1,504 1,001 606 1,346 1,274 1,262 859 1,607 71<br />
Madinah 20,000 198,186 28.3 555 621 334 321 615 989 777 648 698 396<br />
Dammam - 127,844 10.1 221 177 117 113 93 1,899 1,563 629 434 174<br />
Taif 5,000 204,857 8.7 213 155 118 207 178 338 428 267 162 50<br />
Buraydah 20,000 69,940 na 191 108 119 146 322 1,259 479 391 209 63<br />
Jizan n.a. 32,812 na 87 81 59 42 118 119 102 47 80 23<br />
Abha n.a. 30,150 na 174 117 167 44 33 47 155 141 142 14<br />
Hail 10,000 40,502 na 168 87 78 54 44 242 261 274 313 37<br />
Tabuk 1.0,000 74,825 na 325 198 137 111 133 354 330 163 461 41<br />
Total* - 2,373,861 - 7,726 5,324 4,518 3,449 6,051 11,927 10,633 7,249 7,299 1,647<br />
Riyadh/Total (%) 28 - 34 26 38 33 40 29 32 27 26 42<br />
Source: Minstry ofFinancy, Statistical Indicator, 1400H/1980, p. 32; K.M. Al-Ankary & S El-Bushra (eds.), 1989, p. 12. * Total' only represents<br />
figures in the table; Ministry of Interior, Municipal Affairs, Statistical Administration, Municipal Atatislics, 137211972-140611986 (Riyadh: Ministry of<br />
Interior), MOMRA, Municipal Statistics, 140911989 (Riyadh: MOMRA Publising Press).
212<br />
B. City Master Plans<br />
Oil wealth has enabled the government to embark upon vigorous national and urban<br />
planning schemes aimed at increasing the living-standards of the population by all feasible<br />
means (higher income, better housing and hygiene, etc.) and by upgrading the built<br />
environment for projected future economic prosperity. Though progressive, these<br />
regulations were wrought in isolation of public input. In 1973, the Council of Ministers<br />
adopted Riyadh Master Plan, the first formal attempt to circumscribe the City's unbridled<br />
growth.<br />
Table 6.3<br />
Number of Private Establishments and Employment in Selective Saudi<br />
Cities<br />
City No. of No. of No. No. Of No. of No. of<br />
Establish Employees Establish Employees Establish Employees<br />
ments (1963) ments (1976) ments (1981)<br />
(1963) (1976) (1981)<br />
Riyadh 6,894 15,400 16,409 94,9911 30,611* 272,376<br />
Jeddah 7,007 18,234 13,828 62,907 28,651 221,975<br />
Makkah 6,160 14,379 8,114 22,657 12,332 43,632<br />
Maidnah 3,030 6,489 4,247 14,097 7,906 27,851<br />
Taif 2,609 4,520 4,805 11,902 6,735 22,005<br />
Al-Ahsa 2,511 4,496 3,349 9,857 5,458 15,383<br />
Dammam 1,762 4,737 4,405 32,670 6,828 96,535<br />
Al-Khobar 1,132 3,818 1,598 15,425 3,446 55,136<br />
Arar 265 454 477 1,803 1,245 3,319<br />
Sources: Statistical Year Book (1965), p. 199; Statistical Year Book (1989), 643. * As of 1986, the<br />
number of private establishments increased to 44,643; comprising 26,977 commercial (90% of which is<br />
retail), 15,823 services, and 1,842 designated as industrial (58% were furniture-related, 16% metal products,<br />
and 6% involved in stone, mud and glass works). Industrial establishments occupied 19 km 2 (6.5%) of the<br />
City's area. Source: Report On Urban Domain for The City of Riyadh (1989), 7.<br />
1. Doxiadis Plan for Riyadh, 1973<br />
Departure from the traditional design standards of the medina culminated in the<br />
adoption of Doxiadis' City Master Plan in 1973 by the Council of Ministries. The<br />
approach of contracting Western consultants to produce master plans was in vogue in many<br />
Third World and Developing countries. They were archetypical solutions to rapidly
213<br />
expanding cities. Master city plans are long-range, multi-phase conceptualizations of<br />
towns future growth. They constituted comprehensive land use and infrastructure<br />
development plans, projected in tune with vigorous national economic growth schemes.<br />
All sought to facilitate economic prosperity and social stability through manipulating the<br />
spatial system. Along with the housing loans provided through the REDF, Riyadh's new<br />
Master Plan institutionalized the grid and indoctrinated the villa as the preferred form of<br />
laying new districts by setting rectilinear lot-sizes, and enforcing set-back regulations. 43<br />
The new Plan was sought to guide development in according with the objectives of the<br />
political authorities,<br />
- flexibility, so as to accommodate varying rates of growth;<br />
- a fair distribution of services to all levels of the population;<br />
- a transportation system based on the use of private vehicles. 44<br />
The above main objectives were translated into (1) the adoption of the linear form for<br />
the City toward the north with a Central Business Area a spine extending north-south<br />
allowing Doxiadis; (2) the redesigning of certain areas within the City as "self-contained"<br />
units, that is with their own service cores with access to medium level service centers and<br />
the central CBD; (3) the charting of a new road system with hierarchy of streets and<br />
pedestrian precincts. The Plan included the detailed design of individual Action Area<br />
Plans, those deemed potential for development, covering 11.5 square kilometers, in an<br />
effort to relive the City's center.<br />
By shifting to comprehensive city planning, the authorities sought to control Riyadh<br />
and other major cities' phenomenal growth. Sectoral planning approaches of the past,<br />
mainly the laying of land subdivisions according to planning-by-laws measures<br />
implemented by cities' municipalities, proved lacking. This new orientation was an attempt<br />
to create more economically and efficient urban systems in line with national economic<br />
growth plans. The justification of such a massive allocation in the urban built environment<br />
was to increase the population's share in the benefits reaped through oil revenues. Also, as<br />
Deputy Minister of Rural and Municipal Affairs, Khalid Al-Ankary, points out, it is<br />
"indicative of the Saudi government's intention to develop a modem urban network which<br />
is capable of assuming its functions in die newly emerging industrial economy." 45 Prior to<br />
the 1970s, the majority of Riyadh's population lived in substandard housing. Now, it was<br />
intended they would benefit from generous housing subsidies, free land, interest-free loans<br />
on industrial establishments, all geared to shift towns and cities subsistent economies to
214<br />
modern ones capable of meeting the rising demands of the population. The improved<br />
living standards and government spending, all contributed to city expansion.<br />
The realization of these targets has come at the expense of state intervention.<br />
Bestowed with immense oil revenues, the state spearhead the march to modernization. In<br />
the prevalence of overcrowded neighborhoods lay not only the danger of disease and<br />
degradation of social mores but also the latent prospect of widespread revolutionary<br />
sentiments, which previously surfaced during the 1950s and the 1960s. Yet, sharing<br />
national resources did not necessarily mean sharing decision making. In their shift to<br />
comprehensive physical planning, that is to city master plans, planners failed to include the<br />
city's residents. Citizens were not informed on their city's destiny, and businessmen were<br />
not consulted on the economic value of the new plan. Both groups were perceived, by<br />
administrators and planners, as uneducated on the complex techniques of the modern city<br />
planning. Due to this exclusion of the populace, city planning remained highly technical<br />
and bureaucratic.<br />
The Doxiadis Plan was organized around a system of two-by-two kilometer superblocks.<br />
Such a repetitive framework was justified for its flexibility, a crucial criterion for a<br />
city undergoing rapid growth (Figure 6.13). The Doxiadis planners envisioned a<br />
functional city, predicated on a modular grid, simple, straight forward, easy and legible<br />
urban framework for a city's population growing at 100,000 per annum. It was projected<br />
that the 1970 plan would serve the city's needs up to the year 2,000. The municipality<br />
(Amanat Madinat Arriyadh) was to preside on the implementation of zoning regulations<br />
outlined in Doxiadis' plan. For example, regulations required that land owners provide up<br />
to 30 percent of their subdivision land for streets, open space and, if large enough, public<br />
services, such as a school. Land developers and individual house builders were required to<br />
meet the detailed instruction on building codes including height, lot size, setbacks and<br />
residential type. The application of these regulations has resulted in profound similarity<br />
between communities within the cities and among cities.<br />
The 1968 Doxiadis' master plan for Riyadh, which was put into effect in 1971, and<br />
its subsequent regulations set the direction for future growth. The consequence was a city<br />
organized into the modern, high-income north and the semi-traditional, low-income south.<br />
For example, the Plan proposed average plot sizes ranging between 150 m 2 and 250 m 2 for<br />
South and old Riyadh; minimum 400 m 2 for the northern part. As such, the Plan ignored
215<br />
Commerce. Busincu tad Ciric<br />
|QQ Dntnn Coounercul ind One Ccstn<br />
W//M% Royii AIM<br />
EZSI Msfiulsaunoi<br />
ZZZR Industry "7- '<br />
itlliU!! Rcpooil Puti, Sporn Crounds, Athletic Centre<br />
Green Aieu tAd LaswuDoa*<br />
RSSSSSa Spctul Um (MiliUry.Oiher loxunitiom eic...)<br />
nrrm Uoivemry Campui .,. ,,<br />
•ES2J Airpon Arti ' '<br />
E£3 Riihnyi 1 ^ "<br />
... .1" Propoted Rutw*y Lint ' (<br />
Figure 6.13<br />
The 1971 Doxiadis Master Plan was originally to serve the City's needs until the year<br />
2,000. Source: Daghistani (1985).
216<br />
the culturally relevant values that imbued the process of physical growth for centuries,<br />
producing ecological stasis. The modern outcome seemed inevitable: people abandoned the<br />
traditional built environment altogether. Of course, the process of laying land subdivisions<br />
using the grid, which started in the 1940s, preceded the wholesale arrangement of the city<br />
into super-blocks of 2-by-2 miles by Doxiadis. In short, the Plan institutionalized the<br />
segregation of the city by income, hence imposing an economic map on the population,<br />
which hitherto valued social ties over economic privatism.<br />
The implementation of various modernization programs by the state resulted in<br />
frenzied speculation in the real estate market which siphoned savings to the landed<br />
aristocracy. Moreover, the timing of the Doxiadis Plan coincided with the skyrocketing of<br />
oil prices which enabled the government to launch the first Five-Year Development plan<br />
(1970-75), an ambitious shift to national planning in which the government allocated<br />
massive funds for infrastructural development nationwide. The combined efforts by the<br />
various government agencies created vast job opportunities which engaged the population<br />
of cities and towns in the implementation of the government-financed modernization<br />
programs. The state's orchestrated development necessitated the importation of large<br />
numbers of expatriates, hence adding more pressure on the already stressed housing<br />
market. To relieve the shortage, the government inaugurated various state housing<br />
programs, including the Real Estate Development Fund in 1974. Citizens who could<br />
afford building their own homes abandoned the overcrowded mud communities, some of<br />
which were later inhabited by the imported labor force. Now, with the great sums of<br />
national resources allocated in housing, road construction and upgrading social services<br />
and utilities, the previously vacant Doxiadis Plan's super-blocks, became the stage for<br />
building construction at the periphery. Once structures were built, the municipality and<br />
other public utilities would provide streets, electricity, water and telephone service.<br />
While the Doxiadis Plan was conceived for projected growth until the year 2,000, the<br />
demand for land for construction was soon to surpass the Plan's demarcated boundaries. It<br />
was not that the area in the Plan was fully developed. To the contrary, a substantial<br />
proportion of area remained undeveloped, "white land," as owners aspired for a future<br />
upsurge in land prices to reap a high return on their untaxed properties (Figure 6.6).<br />
With the adoption of city master plans, planners now turned to the city with more<br />
practical concerns: the functioning of a rapidly growing city as a system, with special
217<br />
attention to economic determinants. Typically, the city was conceived in Doxiadis' report<br />
as a center of industry and traffic, which translated into a rationalized system of land use<br />
and transport network, all confirming the trend to depart from historical traditions. It also<br />
reflected Saudi planners' interest to rationalize growth according to new imperatives<br />
brought about by modernization. The Plan advocated the idea of a city, worthy of national<br />
esteem and meaning. The plan was justified on the basis that it advocated a rational city, a<br />
concept planners avowed to be in the best interest of the state and the population. Planners<br />
focused on the practical arrangements of the physical city, embracing such elements as<br />
streets, transit, parks, open space and playgrounds, urban renewal and design, as well as<br />
planning and construction of communities within the city. By underestimating the political<br />
nature of planning, Saudi planners, working for the government and various agencies<br />
conducting decisions related to urban development, conceived of the city as a passive<br />
depot, far from being an area of equitable and positive political interaction between city<br />
actors. So, planners took the governmentalizing of the city as being in the collective<br />
interest of city dwellers.<br />
The subject of the Plan was growth, while its theme was the orderly programming of<br />
the Capital's activities of government and private investment according to a scheme which<br />
took into account the projected growth over the next thirty years. The goal was to establish<br />
order by imposing specialized land functions, such as open (green) space, housing,<br />
government, industry and transportation. It was hoped the Plan, which came with a<br />
package of zoning ordinances, would assure beneficial future growth. The plan forbade<br />
industrial activities in residential areas which were sorted into sub-zoned districts allowing<br />
for different lot sizes, encouraging growth-by-income segregation. The "goodness" of the<br />
future was now purely based on an idealized notion of orderly, specialized arrangements of<br />
zones in space, all in the new blueprint charted by Doxiadis Associates of Athens, Greece.<br />
The key to this plan's successful outcome lay in the construction of new communities<br />
serviced by schools, open space, and commercial facilities at the center of each 2-by-2<br />
kilometer super block. All hoped this would attain the production of coherent communities<br />
marked by single-family housing units served by wide boulevards, in contrast to the tiny<br />
homes of the compact mud communities, an embarrassing, anachronistic reminder of<br />
poverty and backwardness. The resulting landscape was miles upon miles of semideveloped<br />
grid blocks extending the city's area inefficiently over the desert plateau, a form<br />
which was neither governed by competitive market processes nor conformance to
218<br />
traditional values.<br />
The "doxiadization" of Riyadh amounted to the superimposition of Westernrationalism<br />
on a traditionally based society. The problematic practice of zoning, that was<br />
conceived in the West as a tool of exclusion, was generalized to the Saudi city, a place were<br />
separating of people by class was previously unknown. Under the pressure of<br />
urbanization and economic growth, any plan was better than no plan; waiting meant<br />
anarchy. However, to some Saudi planners and government officials, the "Westernization"<br />
of the Saudi traditional built environment was deemed as synonymous with modernization<br />
and prosperity. In 1978, the Municipality contracted a new international consultant firm<br />
to help furnish a new plan for Riyadh.<br />
2. Riyadh's Second Master Plan by SECT International<br />
The economic boom of the 1970s rendered the Doxiadis Plan, originally targeted for<br />
the year 2,000, obsolete. By the mid 1390s/1970s, land subdivisions crossed the Plan's<br />
300 square kilometer area, many objectives in the Doxiadis Plan did not materialize as<br />
projected and the city's population quadrupled from 1968 to 1977. For example, neither<br />
the planned community hierarchy, the neighborhood centers, nor the diffusion of the<br />
congested center by the linear CBD concept has realized (e.g. the number of shops<br />
increased from 400 units to 5,400 during the same period). 46 SECT studies found that the<br />
"main problems all stem from the difficulties inherent in coordinating the initiative of the<br />
private development sector with policies directing public projects." In 1369H (1976), the<br />
Deputy Ministry for Physical Planning contracted SECT International/ SEDES (SECT), a<br />
French firm to devise a new plan for Riyadh. SECT agreed to retain the Doxiadis Master<br />
Plan "as a basis for reference and to provide an overall planning background but it will no<br />
longer be regarded as a rigid and detailed proposal" (Figure 6.14). 47<br />
The SECT firm summarized the major problems as those resulting from a lack of<br />
implementation, insufficient information and the virtual lack of coordination between the<br />
various government departments executing large-scale projects. Many government projects<br />
were undertaken without sufficient consideration for the larger environmental ramifications<br />
such projects would require and generate, infrastructure, and community facilities such as<br />
schools, commercial centers, etc.<br />
SECT introduced a series of documents based on new data and local, growing
219<br />
zr/M<br />
Khjzian<br />
J<br />
T.\. Street<br />
Figure 6.14<br />
In 1977, SECT/Sedes planners essentially maintained the 1971 Doxiadis Master Plan<br />
circulation network and expanded it to meet Riyadh's future growth. SECT's planners<br />
experimented with visionary concepts for Riyadh that was far from reality. Source:<br />
Daghistani (1985).
220<br />
expertise from the Deputy Ministry's planning staff. The new proposals, including the<br />
Execution and Actions Master Plan and development studies, known as Riyadh Action<br />
Master Plan (RAMP). These documents were made to meet the following grandiose<br />
objectives "(1) guiding future development, (2) redeveloping old neighborhoods, (3)<br />
creating serviceable new communities, (3) reorganizing the Central Area of the City and,<br />
(5) defining an urban policy." 48 On the micro level, however, the RAMP included a<br />
document on Planning Regulations which dealt with zoning regulations and building<br />
standards. For example, the RAMP offered flexibility in the area of setbacks, for example,<br />
the new regulations abolished side and rear setbacks in some districts. In neighborhoods<br />
where owners chose to have setbacks, new guidelines were introduced to minimize the<br />
encroachment on residents' privacy. RAMP also allowed for new accommodations for<br />
square lots, a configuration the Doxiadis Plan did not consider. Finally, the SECT Plan<br />
pushed for respect for preservation of traditional architecture and design values.<br />
But the SECT Plan, like that of the Doxiadis one, lacked sufficient powers to bring<br />
about change. Several major reasons which stood against implementation, most paramount<br />
was that of the established land tenure in the city and lack of a central planning agency with<br />
sufficient powers to put RAMP proposals into effect. The adoption of RAMP was largely<br />
preempted by sporadic ribbon development and the distribution of massive urban and<br />
periphery land to public entities and private landlords. For example, by the time RAMP<br />
was completed in 1977, the actual built area of Riyadh approximated 100 square kilometer<br />
or one-third the 300 square kilometer area of Doxiadis Master Plan. Yet, the land<br />
subdivision process covered the entire area of the Master Plan and 200 square kilometer<br />
more (Figure 6). At that stage, the prospect for implementation of SECT'S proposals<br />
seemed dim, given the distribution of public land to numerous holders and the increasing<br />
pressure for housing resulting from population growth and improved living standards,<br />
generous housing subsidies, and other pro-growth urban policies.<br />
Second, the generally technical proposals comprising RAMP lacked the presence of<br />
an able central planning agency with sufficient powers to assure coordination and<br />
implementation. Inadequate local expertise, conflict of authority and overlapping<br />
responsibilities have been some of the major impediments to successful implementation. 49<br />
Finally, under conditions of rapid economic development and pressures of population<br />
increase, less attention was given to the future; a preoccupation with immediate problems of
221<br />
urban growth consumed most of the available energies. Nevertheless, despite these<br />
difficulties, the RAMP project must be credited for being more realistic and more attentive<br />
to local cultural aspects of the city. Meanwhile, subsequent urban growth of Riyadh took<br />
the form of the exploitable grid subdivisions within the original Doxiadis circulation<br />
framework and the extended one by SECT.<br />
C. Housing in the 1970s and 1980s<br />
A study in 1978 was concluded with alarming results on the housing situation in<br />
Riyadh. It contended that<br />
only 2 per cent of all income earners in Riyadh's area are able to buy a new<br />
detached house....This is not merely a problem of an inequitable income<br />
distribution; the average person in Riyadh has become impoverished with<br />
respect to his ability to buy a house, even though his income in Riyal terms,<br />
or his ability to acquire other consumer goods, including apartment has<br />
grown. 50<br />
Due to the sudden influx of expatriates and rural migration, inflation soared and with<br />
it house prices. The construction boom of the 1970s was made possible by the swelling<br />
government treasury, thanks to increased world demand for oil output. During this decade,<br />
the massive allocation in the built environment encouraged local citizens and foreign firms<br />
alike to participate in the booming construction industry. This resulted in an increase in<br />
citizens earnings, accelerating migration, hence exacerbating the demand for more and<br />
better housing. Recall that between 1968 and 1974, the population of Riyadh grew from<br />
300,000 to 667,000. The 1978's study attributed the 122 per cent increase in population to<br />
the rapid increase of household formation, set-up by young people leaving their parents'<br />
home at an earlier age, improved hygienic standards resulting in reduced mortality rates,<br />
and the influx of rural migrants, as well as foreign immigrants.<br />
The private housing market fell short of meeting this sharp increase in demand.<br />
Several factors can be identified with the sluggish functioning of the housing sector.<br />
Firstly, Islamic teachings, observed by the conservative Saudi nationals, prohibit the use of<br />
financing methods based on interest-bearing loans. These are looked upon by the<br />
conservative population as socially gauche. Secondly, artificial restrictions, such as<br />
skyrocketing land prices due to the frenzied speculative real estate market, thwarted the<br />
production of new housing. The cost of land accounted for half the price tag of the total
222<br />
cost of a new dwelling. Consequently, buyers sought cheap land at the expanding fringe,<br />
hence contributing to the leap-frog pattern of urban development characterizing Riyadh as<br />
well as many other Saudi cities' urban forms. 51<br />
Thirdly, the development programs of the mid 1970's resulted in an influx of foreign<br />
firms and laborers to help build the new government projects causing an acute housing<br />
shortage. The cost of housing multiplied five fold between 1970 and 1979. Finally, the<br />
spurt of construction triggered by the government's first and second national development<br />
plans called for massive imports of construction materials. Saudi ports and land transport<br />
systems, geared toward the relatively slow development of the 1960s, were flooded with<br />
tremendous imported construction materials stockpiled at ports for months awaiting<br />
processing.<br />
By the middle of the 1970s, it was clear that Riyadh was approaching a housing<br />
crisis. Faced with such glaring prospects of the chaotic housing market, and marked by<br />
rackrents and inflated housing prices, the government took the onus of increasing the<br />
housing stock. The government established the Real Estate Development Fund (REDF) in<br />
1974, a totally government-financed agency to enable Saudi citizens and corporations the<br />
opportunity of participating in the production of new housing units, both for private and<br />
commercial uses. The REDF provides zero-interest loans up to $100,000 to individual<br />
Saudi households, due within 25 years. Loans are available to any citizen who is married<br />
and who is 18 years or older, or to single citizens who are 21 years old and above.<br />
Applicants have to provide legal title to the land in a subdivided residential zone.<br />
Recipients are completely responsible for designing and supervising the construction of<br />
their homes. To encourage amortization loans, 20% of the annual payment is forgiven if<br />
paid within sixty days of its due time and if the entire loan is redeemed in one payment,<br />
30% of the loan value is forgiven. The REDF also provides zero-interest investment loans<br />
designed to help provide residential, office and commercial space by Saudi private<br />
developers. Loans can go up as high as $3 million to such investors.<br />
Thanks to the 1973 increases in oil prices, government's oil revenues highly<br />
increased, causing the state to shift gears to expedite its modernization program. Then,<br />
better than ever, improving the living standards of the population was both economically<br />
feasible and politically viable. Government projects and policies created a vacuum for<br />
adept and skilled workers only to be imported from foreign nations. The increase in
223<br />
government spending fueled city-ward migration, improved living standards, and enticed<br />
expatriates, all of which fell heavily on the stagnated housing market. Housing was one of<br />
the primary items of the ambitious national five-year plans of the 1970s. The REDF,<br />
which was launched to increase the production of houses by individuals and private firms,<br />
was earmarked with hefty sums in the second plan (1975-1980). The second Five-Year<br />
Plan (1975-80) allotted $142 billion (compared to the first Five-Year Plan of $9.2) for<br />
building the country's physical infrastructure (e.g., the construction sector to build housing<br />
units and provide industrial buildings, schools, and hospitals, among others). The Plan<br />
envisaged the funding of 329,000 housing units nationwide at the cost of $24.5 billion.<br />
Although the Second Plan (1975-80) was earmarked with a total of 92,000 dwelling units<br />
for Riyadh, it was not until 1991 that the number of REDF-financed housing loans reached<br />
85,878, at the cost of $6.67 billion. Moreover, more than 13,097 housing units were<br />
constructed by the various government agencies in the city.<br />
This contributed to the flight from the congested older, mostly mud, residential<br />
neighborhoods and to the centrifugal waves of building activity toward the periphery (72%<br />
of Saudi households moved to their present residents in the period 1982-87). By 1988, the<br />
REDF contributed to the construction of 413,958 private housing units in 2,531 Saudi<br />
settlements. 52 The REDF has also dispensed 2,358 investment loans at a cost of $1.3<br />
billion to finance the production of another 26,488 housing units, 1,612 office buildings,<br />
and 3,703 shops nationwide. By 1988, the REDF-subsidized loans reached a sum of<br />
$27.2 billion, nationwide. 53 In addition, to enable the low-income population to obtain a<br />
REDF loan, which stipulated land ownership, Riyadh's Municipality has distributed more<br />
than 100,000 lots amounting to an area of more than 45 square kilometers (out of a total<br />
city residential area of 92 km 2 ) free of charge. 54 The combined efforts of these housing<br />
subsidies and programs have contributed to a housing stock of 349,605 units in Riyadh<br />
alone (Table 5.4). A 1987 survey by the High Authority For Riyadh Development<br />
(HARD), which covered 297,860 units of Riyadh's 349,605 housing stock, concluded that<br />
"due largely to assistance from the REDF, the majority of Saudis (86 % of the heads of<br />
households) own their own home. Of those who own, 65 per cent received a loan from<br />
this fund." 55<br />
The generous REDF loans enabled many Saudis to attain a high level of construction<br />
and finishing standards, a luxury which matched that of the aristocracy. These luxurious<br />
accommodations were to reward the rising ranks of the middle class and tacitly symbolized
224<br />
the adherence of the population to the established rules of the distribution of a national<br />
resource, that is oil, under the monarchy. The wide, elegant, landscaped, paved<br />
boulevards lined with high-rise apartment and office buildings, modern villas and mansions<br />
expressed the union of the nascent middle class values with authoritarian planning. The<br />
suburbanization of the Saudi city owes its impetus and character to the government's<br />
generous programs of modernization, especially the historic REDF. In light of the housing<br />
crisis of the 1970s (and given the Saudi political and economic exigencies) the emergence<br />
of the Saudi residential suburb can be perceived more as a solution to the substandard,<br />
ramshackle mud communities, a government-led effort rather than solely a middle class<br />
driven process.<br />
Table 6.4<br />
Increase in population, area and number of housing units, Riyadh city,<br />
1935-1986<br />
YEAR 1919 1935 1950 1960 1968 1986<br />
Population 19,000 36,000 84,000 181,000 300,000 1.5 mill<br />
Area (km 2 ) 0.5* 0.5* 4.3 16 40 495<br />
No. of<br />
Houses<br />
- 4,836 12,297 29,143 51,160 349,605<br />
Sources: Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh. 1987. Land Use<br />
Survey: Summary Report, p. 23; Faris, Adeeb. 1982. Ar Riyadh: Wathbat Izdihar fee Assahra'a alArabiyh.<br />
(Arabic). * Area of walled town, Report on The Urban Domain For Madinat Arriyadh, (1989) 24.<br />
D. Urban Renewal in the Historical Core<br />
Due to rapid urbanization and development, the traditional core's structure and<br />
circulation network was gradually replaced with a modern urban form suited for the car,<br />
increasing business activity and ever expanding administrative structures. As previously<br />
mentioned, the dramatic growth in the administration under King Abdul-Aziz and his heir,<br />
King Saud, led to the first attempt to modernize the center during King Saud's reign in the<br />
late 1950s. By the late 1970s, Saudi planners began to think of the historical area as an a<br />
core of cultural value, as a "collective memory" of the political developments which led to<br />
the rise of King Abdul-Aziz. An urban redevelopment program to restore the ailing<br />
historical core and to boost its cultural and commercial vigor was looked upon by<br />
government officials and planners as a long a waited step to bring the deteriorating center<br />
into sync with the essentially modernized outer areas of the city one more time. The goal<br />
now is to revamp the historical tissue with emphasis on local architectural heritage while
225<br />
paying consideration to the center as a "Central Business District" (Figure 15).<br />
The historical core, on which stood the walled town of 1909 housing a population of<br />
17,000 on an area of 273,400 square meters, has been undergoing massive urban<br />
redevelopment to rebuild the traditional center since 1979 (Figure 16). The administrative,<br />
cultural and commercial project (The Governance Palace Area) is a three-phase construction<br />
program of which the second phase is estimated to cost $119.4 million, and is government<br />
funded. 56 A special task committee, the Office for the Development of the Governance<br />
Palace (ODGP) was inaugurated in 1979 to oversee the urban redevelopment project.<br />
Council of Ministers' Order number 221 in 2/9/1403 (1983) authorized the creation of a<br />
new planning authority, the High Authority For Riyadh Development (HARD) whose one<br />
of its tasks the ODGP project. Originally, HARD was inaugurated in 1975 with<br />
exceptional powers and financial backing on behalf of the state to supervise the<br />
construction of a housing development for the Ministry of Interior and the Diplomatic<br />
Quarter. It was agreed that a higher government body must be established to focus on<br />
long-term urban planning, research and coordination between the various building<br />
programs by the government and private sector. HARD was created independently from<br />
the Municipality (the Amanah), which was already inundated by the everyday details of<br />
growth control and building documentation. Following its creation in 1975, HARD<br />
presided over the design and construction of the new, lavish Diplomatic Quarter (DQ) built<br />
to house foreign embassies. As the DQ experiment was deemed successful by state<br />
officials, HARD was given power and cash to handle large-scale public projects and to act<br />
as a state arm in striking private-public partnerships and promoting private investment, one<br />
of which is the Governance Palace Project (GPP).<br />
By the late 1970s, the center was so crowded with structures that modernization<br />
could only be achieved by the enormously cumbersome, disruptive and expensive method<br />
of urban renewal. HARD embarked upon a program of physical design aimed at<br />
rejuvenating the downtown, essentially the construction of new headquarters for the<br />
Governor, the police department and the Municipality (Amanat Madinat Arriyadh), several<br />
office and commercial buildings and shopping malls in various phases. It was given<br />
exceptional powers to design and contract to cut wide, straight boulevards and create<br />
squares and parks through the maze of narrow streets, buying up and demolishing any<br />
building that stood in the way. All projects, in one way or another, were downtown<br />
oriented; Less emphasis was paid to the other remaining parts of the city. The goal was to
226<br />
Figure 6.15<br />
Traditional pattern in the<br />
historical core. Northern<br />
growth followed conventional<br />
urban processes. Source:<br />
Daghistani (1985).<br />
I:I(J0U0<br />
Cb) Al-Dirah: Riyadh's Oldest Neighborhood<br />
Figure 6.16<br />
Urban renewal in the historical core. The governance Palace Project (GPP) represents<br />
state's role in shaping the modern urban landscape. This large-scale development<br />
represents an example of "clean-sweep planning" at the traditional center. Source: High<br />
commission for the Development of Riyadh (1401H/1990).
227<br />
bring more customers to the downtown, to beautify it, and to raise or maintain downtown<br />
business property values and commercial vigor. In addition to the historical meaning, this<br />
program is best characterized as modernizing the inner city, an effort to counter its<br />
increasingly deteriorating physical appeal.<br />
The GPP project was sought to enhance the "cultural and historical" meaning of the<br />
nation. It was hoped that such a development would become a sacrosanct expression of the<br />
nation's past, for it was from this precise location, that the campaign to consolidate the<br />
nation took place. However, from a planning stand point, the project is based on a new<br />
philosophy, that is the conception which sees the core as the center of a prosperous city and<br />
vital to it's economic potential.<br />
The upgrading of the deteriorating core resulted in an oasis of large-scale, modem<br />
development in contrast to the surrounding tier, formed by ramshackle, low-rise apartment<br />
buildings and stores, encircling scores of one or two-story mud houses, laying halfoccupied.<br />
Unless an effective road network and other creative marketing concepts were<br />
attempted to attract affluent shoppers at the periphery, the commercial activities of the core<br />
were vulnerable to tough competition by the modern shopping centers, endowed with<br />
ample parking areas and road systems, and, more importantly, closer to affluent<br />
inhabitants. The success of the CBD program depends on active participation by<br />
businesses, a role whose realization may necessarily result in the crossing of the political<br />
threshold, hitherto severed from the economic sphere. The CBD's economic vitality hinges<br />
on political progressivness and structural changes in the City's urban economy. Currently,<br />
the City's economic growth owes its vigor to government spending which is strongly<br />
related to a national resource, oil, a resource whose income fluctuates with world demand<br />
for oil. Finally, the GPP's urban renewal lacks cultural diversity, viz museums,<br />
restaurants, open and green space large enough to allow for cultural and entertainment<br />
activities and ceremonial parades, all conducive to the 'pep' associated with historical cities<br />
of the Middle East and Europe.<br />
IV. THE CONTEMPORARY URBAN FORM<br />
The confluence of political and economic developments since the inception of the<br />
Saudi government has forged a new city form, the metropolis, in sharp contrast to the<br />
traditional, 'medina'. Due to the rapid pace of development, urban forms have mutated
228<br />
exhibiting decentralized sprawl, owing largely to the nation's political and economic<br />
imperatives, modern technology, and adoption of Western programs. The contemporary<br />
urban form is characterized by: i) Architectural hybridism; ii) 'no man land'; iii) dispersed,<br />
low-density, leap-frog pattern of growth; iv) high proportion of government land use; and<br />
v) large-scale, government development.<br />
A. Architectural Hybridism<br />
As noted earlier, the introverted courtyard, mud house design has been supplanted<br />
with the 'International Mediterranean' villa and apartment buildings. They were built of<br />
concrete and were introduced to help ease the surmounting demand for housing. The eight<br />
kilometer diameter core is a mixture of rundown mud houses and old, smaller maisonettes<br />
currently occupied by predominantly male foreign laborers, multi-story, multi-unit<br />
residential, office and commercial uses interspersed with second rate hotels. Currently, the<br />
center is undergoing a massive 'clean-sweep planning' development, a public-private urban<br />
renewal program to rejuvenate its cultural, administrative and commercial vitality. The<br />
advent of and excessive reliance on the automobile emancipated residents from clustering in<br />
the small core. The increasing use of the automobile has led to the development of<br />
commercial strip and other related paraphernalia of the highway, that is the and the low<br />
density in the new periphery. 57 The density of modern urban forms is one fifth that of the<br />
traditional ones; technological means, such as the automobile helped save time, though at<br />
the expense of devouring space.<br />
The resulting landscape is a hodgepodge of architectural styles built with myriad<br />
building materials. On the old labyrinthine, narrow road system, an orthogonal road<br />
network was superimposed to alleviate the center's chronic vehicular congestion. The<br />
familiar Western urban ecology, has materialized in the Saudi city with the migrants<br />
occupying the center of the main city and the affluent living in the suburbs. Three major<br />
rings comprising Riyadh's urban form can be discerned.<br />
First, the teeming, compact core contains most of the city's ramshackle buildings and<br />
housing stock within an eight kilometer diameter of the center. On this area of 50.2 square<br />
kilometer (or 10% of the city's 495 square kilometer developed area) lives an approximate<br />
40 per cent of the city's population. 58 The core also houses many married expatriates,<br />
teachers, skilled laborers, and professionals mainly in the low-rise apartment buildings.
229<br />
While the foci of capitalist world cities exhibit a preponderance of business-dominated,<br />
skyscrapers-dotting the bustling hub, the Riyadh skyline reflects a core with a torn identity:<br />
on the one hand, struggling, sluggish commerce juxtaposed with ramshackle residential<br />
quarters; on the other, strong government manifest in high-standard, new urban<br />
development.<br />
The second major ring comprises a limitless expanse of two-story residential units<br />
constituting vanishing blocks of low density residential areas (34 units per hectare)<br />
suffused with rows of apartment buildings lining the arterial roads. This ring was formed<br />
during the decades of the 1950s and the 1960s. Its street network was rectilinear with no<br />
conception of a city master plan. Street plating proceeded in the interstices formed by the<br />
tarmac roads radiating from the center to the government-built suburbs of Nasiriyah, al<br />
Murabaa, and al-Malaz. This section was to house the new mushrooming land uses<br />
hitherto unbeknown to the traditional built environment such as governmental, suburban<br />
commercial, office space, and green spaces. The negatively perceived traditional<br />
architecture of the mud-core was replaced with the modern symbol of progress. This<br />
ring's growth was more of a response to continued migration than that of the 1970s which<br />
owes the majority of its growth to the improved life-styles of residents and to the<br />
proliferation of government projects. It embodies the dramatic changes that necessitated the<br />
use of alien (modem) architecture, government expansion and the institutionalization of<br />
planning.<br />
The third ring, the "outer city," encompasses the area built during the 1970s and<br />
1980s within the framework of Doxiadis Master Plan of 1971. Though its projections were<br />
deemed obsolete due to rapid growth, the Plan's broad guidelines and flexible system of<br />
land subdivision has abided in directing new development by simply repeating the module.<br />
This ring is a testimony of affluence, of broad avenues, parks, extensive open space,<br />
barren parking lots, glass, and marble buildings, diversified and personalized boxes of<br />
marble villas interspersed by opulent and colossal mansions, and the proliferation of largescale<br />
development. Most prominent are the government buildings, conspicuous,<br />
pretentious and futuristic mega-structures, asserting the preponderance of government input<br />
in the city's economy. With fast-food restaurants and gas-stations at the major road<br />
intersections and freeway exits, the resulting urban form is evocative of North American<br />
decentralized, low-density sprawl with no relevance to the core, now senescent,<br />
disemboweled, and haphazard. The new urban landscape epitomizes what Kenneth Brown
230<br />
terms "The Contemporary city of Incoherence." 59<br />
B. 'No Man's Land<br />
The wholesale adoption of the gridiron network based on rectangular lots was a<br />
practical approach to adopt to the new technologies and exigencies of rapid growth.<br />
Several negative outcomes have resulted from the unchecked application of the grid iron<br />
and its corollary the setbacked villa: (1) the encroachment on residents' privacy by<br />
neighbors and other public and private buildings' users, (2) the creation of large,<br />
uncovered areas as part of the developed land, e.g. yards, wide boulevards, streets and<br />
ample parking space, all have diluted the urban mass, and (3) the production of "walled<br />
corridors", that is wide and extensive urban space dedicated to circulation, streets and<br />
sidewalks separated from adjacent properties by high walls. These negative outcomes will<br />
be discussed in the following paragraphs.<br />
First, the superimposition of the villa, situated in rectangular lots and surrounded by<br />
an outer yard, has occurred at the cost of abandoning the traditional mud house built around<br />
the courtyard, historically suited for environmental conditions and social norms. The<br />
majority of modern buildings, including villas and other non-residential uses are setback<br />
from property lines according to municipal formulas (e.g. structures must be built at a<br />
distance no less than that of one-fifth the street width from the property line). Moreover,<br />
the majority of these buildings are two-story structures or more and built with<br />
unconventional fenestrations: large windows and balconies overlooking neighbors' yards.<br />
This has caused considerable infringement on many of the overwhelmingly conservative<br />
households, which view privacy as a necessity.<br />
To counteract the lost privacy and to maximize utilization of yards by household<br />
members, residents have resorted to antidotal measures such as the construction of high<br />
walls, as high as two stories, rimming their outer yards and the erection of high screens<br />
between neighbors and the blinding of windows (e, g, with screens), all to shield their<br />
homes and yards from obtrusive looks. The ubiquitous wall has become a physical<br />
manifestation of cultural emphasis on privacy. These walls and screens have become an<br />
indispensable element of, not only residential units, but also commercial complexes,<br />
governmental buildings, public parks, and the like. In the West and other urban systems<br />
with moderate climates, setbacks have been utilized as landscaped areas and yards therefore
231<br />
mollifying and complementing the rather rigid street scapes and contributing to a scenery of<br />
ambience . In the dry desert climate of Riyadh, coupled with emphatic concern for privacy,<br />
the insipid application of the grid and its walled villa has resulted in desolate, anti-social<br />
street scapes contributing to the sterile sense of place. Consequently, the wall has resulted<br />
in an abysmal impact on the modern city's landscape: blocks upon blocks of residential<br />
units and commercial uses wrapped with walls up to nine feet high contributing to the<br />
overriding lack of a sense of place.<br />
Second, the setback requirements together with the wide streets resulted in<br />
underutilized areas within the developed urban land. In a typical land subdivision, the area<br />
assigned for streets varies between 25.5% to 38% of the total area, while setback<br />
regulations have resulted in immense unbuilt areas, within developed properties. In<br />
addition, the modernization of the Saudi built environment has ushered in an expansion of<br />
traditional functions such as governmental, educational and circulation spaces.<br />
Modernization has also resulted in an outcropping of new land uses: military, health,<br />
recreational, and transportation. The contemporary (industrialized) functions require large<br />
uncovered urban land such as parking, and storage.<br />
Third, the relatively walls (six to nine feet high) surrounding the yards of the villas<br />
have become a de rigueur. The ubiquitous wall is built at the property line to shield users<br />
from obtrusive looks by outsiders as well as for security reasons. The outcome of<br />
wrapping properties (private and public) from the modern network of wide streets (25 to<br />
100 feet wide) is a dust-swept, barren space prone to direct sun heat, that creates "walled<br />
corridors" constituting the contemporary circulation space. In contrast to the modern built<br />
environment, the compact, traditional built environment's buildings were built abreast,<br />
starting at the sidewalk. They were built relatively high (two to three stories) and were<br />
served by an exceptionally narrow street network (7 to 25 feet wide). This configuration<br />
between built forms and circulation space offered considerable shaded areas for movement,<br />
play and social gatherings. The meandering, semi-covered passageways were carefully<br />
laid down to provide for privacy, functionality and allowed for the flow of cool breezes.<br />
The resulting modern landscape is repulsive, rigid and a repetitive environment of<br />
asphalted streets systematically ending at ever vanishing, straight, oven-hot walls,<br />
especially during the hot summer, which alienates streets' social activities. Riyadh<br />
possesses 400 square kilometer of paved roads, feeding an urban expanse of 1,012 square
232<br />
kilometer. These "no-man" territories are hospitable only to the automobile, which in their<br />
own are threatening elements to street users, including pedestrians and children eager to<br />
play outside as soon as the temperature descends to comfortable levels.<br />
The widespread adoption of the grid system in Riyadh resulted in reducing the area<br />
assigned for private land use from 75 percent in the traditional area to 50 percent (given that<br />
existing planned areas are fully built). The new municipal codes provide minimal solutions<br />
to the emerging problems its own building codes have created, leaving residents to devise<br />
"band-aid" solutions to the privacy issue. Municipal building codes (e.g. setbacks,<br />
building height and building types allow only for "passive" forms, that is protective<br />
measures by residents (screens and high walls) are allowed. "Active" or "positive"<br />
approaches such as creative architectural and culturally oriented urban design solutions (lot<br />
configurations that maximize privacy) have not yet been widely explored by private land<br />
developers or incorporated into municipal codes. Nor have existing urban design and<br />
planning processes allowed for systematic and effective input on the residents' part. In the<br />
traditional Arab-Muslim built environments, shariy'ah upheld privacy and permeated<br />
customary building practices, while residents maintained greater say in their<br />
neighborhoods. For example, nowadays, residents cannot sue their neighbors for<br />
infringements of privacy. Instead, a duality of legislation ensues with the consensus<br />
leaning more toward the secular, technical codes of the municipal system. 60<br />
C. Dispersed Growth<br />
The absence of property tax constitutes a major factor behind the slow development<br />
of urban land currently hoarded by land speculators. The absence of taxes and other prodevelopment<br />
incentives, have contributed to an urban form characterized by scattered<br />
development, bound only by the major highway network. The fact that land prices tend to<br />
decrease as one travels from the town center helps lower-income groups to seek cheaper<br />
land at the periphery in order to obtain an REDF loan. Consequendy, 51 per cent of<br />
Riyadh's metropolitan 1,000 square kilometer area is unbuilt, though platted and serviced:<br />
(eighty five per cent of the undeveloped land has already been serviced with one or more<br />
types of public utility). The projected capacity of Riyadh's Urban Domain at its First<br />
Phase, which ends in 1995, is 3.4 million inhabitants at its full utilization (Figure 6.17).<br />
The dispersion of residents over large, half-built tracts of land negates any possibility of<br />
effective small-community life for Saudi city dwellers.
233<br />
The modern urban form possesses a circulation space three-times its traditional<br />
predecessor. The modern street network devours 20 per cent of developed land, while<br />
seventy-five per cent of the land is assigned to private land use in the traditional built<br />
environment, the developed residential stock in the metropolis has diminished to 19 per<br />
cent. Finally, the semi-private space (endorsed by Islamic shariy'ah ) of the old town has<br />
been obliterated from the new urban form. 61 Together with these changes, a dramatic<br />
outcropping of specialized land uses were introduced in the new modern urban form such<br />
as office space, recreational uses and parks. Unlike the traditional city where the<br />
commercial organ is located in the hub, the new commercial uses migrated from the core as<br />
customers settled in the periphery. According to a 1989 report, only 495 square kilometers<br />
of the City's area of 1,012 square kilometers was developed (including the road network).<br />
So Riyadh was continually bulging but never able to expand efficiently.<br />
The beginnings of this form of sporadic development followed the inception of the<br />
Kingdom in the 1940s, and was exacerbated in the 1950s and 1960s, and took momentum<br />
in the construction boom decade of the 1970s. This growth was put into check in 1986<br />
when the Council of Ministers adopted the Urban Domain (No. 13, 9/1/1406 H./1986).<br />
The U.D. was adopted in response to incessant building activity at the periphery, hitherto<br />
guaranteed free state-paid public services and infrastructure by the government. With less<br />
oil revenues available to the government (oil revenues dropped from $102 billion in 1981 to<br />
$37.3 in 1985) more attention was given to the economic ramifications of uncontrolled<br />
urban growth. In addition to Riyadh, the new UD was applied to 198 major Saudi cities<br />
and towns (Figure 6.17).<br />
D. Government Land Uses<br />
Most notable about the contemporary Saudi settlement, in general, is its large share of<br />
directly built or indirectly subsidized land uses. By the mid-1980s, the government sector<br />
employed 78 per cent of the city's Saudi labor force and 13 per cent of the foreign labor<br />
force. These figures indicate the city's heavy reliance on the government sector for its<br />
survival, a factor which has been translated into a preponderance of government-related<br />
functions in space. The government-built land uses including the buildings and the street<br />
network, are entirely built by the respective public agencies. Government-developed uses<br />
account for 54 per cent of the city's developed area (including the road network). The<br />
entirely government-built and maintained road system constitutes 20% of the city's
234<br />
h|<br />
HW<br />
flSPil^il<br />
B80&' i<br />
Figure 6.17<br />
The Urban Domain of Riyadh. Area in gray denotes city area in 1995 which is eligible<br />
for free government housing loans, infrastructure and public services. Crossed area<br />
denotes zone to be eligible between 1995 and 2005. Source: High Commission for the<br />
Development of Riyadh, Report on Urban Domain For the City of Riyadh, Riyadh<br />
Municipality (1989).
235<br />
developed land use. Another 13 square kilometers (3 per cent) is devoted to space for<br />
public utilities, a heavily subsidized sector. The 'government and other public uses'<br />
consume 18 per cent of the land. 62 Riyadh's approximately 349,600 residential units<br />
consume 19 per cent of the developed city land (including the developed street network) out<br />
of which the REDF has contributed 85,878 housing loans 63 . In addition, the governmentbuilt<br />
residential stock amounts to more than 8,882 residential units by the various<br />
government agencies. Monthly rents are levied on much of the government housing stock<br />
or are deducted from employees' stipends (Figure 6.18). 64<br />
According to the U.D. projections (Table: 6.5), the phenomenon of preponderant<br />
government land uses will persist in the coming two decades. The 1989 UD lists<br />
government-related land uses consuming 55 percent of Riyadh's current area. The UD's<br />
projections calculate an additional area of 13,710 to the existing Riyadh's area of 49,550.<br />
The UD assigns 63 percent of this additional area for government-related land uses (by<br />
1995) within the 1995 "Urban Domain," while 50 percent of additional land uses is<br />
earmarked for government control within the guidelines of the city by 2005.<br />
E. Large-scale Development<br />
The fourth feature of contemporary urban forms is the phenomenon of large-scale<br />
development, especially by the government. As noted earlier, the 1970s had their share of<br />
large-scale projects attesting to the government's considerable impact in the making and<br />
conditioning of the modern, post-traditional urban form. Royal Decree number 1650 of<br />
1975, which authorized the transfer of the foreign diplomatic embassies from Jeddah to<br />
Riyadh, also authorized the creation of the government-sponsored Diplomatic Quarter<br />
Agency in 1974 to plan the entirely new Diplomatic Quarter (D.Q.) 65 With the<br />
completion of all construction stages, the D.Q. is equipped to serve a population of 22,000<br />
working in and serving 120 world embassies. The prize-winning design of D.Q. has been<br />
lavishly endowed with amenities. For instance, the D.Q. encompasses half of the City's<br />
total park land of one square kilometer. Becoming a sort of windowcase dressing, the<br />
D.Q.'s high-quality construction standards, which until now have reached a price tag of<br />
approximately SR 2,158 million ($575.5 million), corroborate the government's power,<br />
pride and economic strength. 66 The D.Q. is also an attempt to break away from Riyadh's<br />
historical isolationism. Following the construction of the railroad during King Abdul-Aziz
236<br />
''gaCaflafla&n i'PPft<br />
ip; fcSwff 1<br />
K31® i m m> ^ey<br />
ULAYA MASTER PLAN<br />
IjjJ) t-Jjta . jl^Jl lalrtMl<br />
Figure 6.18<br />
During the booming decade of the 1970s, the government launched several programs to<br />
lessen the housing shortage such as the multi-story housing development for military<br />
personnel (2). The government also sponsored public-private development such as the one<br />
in the suburb of Ulayya, north of the city center. The Ulayya development featured office<br />
and residential uses and a shopping center (1). Source: Daghistani (1985).
237<br />
in 1950, and the transfer of the government ministries during King Saud's reign, the D.Q.<br />
represents one of the last measures to assure Riyadh as the unified Capital, the historical<br />
house of Al-Saud, the founders of the nation-state (Figure 6.19-1).<br />
Another major large-scale government project is the King Abdul-Aziz City for<br />
Science and Technology (KACST). KACST was created in 1977 as a national research<br />
center to "Conduct applied scientific research programs in the fields that serve the economic<br />
and social development objectives of the Kingdom." 67 The KACST project was allotted<br />
ninety nine hectares of government land. The large, fully-serviced project consists of three<br />
major projects, comprising 374 residential units, a recreational center, schools,<br />
kindergartens, mosques, and related facilities; primary infrastructure, utilities; as well as<br />
laboratories and a research institute. The cost, estimated at the early time of construction,<br />
was SR 400 million ($106.6 million). 68<br />
Yet another example of large-scale government development was the transfer of the<br />
employees of the Foreign Ministry to a new award-winning housing complex north of<br />
Riyadh on 390,000 square meter of public land. It is a 612-housing unit project, equipped<br />
with public utilities built at the cost of SR 679 million ($181 million). It includes a large<br />
mosque, schools, and recreation clubs. The construction of a 612-unit housing project for<br />
the recently transferred employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs constitutes another<br />
example of government input into the modern built environment. The award-winning<br />
housing complex north of Riyadh occupies an area of 390,000 square meters of public<br />
land. It is equipped with public utilities and was built at the cost of SR 679 million ($181<br />
million). It includes a large mosque, schools, and recreation clubs. The 35,000 student<br />
King Saud University is another large scale development which covers an area of 9 square<br />
kilometers of public land. The Ministry of Public Works and Housing's 7,755 housing<br />
units contributed an area of more than 12 square kilometers to the city developed area. The<br />
government subsidized industrial land use occupies 16.4 square kilometers.<br />
Finally, in 1984, King Fahad A1 Saud dedicated the $3.5 billion King Khalid<br />
International Airport, the largest in the Middle East and one of the world's largest airports,<br />
35 kilometers north of the city, contributing an area of 225 square kilometers to the city's<br />
total area of 928 square kilometers (including undeveloped land). It was built to replace<br />
the in-town 'old' airport which was the second busiest airport in the Kingdom, serving 5.3<br />
million passengers per annum. The new airport is equipped to serve 15 million passengers
238<br />
(f/c- :V^!T ''<br />
J '<br />
m<br />
V. 1<br />
m Jvd<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
\<br />
Figure 6.19<br />
The Diplomatic Quarter<br />
exemplifies state-sponsored,<br />
large-scale planned ("model")<br />
communities (1).<br />
Government land uses (in<br />
gray) dominate the<br />
contemporary urban form<br />
(2).Source: High Commission<br />
for the Development of<br />
Riyadh, Embassies' Quarter<br />
(1989).<br />
M*w*ffKn
239<br />
Table 6.5<br />
Riyadh's Land Uses and Area in Hectares<br />
AREA AREA<br />
FUNCTION CURRENT NEEDED BY NEEDED BY<br />
1995 2005<br />
Residential<br />
Area ha<br />
9,200<br />
%<br />
18.6 2,600 7,750<br />
Commercial 3,600 7.26 1,400 1,750<br />
Mixed (Res.& Commercial) 4,500 9.07 1,100 3,800<br />
Industrial 1,900 3.83<br />
-<br />
11,500<br />
Government 4,000 8.07 685 1,230<br />
Government (Private)* 1,300 2.62 - -<br />
Public Facilities 21,500 43.4 6,870 10,377<br />
Agricultural 3,053 6.16 - -<br />
Historical 37 0.07 - -<br />
Open Area 460 0.92 980 840<br />
Restricted Land - - - -<br />
Land For Future Devlpt. - - 75 14,433<br />
Total 49,550 100 13,710 51,680<br />
Grand Total 63,260 114,940<br />
* Government private uses denotes military and other strategic uses. Source: Ministry of Municipalities<br />
and Rural Affairs (MOMRA), Atlas of Saudi Cities: The Urban Domain (Riyadh: MOMRA, 1989), 7.
240<br />
per annum. If the airport, which lies within the City's land use, is to be added to the City's<br />
developed area of 477 square kilometers, the government land use will increase to 68 per<br />
cent of total area (Figure 6.19-1).<br />
SUMMARY<br />
<strong>Dr</strong>amatic political developments since the turn of the century established Riyadh as<br />
the political capital of the new nation-state. Under King Abdul-Aziz, the new nation-state<br />
ushered in a new era of political stability and security which induced a modest urbanization<br />
process to major urban centers. The discovery of oil in the late 1930s added strength to<br />
King Abdul-Aziz's government, and the increasing world demand for oil following World<br />
War II heralded prosperity. Riyadh, the seat of the nascent state, benefited substantially,<br />
thanks to the increases in oil royalties which enabled King Abdul-Aziz to bring about<br />
economic changes that attracted more residents to the city. With more oil income, King<br />
Saud turned to the modernization of the city. During the 1950s, Riyadh' population<br />
growth was unprecedented (from 39,000 in 1950 to 126,000 by 1960) when King Saud<br />
decided to move the ministries to Riyadh. The construction of large-scale, physical<br />
development of al-Al-Malaz ("New Riyadh") and the royal suburb, Annasiriyah, indicated<br />
the departure from prevailing architecture and urban planning norms and heralded a new<br />
period of direct role of the central state in urban development.<br />
During the 1960s, King <strong>Faisal</strong> placed less emphasis on physical development,<br />
especially in the capital, shifting focus to the modernization of the central bureaucracy,<br />
improving national defense capabilities and other infrastructural reforms (e.g.<br />
transportation) which aimed at boosting the country's economic development. The<br />
improvements in national road system, which also benefited villages, towns and cities'<br />
populations, placed Riyadh at the hub of the new road transportation network. In the filed<br />
of physical planning, <strong>Faisal</strong>'s reforms culminated in the shift from piecemeal land<br />
subdivisions to comprehensive city master plans, starting with Riyadh. In order to harness<br />
negative outcomes of rapid urban growth, the government relied on European planning<br />
expertise to devise long-range plans to guide city's growth. The economic boom of the<br />
1970s resulted in an unprecedented government urban development programs, coupled<br />
with population growth, hindered the Doxiadis' projections obsolete. The distribution of<br />
land to numerous owners and lack of a central planning agency with sufficient powers and
241<br />
expertise impeded the implementation of most of SECT'S proposals. Ostensibly,<br />
subsequent growth followed individual land subdivisions by land owners and construction<br />
of mega-projects by the government.<br />
The resulting urban form is a Westernized, modernized and sanitized metropolis<br />
marked with half-built sprawl. The modern urban form is also characterized with rigidness<br />
that is blind to local cultural needs and environmental realities. Economically, the new<br />
urban form is inefficient for allocation of enormous oil funds predicated more on<br />
sociopolitical criteria than economic efficiency. Two overriding characteristics marked the<br />
central government's interest in urban planning: paternalism and quest for order in the built<br />
environment.
242<br />
Notes to Chapter VI<br />
1 Riyadh's history goes back to the pre-Islamic period. Today's Riyadh occupies what archaeologists<br />
believe was the site of scattered settlements, Mi'kal, A1 Owed, and the surrounding farmland<br />
comprising Hijr. Hijr's historical survival was owed to the presence of water made possible by the<br />
confluence of several major wadis and the fact the Hijr lay at the locus of several major trade routes.<br />
^<br />
The emphasis on Wahhabism conjures a wrong understanding that is Wahhabism is a new sect of<br />
Islam. The early movement materialized on the pure religious aims of Ibn Abdul-Wahhab and, as<br />
Safran (1988) claims, the material interests of Ibn Saud, who added to his religious intentions the<br />
benefits derived from expanding his tax base (Safran, 1986). Both acknowledged the fact that there were<br />
many wrong practices, such as seeking worldly benefits by slaughtering livestock at old trees and<br />
seeking the dead for help. Such practices were considered antithetical to Islamic teachings as ordained by<br />
the Prophet in the seventh century A.D.<br />
3 There were estimated to have been between 50-73 thousand fighting men. See for example, Captain C.<br />
C. Lewis, "Ibn Saud & the Future of Arabia," International Affairs (July, 1933): 518-534.<br />
4<br />
Geralding Rendel, "Across Saudi Arabia," The Geographic Magazine (January 1938), 170.<br />
5 See for example, K. Brown, ed. Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective (London: Ithaca<br />
Press, 1986).<br />
6 The number of mosques multiplied to 445 in 1976. By 1984 the number was 1,285 mosques.<br />
7 Ahmed M. Alwashmi, Ar Riyadh: City and Residents, How it was and How they Lived (Riyadh:<br />
National Guard Printing Press, no date).<br />
8 For a discussion on upper and ruling classes in Saudi society see Mordechai Abir, "The Consolidation<br />
of the Ruling Class and the New Elites in Saudi Arabia" Middle Eastern Studies 2 (April, 1987).<br />
9 The Higher Commission for the Development of Arriyadh, Demographic, Transportation, Land Use,<br />
and Economic Studies for the city of Arriyadh (Riyadh: National Offset Printing Press, October,<br />
1987),11.<br />
10 H. St. J. B. Philby, A Pilgrim In Arabia (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1946), 120.<br />
D. van der Meulen, quoted in A. I. Daghistani. Ar-Riyadh: Urban Development and Planning<br />
(Riyadh: Saudi Arabian Printing Company, 1985), 74.<br />
Peter Mansfield. The New Arabians. (Chicago: J. G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1981), 75.<br />
13 Until 1934, the ownership of cars was limited to the royal family. Elizabeth Monroe. Philby of<br />
Arabia (London: Quart Books, 1980), 157.<br />
14 Monroe, 134.<br />
15<br />
Doxiadis Associates, Riyadh, Existing Conditions (Athens: 1968).
243<br />
16 Adeeb Faris. Ar Riyadh: Wathbat Izdiharfi Assahra 'a al Arabiyh. (Arabic). Published <strong>Dissertation</strong>.<br />
(Beirut: Nimnim, 1982). Subhi A. Assaied, "Coin Telephone Booths in die City of Riyadh: A<br />
Geographical Study of Characteristics and Spatial Distribution", Occasional Papers (Riyadh: King Saud<br />
University Press, 1990).<br />
17<br />
Compare this form of city-state relationship to the United States' urban experience. During the US'<br />
early urbanization, cities gradually assumed self-rule over their local affairs. They acquired power either<br />
by piecemeal grant or by charter update. For example, New York before 1731, was incorporated as a<br />
municipal borough under royal charter and governed by a mayor. In 1731, a new charter was composed<br />
which gave New Yorkers voting rights to choose councilmen to make the laws. This progressive step<br />
forced city government to be more responsive to its expanded constituency and politicians promised<br />
better administration and services. Moreover, New York's growth proceeded without any provision of<br />
major public open space until 1851 when the issue of a public park was taken up by newly elected<br />
Mayor Kingsland. Source: A. E. J. Morris, History of Urban Form: Before the Industrial Revolutions<br />
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1986).<br />
During the early decades, government agencies that provided direct services to the public collected fees<br />
and rents for its functions and property. With the improving government oil revenues, such fees were<br />
either obliterated or maintained at their pre-1970s nominal values. See A. S. Al Sabban, "Saudi Arabia<br />
Municipalities: History, Organization and Structure," In Politics, Administration, and Development in<br />
Saudi Arabia, edited by A. Dahlan, 97-127 (Brentwood, MD.: Amana, 1990).<br />
19 Walead Abdulaal, "Implications of Subdivision Activity for the Urban Growth of Madina," Urban<br />
Studies, 27 (May, 1990), 725. Though commenting on Madina, Riyadh acutely resembles such a<br />
situation.<br />
20 The first three five-year development plans, 1970-75,1975-80, and 1980-85 involved $9.2, $182 and<br />
$237 billion respectively. Consequently, imports soared from SR 14.8 billion in 1975 to SR 135.3<br />
billion in 1985. The second plan emphasized the allocation of enormous resources in the construction<br />
sector, to build the nation's infrastructure needs for future economic growth based on the diversification<br />
of the economy. The construction sector accounted for 50 percent of budgeted outlays during the five<br />
year period (Safran, 1986:220).<br />
21 See for example, Delwin A. Roy, "Islamic Banking" Middle Eastern Studies, 3 (July, 1991): 427-456;<br />
Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, "Islamic Economics: Novel Perspectives" Middle Eastern Studies 4 (October,<br />
1989): 516-530.<br />
22 it should be noted here that in addition to the authorities' requirement for setbacks in modern, grid<br />
development, citizens' preference for the new concept of the villa, i.e. acculturation, must not be<br />
underestimated. The villa was looked upon as the modern residence, wealthy Saudis saw in foreign<br />
Arab countries and copied.<br />
23 The improvements in the Saudi economy first hit cities enticing ruralites and expatriates seeking better<br />
jobs. Tlie poor migrants were forced to reside in huts which they constructed on their own using scrap<br />
materials such as tin sheets, wood, cement blocks and other temporary materials. Despite the high<br />
growth rates of Riyadh's population, it was notable that it did not experience the substantial presence of<br />
shantytowns, characteristic of rapid urbanization. A 1968 Doxiadis study reported that huts consumed<br />
only six blocks of the city's total number of 4,433 blocks. The absence of serious problems of<br />
shantytown could be attributed to several major factors such as, the prevailing easy and cheap building<br />
method using locally produced mud bricks; and also the social cohesiveness of the society. Upon their
244<br />
arrival, migrants sought relatives who shared their homes, enlarged them to accommodate new arrivals,<br />
or offered financial help for new comers to build or rent homes. Third, it was also due to economic<br />
factors: the rapid rates of urbanization was parallel with accelerated economic growth made possible by<br />
rising oil exports. The following table shows a breakdown of city blocks by construction type in<br />
1968.<br />
Table 6.6: Construction Types in Riyadhs during the 1960s.<br />
Construction Type Number of Blocks Percentage of Total Blocks<br />
(in Blocks)<br />
Mud block<br />
Cement block<br />
Reinforced block<br />
Stone<br />
Tin sheets (temporary huts)<br />
Undefined<br />
1,975<br />
1,549<br />
143<br />
189<br />
6<br />
571<br />
46<br />
34<br />
3<br />
4<br />
0<br />
13<br />
Source: Doxiadis, Existing Conditions, (1968), 171.<br />
24<br />
25<br />
26<br />
27<br />
28<br />
29<br />
30<br />
31<br />
32<br />
33<br />
34<br />
35<br />
Faddan (1983), 182-186. See discussion in Chapter Seven of this study.<br />
An exception was given to land at the southern part of the city, away from the oil company's area. In<br />
addition, the Royal Decree stipulated that owners of units built of temporary materials should be<br />
requested to use permanent materials as a condition for permit renewal. It was also mandated that units<br />
adjacent to American Oil Company's compounds must be built with concrete and cement bricks. Al-<br />
Subaie (1989), 146.<br />
Amos Rapoport, "Learning About Settlements and Energy From Historical Precedents" Ekistics, 325<br />
(July/August, 1987), 263.<br />
Speerplan Regional-Und Stadtplaner. Riyadh Diplomatic Quarter: Master Plan <strong>Dr</strong>aft Report.<br />
(Germany, 1978), 1-20.<br />
Faddan (1983).<br />
H. St. J. B. Philby, "Riyadh: Ancient and Modern," The Middle East Journal 2(Spring, 1959), 135.<br />
Ibid., 133.<br />
E. Monroe, 293.<br />
High Commission for Riyadh Development. 1990. Economic Environment in Riyadh City (Jubail:<br />
Support Industry Printing Center) p. 6.<br />
In N. C. Grill, 50.<br />
Doxiadis (1968).<br />
Ibid, 210.
245<br />
36 H. St J. B. Philby, "Riyadh: Ancient and Modern," The Middle East Journal 2 (1959): 131.<br />
37<br />
Mansfield, 76.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh. 1990. Economic Climate in Riyadh City<br />
(Arabic) (Jubail: Support Industry Printing Center).<br />
39 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Planning. 1983. Achievements of the Development Plans:<br />
1390-1403 (1970-1983). P. 2.<br />
40 The government did not publish the Kingdom's total population, leaving the total number to<br />
speculation. An average of national and international estimates suggests a national population of 7<br />
million.<br />
41<br />
In 1987, Saudis accounted for only 13% (or 37,000) of the number of employees in the private sector.<br />
Of the 37,000 Saudis working in the private sector, 21,000 were wage and salary earners. Most of the<br />
rest were non-salaried managers of private establishments. Eighteen percent of non-Saudi workers in<br />
the private sector were private household workers. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, High Commission for<br />
the Development of Arriyadh. Demographic, Transportation, Land Use, and Economic Studies For the<br />
City of Arriyadh, Executive Summary (Riyadh: National Offset Printing Press, October, 1987), 16.<br />
42 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Central Department of<br />
Statistics, Statistical Year Book: Twenty Fifth Issue, 1409/1989 Riyadh: CDS), 634.<br />
43 In Riyadh the villa type comprises 37.9% of the residential stock. Source: High Commission for the<br />
Development of Riyadh. Land Use Survey: Summary Report. (Riyadh: A1 Shathry Consulting<br />
Engineering, 1987). However, the proportion of mud houses shrunk from 45% in 1968 to 7.5% by<br />
1986. Apartment units comprise 39% of the housing stock.<br />
44 SECT International/SEDES. Arriyadh: Hadirah Dawolliah (Riyadh: International Metropolis, c.<br />
1977), 14.<br />
45 Khalid M. Al-Ankary and El-Sayed El-Bushra, "Urban Growth and Urbanization in Saudi Arabia." In<br />
Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi Arabia (Berlin, Gebrudern Borntraeger, 1989), 12.<br />
46<br />
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Information, A. I. Daghistani. Ar-Riyadh, Urban Development<br />
and Planning (Riaydh: Saudi Arabian Printing Co. Ltd., 1985), 110.<br />
47 SECT, 19<br />
48<br />
Ibid, 37.<br />
49<br />
M. E. Bonine, "The Urbanization of the Persian Gulf Nations." In The Persian Gulf States: A General<br />
Survey, edited by A.J. Cottrell, C. Bosworth, M. Burrell, K. McLachlan, and R. Savory, 225-278<br />
(Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1980).<br />
50 Speerplan Regional-Und Stadtplaner, 2-284.
246<br />
5 1 This was countered in 1986 when the Council of Ministers adopted the Urban Domain (No. 13,<br />
9/1/1406 H. (1986)) to put growth under check.<br />
52 By 1985, in addition to the REDF-related units of 287,000,333,406 were produced by the various<br />
government ministries. Ministry of Information, Domestic Information, Wathaiek littariekh,<br />
Mukhtarat min Kalimat wa Liqaat Jalalat al Malik Fahad bin Abdul-Aziz (Documents for History:<br />
Selective Quotes From King Fahad Speeches and Meetings), (Riyadh: Al-Malek Publishing House, no<br />
date of publication), 257.<br />
Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Real Estate Development<br />
Fund: Annual Report. 1987/1988. In addition, by 1985, the total number of residential units reached<br />
777,704 nationwide, 403,852 apartment units and 33,852 single houses by the Ministry of Public<br />
Works and Housing, 287,000 by the REDF, 33,000 by the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu,<br />
and 50,000 by other government agencies. King Fahad Al Saud, "Public Speech Addressing the Saudi<br />
Students in the US", Washington D.C. , 11/23/1404H, In Documents For the History, Selective<br />
Speeches by H.M. King Fahad Al Saud, Ministry of Public Information (Riyadh: Al Ibikan for<br />
Publications, no date),.257.<br />
54 For the 100,000 figure see A. A. Al Shalhoob 1991. "Riyadh Completes its Embellishment By Year<br />
2000". An interview with Riyadh's Mayor Al Yamamah. January 2 1991. pp. 28-33. However, the<br />
official magazine of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Al Baladiyat. March 1986, reported<br />
that 36,000 lots occupying an area of 45 square km (out of a total city residential area of 92 square km)<br />
were given at no cost to Saudi citizens. "Governmental Services and International Cooperative Offices<br />
in Riyadh," Al Baladiyat. No 5, 2nd year, March 1986, p. 61. By 1985, the government has<br />
distributed more than 2.5 million lots (at varying area) to citizens nationwide (Ministry of Information,<br />
op. cit, p. 260).<br />
55 High Commission For the Development of Airiyadh. Taqreer Nitaq Annmou Al-Omrani Le Madinat<br />
Arriyadh, Amanat Madinat Arriadh [Report on Urban Domain For the City of Riyadh, Riyadh<br />
Municipality] 1989, p. 101. Currently vacancy rates stands at 30%. This is due to several factors<br />
including first, the REDF hefty loans and their lax requirements, the departure of large numbers of<br />
expatriates who helped build the country during the construction boom, and the availability of<br />
substantial substandard housing units in the mud communities (11,448 out of 93,045 comprising the<br />
city's residential stock).<br />
56 High Commission For The Development of Arriyadh. Program for the Development of Governing<br />
Palace Area: Third Stage ,(1989), 6.<br />
57 In the period 1968-1970 there were 60,000 vehicles. In 1987, there were over 4.4 million registered<br />
vehicles in the Kingdom. The number of vehicles registered increased by over 148,000 in 1987, alone.<br />
For Riyadh, the number of vehicles increased from 67,607 in 1971 to 773,795 in 1981. Source: M.<br />
Mohammadain, "Traffic Accidents in the City of Riyadh" in Saudi Cities: Distribution and<br />
Morphology (Riyadh: King Saud University Press, 1983): 335-377.<br />
58 High Commission For The Development of Arriyadh. 1989. Program for the Development of<br />
Governing Palace Area: Third Stage, p. 3. Also, at the compact central ring lives 850 people per<br />
hectare, while only 10 inhabitants per hectar live at the shapeless periphery. The overall City's<br />
districts average 45 inhabitants per hectare. Source: Report on Urban Domain for the City of Riyadh<br />
(1989), 3.
247<br />
59<br />
K. Brown. Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective (London: Ithaca Press, 1986), 74.<br />
60<br />
A1 Hathloul (1981).<br />
61 Including the developed road network which occupies 42% of the metropolis developed area. Source: A1<br />
Hathloul & Anis-ur-Rhaman, op. cited; and High Commission for the Development of Riyadh. Land<br />
Use Survey: Summary Report. June, 21, 1987<br />
62 If the area of the King Khalid airport is added, the proportion of government land uses will amount to<br />
69 percent High Commission for the Development of Riyadh. Land Use Survey: Summary Report.<br />
June, 21, 1987.<br />
63 Some of these loans are for multi-unit buildings. In addition, the REDFs Corporate Investment<br />
Program helped the production of 26,488 housing units, 1,612 offices, and 3,703 store spaces.<br />
Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Real Estate Development<br />
Fund: Annual Report. 1987/1988, (1988), 22.<br />
64 The government has been distributing lots for residential uses to low income groups amounting to 45<br />
square kilometers by 1986, which constitutes forty nine percent of Riyadh's total residential area of<br />
ninety two sq. km. Moreover, the state provides hefty interest-free loans for industrial enterprises.<br />
Source: "Governmental Services and International Cooperative Offices in Riyadh". Al Baladiyat. No. 5,<br />
2nd year (March, 1986), 61. Also, it provides subsidized rents at nominal annual prices of SR 0.08<br />
(less than two cents) per square meter) in the 21.4 square kilometers manufacturing zoned districts.<br />
Source: High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh, Madinat Arriyadh, A Glimpse (Riyadh:<br />
Al-Obican Press, c. 1990), 2 (in Arabic).<br />
65 Currently carries the name The Higher Commission for the Development of Arriyadh as translated from<br />
Arabic. It is also called the Arriyadh Development Authority.<br />
66 Council of Ministers' resolution number 3/R/51 of 27/2/1399 H. (1978). The D.Q. has been hailed as<br />
a model urban development. Its 8 sq. kilometers are divided as follows: 31% parks, 14% for missions'<br />
buildings and staff residences, 22% residential wards, 50 kilometer road network comprising 17% of<br />
land, 6% commercial uses, and 11% for public services (schools, fire station, religious, infrastructure,<br />
recreational, cultural, administrative, etc.).<br />
67 King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology. 1981. Master Development Plan. p. 4.<br />
68<br />
Ibid.
CHAPTER VII<br />
OIL INDUSTRIALIZATION CREATES MODERN-INDUSTRIAL URBAN<br />
FORMS: THE CASE OF ARAR<br />
In chapter six and seven I will investigate the effects brought about by the formation<br />
of the new nation-state on the built forms of smaller Saudi settlements, Arar and Huraimla.<br />
In this chapter, I will discuss the impact of oil industrialization on the emergence of the new<br />
town of Arar, built in the late 1940s. The discovery of vast oil reserves in the Kingdom<br />
has been the catalyst of an unprecedented urbanization process. New cities and towns were<br />
born in response to the development of a complex network of oil drilling, processing,<br />
refineries and loading facilities. The goal of this chapter is, first, to highlight the impact of<br />
oil industrialization on the birth and growth of Arar, under the auspices of the modern<br />
nation-state; and, second, to outline the relationship between state-led development and<br />
planning, and the impact of such intervention on Arar's urban development and form.<br />
Arar has a population of 65,000 inhabitants largely involved in state-created and<br />
related employment, and the supporting commercial services. Arar was chosen as the<br />
second unit of analysis in this study for its smaller population and the nature of its genesis:<br />
unlike Riyadh and Huraimla, which both evolved from pre-industrial, agrarian forms, Arar<br />
grew from a modern planned origin. It originated as an industrial compound and evolved<br />
as an industrial camp to house the working force involved in the construction of the Trans<br />
Arab Pipeline (Tapline) during the 1940s by the nascent oil industry. The decision by the<br />
Tapline consortium to establish several pump stations along the 1069 miles pipe line<br />
carrying oil from the Eastern Saudi Province to Sidon, Lebanon, on the Mediterranean Sea,<br />
resulted in the creation of nuclei for new settlements on the otherwise barren desert<br />
expanse, hitherto used by Bedouins and caravans. As such, Arar owes its existence to the<br />
emergence of the economic environment and political order under the new nation-state,<br />
and, thus, by exploring its development we can examine the impact of the government in<br />
shaping the contemporary urban process and form.<br />
I. LOCATION<br />
Arar's undesirable physical as well as locational qualities explains the lack of<br />
settlement in the area in the past. Arar was named after one of the two major wadi beds
249<br />
(valleys), Arar and Badanah, which transverse the dreary wilderness encompassing the<br />
Northern Frontier region of Saudi Arabia. The wadi Arar dominates the complex network<br />
of smaller wadis and dry creeks, which all coalesce into one major wadi spine, Arar, that<br />
vanishes into the Iraqi territory, sixty kilometers north east. The city functions as the<br />
capital and the regional center of the Northern Frontier Province. In 1947 the construction<br />
of a pipeline to transport crude oil from the Saudi fields in the Eastern Province to Sidon,<br />
Lebanon, commenced. The imperatives of transporting crude oil from the oil rich Eastern<br />
Province via the vast, uninhabited desert necessitated the installation of four pump stations.<br />
Since the location of these pump stations was in a region that possessed no major<br />
settlements and was scarcely inhabited, the Tapline built its own industrial compounds at<br />
suitable intervals. Locations were chosen according to criteria which included partaking of<br />
the advantages associated with nomads' seasonal migration routes at intersections with<br />
major wadis. The site of today's Arar at the intersection of the pipeline and the two major<br />
wadis, Arar and Badanah, met such a criterion.<br />
Soon the new settlement attracted merchants, Bedouins and travelers. Thanks to the<br />
construction of the Tapline tarmac road, water wells and other services attached to the<br />
concessions given by the Saudi government to the Tapline company were provided. The<br />
previously barren region's routes have since become safe and thereby allowed for Arar's<br />
travel related services to prosper. Though intended to merely facilitate oil transport to the<br />
American and European markets, the Tapline project turned out to be a successful urban,<br />
regional and national development tool as well. The Tapline corridor has rejuvenated<br />
confidence in national and regional growth primarily in the underdeveloped Northern<br />
Frontier region. This success in turn instigated urbanization in the region and contributed<br />
to the realization of the government's hijar program which was aimed at settling the roving<br />
nomadic population in agricultural colonies.<br />
II. GENESIS: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS SPUR MODERN URBAN GROWTH<br />
Arar offers a unique case of urban development ab initio in which a new city<br />
originated from naught in response to modern international political economic exigencies.<br />
It epitomizes the process of restructuring the traditional national urban system in response<br />
to international economic tides. Economically, Arar's birth and early growth were due to<br />
the construction of the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (Tapline), a venture which was completed<br />
in December, 1950. The construction of the pipeline was a direct result of connecting the
250<br />
modern Saudi "enclave economy," based on oil production, to the international market<br />
system. Ironically, Arar's birth was exogenously spurred by the complex political,<br />
economic and military epochs during and in the wake of World War n, it was part of the<br />
competitive struggle between British and U.S. oil companies during the 1940s over oil<br />
concessions in the Gulf region. The scheme of the Tapline was largely meant to meet the<br />
American oil companies's goals, while working on Saudi Arabian territory. In developing<br />
the Tapline project, it "had hardly been contemplated that the oil production might<br />
encourage and bring about the economic development and reconstruction of the Middle East<br />
itself." Rather, the Saudi "oil was only thought of in terms of the reconstruction of Europe<br />
and its post-war markets." 1 Therefore, the Tapline idea was originally conceived on the<br />
drawing boards of the U.S. government's foreign policy staff and military circles based on<br />
economic and political criteria contributing to the (realization of) U.S. interests in the<br />
Middle East and Europe. Helmet Mejcher stated<br />
Already in December 1942 the project of a Transarabian Pipeline from the<br />
province of Al-Hasa to the Mediterranean had been considered in the context<br />
of the general war effort....Furthermore, the pipeline project was bound to<br />
bring the adjacent Arab countries-Transjordan, Palestine, Syria and Egypt into<br />
the orbit of American policy as well....The West was concerned to conserve<br />
its oil resources at the expense of the eastern hemisphere....Its whole<br />
entrepreneurial scope points to the fact that the interest being taken into<br />
account were not those of the region but those of the western companies and<br />
governments. 2<br />
The idea to build the Tapline was originally proposed by Harold Ickes, President<br />
Roosevelt's Secretary for the Interior, during the 1940s. Obsessed with U.S. future needs<br />
to "acquire and participate in the development of foreign oil reserves," Ickes introduced<br />
several ideas, one of which was the construction of the Tapline to carry crude oil from the<br />
Saudi oil fields in the Eastern Province to Sidon, Lebanon, on the Mediterranean shores.<br />
"This would have the double advantage of ensuring a regular supply of cheap oil to the<br />
government and of leading inevitably to an agreement with the British, and so guaranteeing<br />
the position of U.S. oil companies in the area." Though the idea of intervention by the<br />
U.S. government in American oil companies' ventures overseas was vigorously opposed<br />
by the American oil industry, California Arabian Standard Oil Company's (Casco)<br />
executives, the predecessor of today's Aramco, thought "the pipeline project in itself was<br />
sound. "3 In 1947 construction commenced and on December 2,1950, oil was loaded on<br />
the first tanker at Sidon, Lebanon.
251<br />
The unprecedented venture of building the Tapline project required an enormous labor<br />
force amounting to 16,000 workers at its peak. The early structures of Arar housed<br />
Bedouins seeking jobs and benefits in the industrial camp. The agreement between the<br />
Saudi government and the Tapline company stipulated that the Tapline build houses and<br />
public facilities for those working in connection with the project. 4 In addition to the Arar<br />
industrial camp, three other major pump stations at A1 Qaisomah, Rafha, 284 kilometers to<br />
the south, and Turaif, 238 kilometers to the north were added. The new industrial<br />
compounds serving the pump stations formed the "Tapline urban corridor" upon which<br />
future growth ensued. At the location of each pump station, an industrial compound was<br />
built to house a professional staff and support facilities to maintain these pump stations.<br />
(Figure 7.1).<br />
The remote, uninhabited area of the pipeline imposed upon Tapline (Trans-<br />
Arabian Pipe Line) the necessity of building complete communities at the main<br />
pump stations, with repair shops, supply depots, airstrips, communications,<br />
housing, hospitals, schools, feeding and recreation facilities and utilitiesevery<br />
thing needed for self-sufficiency. 5<br />
In line with the agreement between the Saudi government and Tapline, the oil<br />
company built schools, health clinics, warehouses, airfields and some public-oriented<br />
facilities. Moreover, the Tapline, at the request of the government, constructed a tarmac<br />
road paralleling the pipeline, connecting the various growth poles dotting the Tapline<br />
corridor, a project which was completed by the mid-1960s. Although the road was<br />
essentially meant to serve the trans-saharan pipeline and its industrial compounds, it<br />
generated a substantial volume of traffic altering the regional urban network and creating<br />
considerable commercial activity of regional, national, and international significance. The<br />
combined effects of creating health services, water, educational and transport facilities have<br />
since bestowed the Tapline corridor's towns with large numbers of immigrants.<br />
Arar's population, in particular, grew during the 1960s at an annual growth rate of<br />
4.6 percent, a higher growth rate per annum than its Tapline sisters (Turaif, 3.5%, Rafha,<br />
3.7) a rate which was more than double the national population growth rate of 2.5 percent.<br />
Between 1962 and 1973, Turaif s population grew from 7,000 to 9,500 and Rafha from<br />
4,000 to 5,500. In comparison, Arar's population increased from 9,000 to 14,000.
252<br />
BUSTIC MAP OF &AUOI ARABIA<br />
Figure 7.1 , J . A<br />
Map of Sauid Arabia showing major cities and towns, including Arar. Source: Doxiadis,<br />
Arar, Present Conditions (1975).
253<br />
Between 1973 and 1986 Arar witnessed an increase in its population at the average growth<br />
rate of 24 percent, a growth which, by 1987, gave Arar a population of 65,000. During<br />
the same period Turaif s population reached 20,000 while Rafha attained 17,000, both<br />
increased at an annual rate of 7.3 percent and 13.9 percent respectively. Such growth rates<br />
reflected the acute urbanization process associated with economic and administrative sector<br />
development brought by oil industrialization and the growing influence and affluence of the<br />
central government.<br />
Especially during its early years of formation, the transport of oil was the raison de<br />
etre for Arar's existence. Yet, oil served only as the kickoff for Arar's subsequent<br />
development the ground up. Oil-related activity has set in motion an urbanization process<br />
that continued even with the suspension of most of the oil transported through the Tapline<br />
following the eruption of the civil war in Lebanon in the mid 1970s. Arar was to pick up<br />
on its own, relying on government employment and business generated by the residents'<br />
demand and traffic of the Tapline highway connecting the Arabian Gulf with the<br />
Mediterranean shores. For example, by 1973, Arar witnessed daily traffic of 136 trucks,<br />
1,289 small cars, 35 buses and 191 taxis. 6 In addition, the Tapline towns were equipped<br />
with airfields which strengthened the new towns with national urban centers. During the<br />
1970s, a new airport was constructed serving approximately 70 flights per week.<br />
Politically, Arar's subsequent development could only be understood in light of the<br />
Kingdom's socio-political environment, in general, and the city's administrative and<br />
borderline role in the regional geopolitics, in particular. Arar's industrial complex is<br />
situated in the middle an unsettled region in the north part of the Kingdom abutting Jordan<br />
and Iraq. The need to assure Saudi sovereignty over this desolate area called for extra<br />
attention by the central authorities to settle the barren area. Although the genesis and early<br />
growth of the Tapline's towns reposed on the economic principles of oil marketing, later<br />
urban development must be credited to the national government's interest in enhancing<br />
urban centers in the desolate northern region for several factors, one of which was the<br />
central government's concern for national security and sovereignty.<br />
III. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURE<br />
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Arar's growth continued as the town attracted<br />
more inhabitants, a reflection of the urbanization process throughout the nation, thanks to
254<br />
improved oil revenues. Government income, which amounted to merely $7.5 in 1936 ($3<br />
million derived from oil production and $4.5 million levied on pilgrims), rose to $10<br />
million following the end of World War n. In 1950, government income multiplied,<br />
reaching $37 million and by 1955 revenues leaped to $350 million per annum, a staggering<br />
sum by Saudi standards at that time. The increase in economic means were paralleled with<br />
the acceleration and broadening of contacts by the population with the outside world. With<br />
the increase in the masses' acculturation and societal awareness, a modified concept of the<br />
relationship between the ruler and the governed emerged which gradually supplanted the<br />
tribal notion of authority with a monarchic nation-state run by a centralized bureaucracy and<br />
based largely on traditional values. Aware of the rising aspirations of the population, the<br />
Saudi national government swiftly engaged the society in an intensive process of<br />
modernization. 7<br />
As we saw in Riyadh's case, the major cities were the first to enjoy the churns of the<br />
new wealth. But the other towns were not behind. Bedouins and town ruralites flocked to<br />
the emerging oil towns seeking better job opportunities and public services. For example,<br />
during the early 1970s, the Northern region's urban centers offered an average income of<br />
$334 per annum in comparison to $163 for those living outside cities. 8 In the case of Arar,<br />
its viable administrative and military roles brought about substantial population growth.<br />
This called for more government services which in turn required more governmental jobs.<br />
The government met rising needs with more services such as schools and the expansion of<br />
its health services. By 1973, Arar boasted a population of 14,000 with a flourishing<br />
division of labor involved in the expanding job market offered by state agencies and<br />
supporting services, specifically education and health. Arar's prosperity was enhanced<br />
when the town was nominated as the administrative regional center serving the Northern<br />
Frontiers' region, then populated by an estimated 325,000 inhabitants. In 1973, migration<br />
constituted the major share of Arar's population growth. For example, in 1973, only 3.2<br />
percent (or 198 people) of Arar's population had lived in the town for more than 24 years,<br />
a figure which represented those who remained after construction of the pipeline in the<br />
1940s.<br />
Arar's early population growth was essentially a reflection of the demand for labor to<br />
work in the construction of the pipeline project, which peaked to 16,000 workers at one<br />
time. Nevertheless, the oil transport and maintenance employment remained very limited,<br />
comprising less than 5 percent of the total employment market in Arar. This proportion
255<br />
even shrank considerably following the eruption of the civil war in Lebanon, which halted<br />
loading of Saudi oil at Sidon. Moreover, during the 1980s government construction of the<br />
giant East-West Pipeline carrying crude oil from the East Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea<br />
(to avoid the precarious political environment in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon) further<br />
decreased the use of the Tapline. Due to these factors, the amount of oil transported<br />
through the Tapline was reduced to a trickle, barely sufficient to meet the needs of the<br />
Jordanian market.<br />
Yet, Arar's economic prosperity and urban growth continued apace and thrived on<br />
expanding government employment, militarization, travel and freight related businesses, a<br />
growth which reflected the rising strategic role of the Northern Frontier region to national<br />
security. According to the Doxiadis study of 1973, government employment claimed 53<br />
percent of the total employment market in Arar. Commercial and other services accounted<br />
for 16.4 percent. The transport and small industries employed 5.2 percent, while mining<br />
and rock cutting accounted for 4.2 percent, and 4 percent in agriculture. In total the tertiary<br />
sector (administration, business, services) accounted for 76 percent of the city's<br />
employment. Out of the 3,006 work force of Arar, 72 percent (2,166) were wage earners,<br />
25.1 percent worked outside the formal sector (referred to here as non-wage earning<br />
occupations such as tending livestock, selling fuel, and other crafts) while only 1.8 percent<br />
were registered as business establishments.<br />
Table 7.1 illustrates the preponderance of the Tertiary sector in Arar's economy. In<br />
total, it absorbed 76 percent of the city's man power in 1973. The number of private<br />
establishments (commerce, private services and service industries) increased from 477 in<br />
1976 to 1,245 in 1981 employing 1,803 and 3,319 respectively, thanks to government<br />
sponsored private sector promotion policies as well as favorable market conditions the<br />
state's modernization programs have engendered. 9 This is not unique to Arar: the service<br />
sector has been the major employer in the Saudi Northern Region's (NR) cities, Hail,<br />
Skaka, Aljouf, Arar, and Algurriyat. The service sector in the NR's towns accounted for<br />
77 percent, the secondary sector (light manufacturing) and construction employed 15<br />
percent of these towns' employment, while the primary sector (industry, mining and<br />
agriculture) employment 8 percent. The growth of the service sector attests to the<br />
significance of the government role, direct and indirect, in the urbanization process in Saudi<br />
Arabia, a role which would reach record levels in the 1970s and 1980s. The<br />
preponderance of the service sector, which in itself is dominated by, and dependent on,
256<br />
government spending, corroborated the consumer-oriented urban economies heavily<br />
relying on state sponsorship and patronage. 10 As such, the urban entity has become a<br />
"closed" economic system, one which receives government funds which in turn are used to<br />
obtain outside goods.<br />
Table 7.1<br />
Employment by Economic Sector (1974)<br />
SECTOR<br />
Percent<br />
Agriculture 4.0<br />
Mining and Rock Cutting 4.2<br />
Manufacturing * 5.2<br />
Electricity, Gas and Water 1.0<br />
Construction 10.6<br />
Commerce, Restaurants and Hotels 16.4<br />
Transport, Storage Freight 5.2<br />
Money, Finance and Real Estate 0.4<br />
Social Services 52.8<br />
Others 0.2<br />
Total 10000<br />
Source: Doxiadis, Northern Province, (1974).<br />
IV. URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND URBAN PLANNING<br />
Arar's birth was a function of the imperatives of economic development under the<br />
new nation-state. The very early Tapline's structures, which designated the 1950's<br />
industrial compound, were portable, wooden units assembled to house the Tapline's staff<br />
and their families. According to the agreement with the Saudi government, the Tapline also<br />
agreed to develop a land subdivision, which later was commonly referred to as "Tapline<br />
Houses" (Figure 7.2-B).<br />
The Tapline Houses which constituted the nucleus of newly born Arar were located<br />
across the Wadi of Badnah, three kilometers south-east of the Tapline pumping<br />
installations. Shortly thereafter, Bedouins and other temporary residents pitched tents<br />
while ruralites constructed mud and brick houses in the vicinity of the Tapline Houses.<br />
The combined effects of the Tapline jobs (directly related to the industrial complex), the<br />
provision of health services and water, construction and government-related employment,
257<br />
JL IgUi v /<br />
•<br />
Arar's layout during the 1970s. The industrial compound for oil pumping facilities (A), the<br />
town, which originated from the Tapline Houses (B), the old airfield (C), and the Tapline<br />
road (D). Source: Doxiadis, Avar, Present Conditions (1975).
258<br />
all attracted nomads, ruralites and immigrants from distant settlements and Arab countries<br />
as well. Consequently, government services were expanded to meet the increasing demand<br />
for public services and educational facilities generated by population growth and improved<br />
living conditions in Arar and the region it served. For example, between 1973 and 1986,<br />
the number of schools increased from 15 to 39 while the number of students increased<br />
from 9,583 in 1982 to 16,594 in 1989. Arar was supplied its administrative components, a<br />
regional imarah (principality or emeer's governorhsip), police station and mail and<br />
telegram office. Construction activity prospered in response to increasing demand for<br />
buildings setting a north-west growth pattern.<br />
While some migrants managed to obtain dwellings through the formal housing<br />
market, others were forced to live in temporary units. Peripheral growth surpassed the<br />
sluggish physical planning and growth controls as practiced by the municipality.<br />
Consequently, there was no uniformity governed peripheral growth. Shanty towns were<br />
comprised of tents, as well as mud and concrete structures, while others were built with<br />
scrap materials. Few paid attention to uniformity and land ownership. Outside the original<br />
Tapline Houses, modern villa type residences mingled with "Arabic" houses, or biout<br />
sha'abiyah (a modified version of which the organization of indoor spaces matched that of<br />
courtyard mud houses, i.e. introverted arrangement of rooms, but built with modern<br />
building materials and modified fenestration). Communities that were dominated by such<br />
hybrid architecture were commonly referred to as 'ahieaa Sha'abiyah (popular or<br />
communities of the masses). 11 They were usually inhabited by low income households.<br />
For instance, in 1973, monthly income for households that lived in concrete (modern villa<br />
type), the popular, the mud houses and the shanty towns (denoted as "others") were SR<br />
1,140, SR 860, SR 720 and SR 390 respectively. 12 The original rectilinear layout of the<br />
Tapline Houses' land subdivision remained dominant. Commercial and public land uses<br />
were clustered around the central thoroughfare (later called King Abdul-Aziz) which<br />
continued as the town's major commercial center. The Imarah (Principality) which was<br />
located at the eastern end of Arar formed an opposing magnet, hence strengthening the eastwest<br />
linear pattern of Arar's urban form.<br />
Generally speaking, Arar is essentially a modern, planned town. Its development has<br />
passed through five major planning phases or experiments, (1) the original Tapline plan of<br />
the early 1950s, (2) land tenure, (3) the 1960s' expansion of the Tapline plan, (4) the 1973
259<br />
Doxiadis Plan, (5) militarization, (6) the land subdivision phase, and (7), the Urban<br />
Domain of 1989.<br />
A. The Tapline Plan, 1950s<br />
During the early stage (1950-1955), Arar's urban form comprised three discrete<br />
components. First, was the planned, industrial complex, fenced and isolated from the<br />
remaining (Arab) population. Its highly functional form, which resembled the form of an<br />
electronic circuit, reflected the functions associated with oil processing technology. An<br />
airfield was built across the town from Badnah wadi to the west, next to the Tapline<br />
industrial compound's and was largely geared toward the needs of the Tapline and<br />
Aramco's operations (Figure 7.2-C). It served as the industrial compound and the town's<br />
major airfield until it was replaced with a new airport, 11 kilometers south of Arar in 1976.<br />
Second, there were the "Tapline Houses" (Figure 7.3-A). They were designed and<br />
built by the Tapline company to house Tapline workers and government employees. The<br />
Tapline planners subdivided an area across the Badanah wadi east of the industrial<br />
compound. The original development of the Tapline Houses covered an approximate area<br />
of one square kilometer. It comprised a gridiron layout of streets delimiting 40-by-40<br />
meters blocks, four lots each. The introduction of the gridiron layout resulted in larger lots<br />
than those found in the traditional built environment. Typical grid pattern land<br />
subdivisions' lots were platted creating lot areas no smaller than 400 square meter while<br />
traditional residential lot areas averaged between 200 and 270 square meter.<br />
The Tapline Houses development was bifurcated by a two-lane central road forming<br />
the commercial spine of Arar. Shops and government public buildings serving the city's<br />
population as well as the region at large were soon to be added to the built form of Arar.<br />
Topography, marked by rugged terrain and presence of several wadis, was a major factor<br />
that shaped Arar's early form and dictated its future growth. As such, Arar's original<br />
growth was confined to the area east of Badanah and north of Arar wadis.<br />
Originally, the Tapline development was little more than a large-scale mixed<br />
enterprise, government-sponsored land subdivision. Although started from an auspicious<br />
planned origin, the housing development lacked an integrated system of built zones,<br />
circulation, recreation facilities and other open spaces. As was the case in Aramco's<br />
planned communities for its Arab workers in Dammam, A1 Khobar, Rahima and
m<br />
a i-.t,',<br />
260<br />
AR'AR<br />
COMMUNITY STRUCTURE<br />
Community<br />
Figure 7.3<br />
Arar's communities during the early 1970s. Area (A) constitutes the original subdivision<br />
of the Tapline Houses, (B) the subdivision plan of the 1960s, (C) the National Guards<br />
community comprising mainly mud houses and biout sha'abiyah, Area (D) was populated<br />
by Bedouins camps, community (E) housed educational buildings, few houses and<br />
Bedouins' tents, and (F), which was built on the Tapline road, was used for Arar's<br />
Hospital. Source: Doxiadis, Arar, Present Conditions (1975).
261<br />
Aththouqbah, the Tapline company implemented a plan with standards that were neither<br />
consistent with the local culture nor equal to those enjoyed by its (American) oil<br />
communities' residents. 13 As such, the plan fell short of being a genuine attempt to<br />
experiment with new planning paradigms of modern comprehensive planning, that is to<br />
treat the city as a system, suited to Arar's rapid development and culture.<br />
B. Land Tenure<br />
Because the location of Arar was selected in the midst of barren land, documentation<br />
of land ownership, did not exist, hence land fell under government ownership. Arar's<br />
original form comprised two discrete parts: the industrial camp and Arar proper.(Figure<br />
4). 14 The industrial complex encompassed the apparatus of oil transportation and<br />
maintenance ancillary facilities. It also included a small community which housed the<br />
technical staff overseeing the plant and a hospital. The second part of Arar's development<br />
was a community specifically platted for the purpose of housing government functions and<br />
staff, in conjunction with the concession by the government to the Tapline, a request which<br />
reflected the central state's interest in strengthening its presence in the desolate region. The<br />
land for the new industrial complex and the Arab community was appropriated from<br />
government land. Arar's early structures were built by the Tapline for the government in<br />
what is commonly referred to as the "Tapline Houses" ("Arab") community (Figure 4 B).<br />
The developed property was a public-private venture and legal ownership of residential and<br />
commercial uses were gradually ceded to residents according to pricing formulas. 15<br />
To encourage the sedentarization of the nomads and to enlist ruralites in the growing<br />
modern economy, various mechanisms were devised by the government to .help citizens<br />
obtain land for housing and private development. With the majority of the population<br />
moving to and living in towns, and cities, the government has maintained the tradition of<br />
transferring public land to private ownership. Royal Decrees no. 7,800 dated 10/7/1380H<br />
(1960), stipulated royal permission for granting land. 16 To qualify for free land, citizens<br />
were required to submit petitions showing proof of citizenship and the location requested to<br />
the Royal authority. Royal Decree no. 59 dated 19/4/1401 (1981) clarified criteria for<br />
lower income groups (LIG) to qualify for free land. Some of the conditions attached to<br />
LIG grants were that the owner had to be 18 years or older, must not own land or had not<br />
previously obtained a REDF loan, must start construction within a five-year period, and<br />
should not sell or rent during the five year period following its delivery to the applicant. 17
262<br />
Petitioners' requests were examined in light of certain criteria, such as the availability of<br />
land, the city in which it lay, the status of the petitioner, and his or her need. Citizens were<br />
also allowed to request a royal fief, that is minhah, by applying for land without<br />
necessarily having LIG status.<br />
The process of privatization of the land can be outlined as follows. The municipality<br />
earmarks certain lots for distribution to the public either free of charge or at nominal prices.<br />
Three prices were identified for the country's municipal and rural land. 18 Procedures were<br />
also set for transferring land from public to private ownership. The three prices per square<br />
meter for Arar's municipal land were listed, SR10.00 for land class A, SR6.00 for class B,<br />
and SR3.00 for class C; classification was based on land location (one U.S dollar was the<br />
equivalent of SR 3.5 in 1978). A second form of transfer of public land to citizens was<br />
that of helping low income groups obtain land for their own residences. In this case, the<br />
government provided lots of 400 square meters to citizens whom authorities deemed as<br />
underprivileged, or of "limited-income." In the later case, residents were entitled only to<br />
one lot which could be locked in restrictive conditions concerning its sale and rents. 19 The<br />
third method of transfer of land to private ownership was that of minah — Royal gifts in the<br />
form of land free of charge to qualified applicants. In the case of minhah, the King<br />
endowed grants, such as land, to citizens according to certain qualifications, including<br />
actual need, social status, and availability of land for distribution. Depending on the<br />
availability of land, an applicant could be granted land at a central location in an important<br />
city, or endowed a larger area at any location owned by the state. Recipients of<br />
government land would sell at market prices upon the legal transfer of ownership.<br />
The practice of allotting land free to citizens dramatically increased during the late<br />
1970s and 1980s, partially due to the expedition of the urbanization process but especially<br />
in response to the inauguration of the Real Estate Development Fund's (REDF) generous<br />
housing loans. The REDFs requirements stipulated the legal possession of residential land<br />
in a municipally-sanctioned land subdivision. To qualify for a REDFs interest-free loan,<br />
residents were required to show proof of land ownership in a municipally sanctioned<br />
residential zone.<br />
The government also offered public land at nominal rents in connection with its<br />
industrial promotion programs. The provision of land for industrial uses, that is for the<br />
development of auxiliary light industrial services (autoshops, simple metal and wood
263<br />
processing and assembly, etc.) as well as heavy manufacturing, at nominal prices has been<br />
part of government programs aimed at encouraging citizens to participate in the modern<br />
economy. Municipal authorities devised physical plans identifying industrial zones. Land<br />
was subdivided and rented to Saudi entrepreneurs at prices as low as SR 0.08 per square<br />
meter ($0.02) per annum. 20 In 1986, urban land categorized as "industrial" accounted for<br />
15 hectares, or 1.6 percent of Arar's total area of 925 hectares, (see new information on<br />
land subdivisions).<br />
As Arar's population increased, squatter settlements sprouted housing ruralites and<br />
Bedouins. Shanty towns, comprising tents, mud houses and other structures built with<br />
temporary building materials developed in an uncontrolled fashion exhibiting a mix of the<br />
traditional organic form and scattered Bedouin camps, appeared outside the formal land<br />
market. 21 In 1973, squatter settlements on public land accounted for up to 30 percent of<br />
the city's total residential stock. Legal title for lots were only given to those who bought<br />
and built in platted areas in compliance with the planning by laws imposed by the<br />
municipality and other government agencies. Moreover, only legally sanctioned lots were<br />
entitled to municipal services, such as water, electricity, telephone and benefits from<br />
government public services.<br />
C. Militarization: Planning a Model Community<br />
Since its birth in 1950, Arar has fulfilled economic, administrative and military roles.<br />
It benefited from its location on the economically active Tapline corridor and served as the<br />
administrative capital for the Northern Province. In addition to these political economic<br />
functions, Arar was to benefit substantially from increasing expenditures of the military.<br />
Arar is located 188 miles southeast of the Saudi-Jordanian border and less than 40 miles<br />
southwest of Iraq. Due to its proximity to the border, Arar garnered a strategic military<br />
distinction which reflected the central government's concern over its sovereignty in this<br />
ulterior region. 22 The vitality of the northern region to the national security of Saudi<br />
Arabia can only be understood in light of the international political developments that swept<br />
the Middle East following the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent colonialization<br />
of its territories by European powers (1910s-1960s). Although Saudi Arabia was formed<br />
without passing through de facto colonialism, the demarcation of its borders took place<br />
when neighboring Arab territories were under colonial administration. Until today,<br />
segments of many Arab countries borders, including Saudi Arabia, are still the subject of
264<br />
heated territorial conflicts. The Northern Frontier, of which Arar serves as its<br />
administrative capital and major urban center, constitutes one of the five major regions<br />
forming Saudi Arabia. Its neighbors Iraq and Jordan are both jealous of the potentially oil<br />
rich region lying south of their borders. Moreover, historically, the region has been the<br />
grazing grounds for several powerful major Bedouin tribes whose migratory pattern has<br />
frequently defied the authority of all these governments' jurisdictional powers. As Saudi<br />
polity matured, it recognized the significance of protecting its frontiers. Arar was to benefit<br />
dramatically by the international as well as national political and economic developments.<br />
Until 1958, Iraq and Transjordan (known today as Jordan) were ruled by Hashimite<br />
monarchs, King Abdullah and King <strong>Faisal</strong>, sons of Sharif Hussein of Makkah, head of the<br />
Hashimite dynasty which governed the Western Province under the Ottoman rule, and the<br />
Hijaz region in Saudi Arabia, before the Saud House 23 . In his campaign to unify the<br />
country, King Abdul-Aziz overpowered his Hashimites rivals in a humiliating showdown<br />
which concluded with the termination of their rule over Hijaz during the 1920s.<br />
Furthermore, the Northern Province, which lacked established settlements, has been the<br />
grazing grounds for nomads who historically swore allegiance to their tribe and land and<br />
not to any established authority. The Saudi northern borders remained the focus of many<br />
border disputes, so much so that two neutral zones were drafted along the border by the<br />
British, who were the arbiters between the newly bom nation-states.<br />
Owing to the precarious geopolitics of the Kingdom's northern borderline, Arar was<br />
chosen by the central state as the northern base for several military and security force<br />
communities. Arar serves as a regional base for a substantial Internal Security force, has a<br />
regional airport (one of twenty two in the nation) and houses scores of National Guard<br />
(NG) units and hundreds of personnel. 24 The presence of the NG forces has contributed<br />
to the urban economy of Arar through the employment it has generated. The National<br />
Guards have offered employment opportunities to citizens nationwide, especially the<br />
nomads. For instance, the government offers exclusive health benefits and free land or<br />
accommodation, among others, to those who work in the NG. By 1973, two of Arar's<br />
five residential districts were distributed to National Guard staff (Figure 7.3 C and D), both<br />
occupied a substantial portion of the city's area.<br />
In its effort to attract nationals to the area, the Ministry of Interior provided wholly<br />
designed and built model communities for its Internal Security Forces (ISF), thanks to the
265<br />
rising oil revenues. 25 During the 1970s, the Ministry of Interior contracted international<br />
architects and contractors to construct 4,672 housing units in fully serviced and wellplanned<br />
communities in 16 Saudi cities. Due to the<br />
recent dynamic growth of cities, towns and villages and the increasing need to<br />
provide housing in support of its Internal Security Forces, the Ministry of<br />
Interior embarked on an ambitious program to develop, establish and maintain<br />
well conceived and planned new communities throughout the<br />
Kingdom....The New communities have been planned to provide an<br />
environment that respects and preserves the Saudi "Quality of Life", to<br />
encourage, where possible an integration of the new community with the<br />
neighboring settlements. 26<br />
In November, 1980, the Ministry of Interior commenced the five year large-scale<br />
community development. Arar received 453 units on a location which added 40 hectares to<br />
the city's area (Figure 7.4-A). The 2,700 residents "model" community included a large<br />
congregational mosque, 2 clubs, four schools, a recreation center with an auditorium,<br />
shops and a health center. In contrast to Arar's other scattered, half-built land<br />
subdivisions, the ISF is uniquely designed and professionally built by international firms<br />
aided by young Saudi architects. In contrast to Arar's layout, which is marked by a<br />
disjointed planning process largely due to lax municipal controls and uncoordinated<br />
sanctioning of land subdivisions, the ISF development emphasized a meandering loop<br />
feeding the major residential zones, clustered around the central service area where the<br />
Friday mosque, shops, the clubs were located. Schools were scattered around the site in<br />
calculated proportions according to the age and number of students. The project handbook<br />
boasted that "A network of traffic-free pedestrian ways is provided between clusters of<br />
housing, allowing for a high degree of safe pedestrian circulation around the site." 27<br />
Allocation of the various project's elements was carefully organized to benefit from<br />
topographical and climatic considerations (Figure 7.3-B). The project was fully finished at<br />
professional standards (including streets, pavement, lighting and sewage treatment<br />
plant/facilities, etc.). Residential units were furnished. The total cost, including<br />
community services and other costs, was reported at SR455 million ($130 million), or one<br />
million per unit. 28<br />
Moreover, the Ministry of Defense and Aviation has maintained a provincial<br />
department and a regional hospital at this ulterior town. The Ministry of Defense, which<br />
oversees and runs the only national civilian airline, Saudia, also maintains Arar's airport.
266<br />
•-*iJ^ J!<br />
To Turavf<br />
Site<br />
1.5 km<br />
jlkJI<br />
To Airport<br />
Arar<br />
Site Location<br />
A<br />
«**$*£•<br />
.^f-X<br />
.. *<br />
Ministry of Interior ISF Housing Project stands as a "model" planned community. The<br />
site is shown in relation to Arar's Doxiadis Master Plan of 1974 (A). Unlike Doxiadis<br />
gridiron layout, the ISF master plan comprises careful allocation of buildings and open<br />
space based (B). Ministry of Interior, Urban Design and Community Development In<br />
Saudi Arabia: A Case Study: Internal Security Forces Housing Project, Vol. 2 (c. 1985).
267<br />
In 1976, the government authorized the construction of the provincial airport 11 kilometers<br />
to the south of Arar. The new airport, which occupies a substantial area of the desert, has<br />
since become a magnet of urban growth on the Tapline highway leading to Rafha, 280<br />
kilometers to the south. Several major land subdivisions, most of which were earmarked<br />
for free distribution to citizens, were located on the road to the airport, hence confirming<br />
the town's growth toward the new airport, contrary to Doxiadis' projections of<br />
northeastern and eastern urban growth. These military facilities constitute what is<br />
designated as "private (exclusive) government" land uses. Along with other government<br />
civil developments, these large-scale developments and urban functions match the<br />
predominant contribution of the government in the making and shaping of the<br />
contemporary Saudi built forms in Arar and other settlements.<br />
D. The Subdivision Plan of The 1960s<br />
The process of platting larger lots en masse, coupled with the widespread use of the<br />
automobile set in motion an urban growth of high magnitude, between 7 and 24 percent per<br />
annum, the highest in the nation's history. Nevertheless, up until the late 1970s, Arar<br />
remained essentially a "walking city," 76 percent of Arar's residents (above 13 years old)<br />
walked to their destinations. At the rim of the existing Arar grid, shanty towns sprouted<br />
housing Bedouins and other poor residents, inevitably taking the traditional organic form.<br />
Rapid population growth hindered the subdivision obsolete as growth proceeded outside<br />
the gridiron area taking inevitably a combination of the traditional organic form and<br />
scattered Bedouin camps. An attempt to circumvent the haphazard growth outside the<br />
Tapline development was made by the government during the early 1960s<br />
In its attempts to impose order on the rapidly growing city, the municipal staff<br />
extended land subdivisions outside the 'Tapline Houses' original nucleus in the early 1960s<br />
(Figure 7. 3, B).. The new land subdivision added an area of 3.75 square kilometers to the<br />
Tapline's original one square kilometers grid area (Figure 3, area A). King Abdul-Aziz's<br />
central road was built over the Badnah wadi along King Abdul-Aziz road which improved<br />
accessibility to the tarmac road leading to Rafha to the south and Turaif to the north (Figure<br />
7.5). A new bridge facilitated physical growth across the wadi toward the international<br />
highway. The plan also implemented modifications to the existing Tapline plan (i.e., the<br />
"Tapline Houses" subdivision of 1950) in light of cultural needs and past experience. For<br />
example, residents were given freedom to build their own houses with flexible setback
268<br />
regulations. Unlike the Tapline Houses area which were designed according to the villa<br />
model (e.g. the house is situated amidst a yard), the new plan enabled residents to use the<br />
modified Arabic house style (e.g. building around a courtyard without set backs). The<br />
combination of using new building materials and traditional space organization resulted in<br />
the hybrid architecture found in the ahiyaa sha'abiyah. The "Arabic house" characterizes<br />
the early phase of rapid urban growth in most Saudi settlements, marked with austere<br />
adaptation to modern construction technology and convenience (Figure 7.6). The 1960s'<br />
plan also allowed for the provision and expansion of commercial uses, public office space<br />
and services and devised a hierarchy of road systems.<br />
Still, the plan, as did its Tapline predecessor and the 1973 Doxiadis plan, could not<br />
foresee the rapid population growth of the 1960s and the spate of urban growth brought by<br />
the 1970s construction boom. Arar's municipality subdivision plan failed to pay due<br />
respect to the environmental context and did not associate economic development with the<br />
physical growth it projected. Moreover, physical planning as practiced by municipalities in<br />
many Saudi settlements paid little attention to larger social and economic forces. During the<br />
1960s, Arar's growth persisted at high population growth rates of 4.6 percent, reflecting<br />
the proliferation of jobs in the government sector and the private sector, an expansion<br />
which paralleled the modernization programs of the government. In addition, the city was<br />
benefited by the steady increase of traffic on the Tapline highway, the gateway to Saudi<br />
Arabia's Eastern and Middle regions. Shops branched from King Abdul-Aziz Road to<br />
King <strong>Faisal</strong> and Talhah Bin Azzubair streets, while the process of building squatter<br />
settlements persisted, reflecting the steady urbanization process steps ahead of physical<br />
planning measures (Figure 7.7).<br />
E. The Doxiadis Plan, 1970s<br />
A1 Hathloul and Amroush contended that the preparation of the 1974 Doxiadis plan<br />
"conformed to the ambitious developmental programs espoused by the government during<br />
the 1970s for all Saudi cities. It was hoped that the production of these [master] plans<br />
would coordinate, accommodate for and guide cities' long-term growth." 29 As a regional<br />
center, Arar was one of these cities deemed important enough to be studied by Doxiadis<br />
Associates. Between 1965 and 1973, Arar witnessed a 4.6 percent population growth.<br />
Moreover, during the same period Arar, although enjoying an increasing number of<br />
government services, experienced uncontrolled urban development due to the lack of
269<br />
rv^<br />
Figure 7.5<br />
King Abdul-Aziz Road became the commercial spine for Arar, resulting in a linear growth<br />
pattern. It bifurcates the city into two major parts connecting the Imarah (principality) with<br />
the Tapline road. Source: Doxiadis, Arar, Present Conditions (1974).
270<br />
jyu<br />
A. B<br />
Figure 7.6<br />
The Tapline planners utilized a<br />
gridiron pattern to subdivide the Arab<br />
community, that is the Tapline<br />
Houses, instead of attempting to<br />
forge a socially pertinent physical<br />
plan that adheres to the local culture<br />
and physical context. (A) represents<br />
a layout of typical traditional built<br />
form in northern Saudi Arabia.<br />
Arar's inhabitants built mud houses<br />
upon their arrival to Arar during the<br />
1960s (B&C), and then substituted<br />
the mud houses with the modified<br />
version, post-mud house o the same<br />
lot, i.e. forming one of the ah'iyaa<br />
ashshaa'biyah communities (D). The<br />
Tapline Houses (E) were platted and<br />
built by the Tapline company using<br />
modern building materials. Source:<br />
Doxiadis, Arar, Present Conditions<br />
(1974).<br />
A STREET WITH<br />
MUO HOUSES
271<br />
I—<br />
_r
272<br />
effective planning (Figure 7.8). The Doxiadis study found that Arar's subdivision plan of<br />
the 1960s lacked vision, comprehensivness and a conception of Arar's future growth.<br />
During the 1950s and 1960s, Arar experienced chaotic expansion which took the form of<br />
municipally sanctioned large-scale land subdivision coupled with substantial squatters<br />
communities (Doxiadis, 1973). Like much of municipal physical planning practiced in the<br />
Kingdom prior to 1970s, the 1960s plan espoused a piecemeal, essentially reactive<br />
approach to urban problems and needs. The Doxiadis study characterized the typical<br />
growth pattern. It found out that<br />
Despite the preparation of a plan for Arar [i.e. the plan of the 1960s], the city<br />
developed and grew speedily without [adhering to] proper composition and<br />
without effective essence [substance] which caused the city to easily surpass<br />
planning requirements. This led to imperfect organization of the city's<br />
functions shown in defective land uses which lacked solutions pertinent to file<br />
general needs of the city [sic]. 30<br />
The Doxiadis Associates found a city growing in a "disproportionate fashion" and<br />
that many residential units lacked basic utilities. In 1974, 60 percent of Arar's 2,382<br />
residential units had electricity. While Arar's power station's supplied 750 kilowatt, the<br />
actual need of the city was estimated at 1,800 kilowatt. Residential areas consumed 60<br />
percent of the daily output of electricity leaving 20-25 percent for government buildings,<br />
and 15-20 for small industries (mainly automobile repair shops, construction needs and<br />
everyday services). Sixty seven percent of Arar's households received municipal potable<br />
water while the remaining 33 percent hauled their daily needs of water from community<br />
taps. Arar's garbage collection system handled only 30 m 3 of daily refuse, 120 short of the<br />
actual 150 m 3 daily generation of refuse. The already outdated telephone service (offered<br />
free by the Tapline) provided 99 telephone lines distributed to government departments,<br />
businesses and households. Out of Arar's 47.2-kilometer circulation space, only 3.7<br />
kilometers were paved, and even those lacked traffic lights and road signage.31 In many<br />
instances, solutions to Arar's growth needs were reactive and taken ex post facto.<br />
The 1974 Doxiadis' report concluded with an earnest recommendation that it was<br />
timely to adopt a master plan based on current data, and contextually pertinent analyses of<br />
current growth trends. Because "the city lacks sufficient facilities for its neighborhoods,<br />
which hinders its growth and minimizes the effective utilization of the city," the Doxiadis
273<br />
; 'i'%<br />
Residential Area<br />
rV s3\^CtUl<br />
EXISTING. AIRPORT<br />
Administrative Building<br />
Shopping Area*<br />
l>j\\<br />
Workshops and Light Industries<br />
Educalional Buildings<br />
BAOANAH HOSnfAU FOR TAPLINE<br />
\=J»TLI<br />
•yj '<br />
-i~<br />
Mosques and Religious Buildings<br />
Health Facilities<br />
-JKll<br />
Sport Fields and Recreational Areas<br />
. @<br />
Military Buildings<br />
"I ^<br />
Farms<br />
Open Air Markets<br />
Figure 7.8<br />
By the 1970s, Arar grew into a city of 14,000 inhabitants working in the government and<br />
service sectors. It was chosen by the central government as the capital for the Northern<br />
Province with a flourishing division of land uses. Source: Doxiadis, Arar, Present<br />
Conditions (1975).
274<br />
study emphasized that the "need calls to the preparation of a master, comprehensive plan<br />
and a planning system to follow the general development of the city." 32<br />
The Doxiadis Consultants projected population and urban growth based on the<br />
current growth rate of 4.6 per annum. Accordingly, a population of 31,600 inhabitants by<br />
1993 was estimated. A master plan covering an area of 840 hectares, compared to the<br />
town's area of 270 hectares, was approved by the Council of Ministers (Figure 7.9). The<br />
Doxiadis planners acknowledged the peculiar nature of Arar's growth factors: it was a<br />
regional center, a border city lying at the locus of nomadic migration routes, had national<br />
and international traffic, was a city of vital significance to the nation's security and one<br />
which symbolized the monarchy's hegemony and sovereignty in the northern ulterior<br />
region.<br />
Similar to Riyadh's master plan, Doxiadis planners charted a flexible, open-ended<br />
plan to allow for high growth rates suited to the dynamic city of Arar. 33 An open-ended<br />
grid iron pattern was adopted with King Abdul-Aziz Road as its central commercial spine,<br />
hence strengthening the east-west expandability. The plan included an hierarchical system<br />
of discrete residential districts, circulation space and parking, ostensibly based on the<br />
automobile as the popular mode of transportation. The plan was supplemented with<br />
copious, well produced and illustrated documents containing diagrams, growth trends,<br />
detailed maps for land use and zoning, all neatly packaged to convey an ideal urban setting<br />
bound for a smooth and prosperous future. For example, the plan envisioned recreational<br />
parks occupying the wadi beds, given the implementation of measures to circumvent<br />
floods. 34<br />
The plan estimated the city's future density to be 49 inhabitants per hectare and the<br />
formula was followed which designated 50 percent of the city's land for residential uses,<br />
25 percent for circulation space, with the rest earmarked for commercial and other urban<br />
services, as well as open and recreation space. Residential districts were designed around<br />
sub-centers, each housing residential community services. Residential districts were<br />
allocated to partake in the ideal circulation space, pedestrian and vehicular, and calculated<br />
relationships between homes, schools and open space. Typically, the various sub-centers<br />
were arranged in space in relation to major commercial spine of King Abdul-Aziz Road<br />
serving the city at large. In short, Doxiadis' planners postulated an ideal Western<br />
organization of urban elements in space. They envisioned an urban society congenially
275<br />
j "Hf<br />
\\\X j»Lfc<br />
AR'AR<br />
FINAl MASTER PtAN- YEAR' 1993<br />
E3S5S&<br />
Mo|«« Orttfl «ini a>v) 0»*A ]»MH<br />
ei a,®<br />
:%vv;v<br />
-•mm<br />
C3s;<br />
% :.y.«:.--.- ,<br />
Figure 7.9 ,<br />
Doxiadis' 1975 Master Plan for the city of Arar was designed to suffice the city s<br />
population physical needs until 1993. Source: Doxiadis, Arar, Final Major Plan, No. 40<br />
(1975).
276<br />
governed by decision-making organs involving public agencies and private institutions<br />
endowed with cash and land at their disposal. It assumed a population characterized by<br />
amity, altruism, urbanity and community: a community of "believers" bound to follow<br />
Doxiadis* design in full faith.<br />
Despite its well meaning, the Doxiadis plan was little more than a Utopian exercise, an<br />
ambitious attempt on behalf of Doxiadis Associates and the callow local planners to apply<br />
theoretical idealism to a city undergoing rapid growth virtually ab initio. The failure of the<br />
Doxiadis plan could not be attributed solely to the fact that the Doxiadis Associates paid<br />
little attention to the sociopolitical and physical environment of the Saudi city, this is to say<br />
the least. In fact, the Doxiadis plan was a professional exercise of technical planning in a<br />
society that craved such expertise. The Doxiadis studies for Arar and other Saudi cities and<br />
regions, were based on national regional trends and local surveys and analyses of problems<br />
and needs, though their end results were often little more than window dressing.<br />
Several flaws in Arar's Doxiadis experiment can be discerned. First, a lack of clear<br />
vision concerning the post-design stage, that is the implementation phase. Doxiadis' final<br />
report, although it identified the various necessary land uses (e.g. what was needed), did<br />
not specify "operational" means by which the program could be put into effect (e.g. what to<br />
give whom and how). For example, the Final Major Report (FMR) projected an increase<br />
in the total number of residential units from 2,200 units in 1972 to 5,260 by 1993, for all<br />
income groups. The FMR was so detailed that it listed projections of required land uses<br />
down to, for example, the number of rooms needed per household and the area needed per<br />
unit for a certain number of members per household for the years 1975,1980,1985, and<br />
1993. The FMR also enumerated needed commercial, health, educational, mosques, etc.<br />
down to the square meter. 35 In sum, the Doxiadis planners entrusted the callow Saudi<br />
authorities and their nascent planning organs with the implementation of the copious<br />
documents, already based on data of the 1960s made obsolete by the phenomenal<br />
modernization programs of the 1970s.<br />
Second, the very nature of the Saudi land tenure system stood as a major obstacle to<br />
the realization of the Plan. The societal predilection for private ownership of property, the<br />
government distribution of free land, lax practices of land privatization, and the absence of<br />
taxes contributed substantially to the failure of the Doxiadis plan. 36 The economic<br />
programs of the 1970s and 1980s brought higher income to the Saudi population, enabling
277<br />
them to seek better and larger lands for homes and other urban uses. Consequently, the<br />
real estate market has become the battlefield for frenzied speculative land practices. 37 A<br />
new urban land aristocracy emerged which laid its tight grips on land that promised<br />
lucrative returns. These land-related policies resulted in skyrocketing land prices which<br />
made construction in many areas within the Doxiadis plan unattainable by many ordinary<br />
denizens and even Government departments seeking large lots for their large scale projects<br />
(e.g. the Internal Security Forces housing development, the Ministry of Health and<br />
Defense). All were forced to obtain land at lower prices ostensibly outside the Doxiadis<br />
Plan (Figure 10). A centrifugal process of land subdivisioning and construction took<br />
momentum under the five-year plans' modernization programs which commenced in 1970.<br />
Most importantly, Arar's physical growth continued unabated until seemingly harnessed by<br />
the launching Of the Urban Domain regulations in 1986.<br />
Finally, the Plan was duly technical, that is it overlooked the role of the citizen in the<br />
shaping of Arar's future development. But this was not solely, if at all, the mistake of the<br />
foreign planning firm. The technical aspect of both local and imported planning was a<br />
reflection of the centralized political system's character and government-sponsored towns'<br />
economies. Planning firms, characteristically and legally were obliged to yield to the<br />
contract and acquiesce to the clients demands. 38 Faced with such a formidable political<br />
environment, foreign planners hope that their proposals are used to aid decisions by<br />
politicians and the affected population. Ideally, the implementation of the plan was left to<br />
the local authorities and planners to abide by the plan, amend it or discard it based on<br />
concurrence and feedback. In sum, the failure of Arar's Doxiadis Plan was a function of<br />
several factors one of which was the foreign planner's inattention to the sociopolitical and<br />
physical environment of the host country.<br />
The explosive 1970s population growth added to the chaotic urban growth of Arar.<br />
The Arar experiment was a testimony to the failure of the perfunctory, wholesale grand<br />
design approach to cities. The Doxiadis experiment corroborates the axiom that cities are<br />
dynamic and complex urban systems, inhabited by social actors involved in an ever<br />
growing, learning process. It proves that successful top-down, urban planning is only an<br />
illusion.
278<br />
F. Piecemeal Development: Land Subdivisions in the 1970s<br />
Arar was yet to experience the most dramatic growth in its forty year old history.<br />
According to a survey by Doxiadis Associates in 1973, 2,382 households lived in houses<br />
comprising four major types of structures: 738 concrete houses, 532 mud units, 402 units<br />
of the biout sha'abiyah type (i.e. built of cement bricks and organized around a<br />
courtyard), and shantytowns. Like many Saudi cities, Arar was to benefit from the<br />
generous allocation in the modernization of the national economy by the central<br />
government, especially the housing programs. Being the major urban center and the capital<br />
of the Northern Province, one of the Kingdom's five provinces, Arar's development was<br />
only a matter of time.<br />
Although Arar's municipality paid respect to the general framework of Doxiadis<br />
Master Plan of 1974, the detailed program of land uses and circulation space were not<br />
adhered to and their was not compatible growth between the various land uses, community<br />
space and recreation as detailed in the Plan. Residential development deviated from the<br />
specified program, mainly due to the very nature of the government land distribution<br />
program which enabled many residents to obtain land through bureaucratic rationing rather<br />
than through the market place. It was also partially due to the uncoordinated allocation of<br />
resources, funds and land, to the various public and social services in an organized<br />
fashion. 39<br />
In the wake of the dramatically improved economic environment in the 1970s, land<br />
speculation flared as large sums of state funds were channeled into the physical<br />
environment. Residential land development proceeded in the form of (1) legal land<br />
subdivisions authorized by the municipality and (2) squatter settlements at the outskirts,<br />
especially on government land. Moreover, the various government agencies struggled to<br />
solicit funds from the central state for their projects while locally they competed to seize<br />
whatever land that fulfilled their needs. Residents sought land through the private market<br />
as well as through the free land distribution programs to take advantage of the REDFs<br />
convenient loans which enabled many citizens the access to the formal housing market.<br />
Upon its transfer to private ownership, land was platted into smaller lots for market<br />
speculation. Municipally sanctioned subdivisions were guaranteed government utilities<br />
(water, electricity and telephone) and public services such as schools, health clinics,
279<br />
mosques and the like. The number of residential lots jumped from 2,382 in 1972 to<br />
10,930 in 1989 (Figure 7.10). 40<br />
The outcome has been a continuous process of peripheral land growth, though<br />
considerable platted land lay undeveloped in Arar proper. The number of construction<br />
permits issued by Arar's municipality increased steadily from 87 permits per year in 1973<br />
to and peaked at 1,598 in 1977 (Table 6.1). To meet the rising demand for land by citizens<br />
who sought the benefits associated with the REDF loans, in particular, and other<br />
government promotional subsidies, in general, Arar's Municipality distributed land free of<br />
charge to qualified applicants as shown in Table 7.2.<br />
Table 7.2<br />
Land Subdivisions, Commercial, Recreational and Industrial<br />
Subdivisions Approval Date Number of Developed Vacant Lots<br />
lots Lots<br />
Old Arar* Pre-1970s 3,300 3,000 300<br />
Al-Mosadiyah 1977 895 785 110<br />
Al-<strong>Faisal</strong>iyah 1977 2,058 1950 108<br />
Al-Aziziyah 1980 1,185 1,031 154<br />
Al-Salehiyah 1981 3,340 541 2,799<br />
A1 Mansuoriyah 1988 1,634 na na<br />
Badanah 1988 962 na na<br />
Arrabowah 1989 822 na na<br />
Commercial (area)** - - 9.5 hectare<br />
Parks (area) - - 23.9 hectare<br />
Industrial Uses<br />
-<br />
520 na<br />
* "Old Arar" denotes Mohamaddiyah and Al-Khaldiyah residential communities which<br />
include the "Tapline Houses" and land subdivisions that were part of the 1960s Plan. **<br />
The Municipality builds and leases at nominal prices the majority of Arar's commercial land<br />
uses.<br />
The process of land subdivision surpassed Doxiadis' 840 hectares for a population of<br />
31,100 by the year 2,000. By 1986, Arar's population rose to 65,000 and the city's land<br />
uses covered an area of 2,600 hectares, thanks to the unchecked process of land<br />
subdivision and the conversion of large tracts of public land which surrounded Arar to<br />
specific "government land" uses (Table, 7.2 and 7.3).<br />
G. The Urban Domain, 1980s<br />
The oil-related dramatic changes of the 1970s and the 1980s bestowed Arar with a 24<br />
percent population growth rate per annum, higher than the nation's capital, Riyadh, whose<br />
annual growth rate peaked at 9 percent. Table 6.2 exhibits the phenomenal increase in
280<br />
t way/'' /fit<br />
Figure 7.10<br />
A map of Arar showing land subdivisions (1-6) and major government land uses (in<br />
gray). Source: MOMRA, Urban Domain Development, City of Arar.
281<br />
construction permits issued by Riyadh, Arar and Huraimla' municipalities. The increase in<br />
number of permits reflected the impact of massive public and largely government-led and<br />
subsidized private investment in the cities' physical infrastructure, education and health<br />
services, among others. For example, by 1989, Arar's residents received 6,646 REDF<br />
housing loans which added to the city's residential stock of 7,975 units, most of which<br />
were built on larger lots (i.e. 20 by 20 meters and larger) than the earlier ones. 41 During<br />
the 1980s, the government embarked upon its large-scale development schemes, such as<br />
the Ministry of Interior's 420-unit housing development for its ISF members which was<br />
located outside the Doxiadis Plan (Figure 7.2). 42 The expansion of the city's residential<br />
stock was paralleled by the expansion in government land. By 1987, Arar boasted a<br />
population of 65,000 inhabitants, more than double the projected figure by Doxiadis<br />
Associates for 1993. The combined effects of government spending and population<br />
growth coupled with improved living conditions of the population, all translated in the<br />
expansion of Arar's area. In 1987, the city reached a total area of 2,600 hectares (Table<br />
7.3)43<br />
Arar's development in the 1970s took the typical land subdivision approach., that is<br />
the platting of outlying land to meet rapid population growth. Because there were no taxes<br />
levied on property in the Kingdom, land owners kept land in their possession for long<br />
periods of time with no incentive to develop. Buyers sought larger lots through the<br />
government free land program or through the market at the city's periphery. This resulted<br />
in the scattered, leap-frog development process, and inefficient urban sprawl characteristic<br />
of most Saudi contemporary urban forms, in which considerable land lay undeveloped.<br />
For example, in Arar, out of the total 10,930 lots comprising Arar's urban area, 3,560 or<br />
33 percent remained undeveloped. 44 The end result was scattered land subdivisions semideveloped<br />
and serviced at substantial per-unit costs.<br />
In order to counter this inefficient, costly sprawl, the government halted the issuing<br />
of land subdivisions in all Saudi cities 45 for two years during which deliberations by<br />
government agencies facilitated the promulgation of the Urban Domain (Royal Decree<br />
number 175 dated 18/9/1409H (circa 1989)). 46 The UD constitutes a set of guidelines<br />
limiting peripheral land development to two domains for a town or a city. It identified<br />
existing land uses, growth patterns and future needs for the two domains. The first domain<br />
encircled the existing urban area limiting the area to be serviced by the government by 1415
282<br />
(1995). The second domain enveloped the first domain and identified land suitable for<br />
development until the year 1425H (Figure 7.11). According to the UD, land laying within<br />
the second domain would not qualify for government free services, until needed services in<br />
the first domain were met, though exceptions abound. Unlike the master plan approach,<br />
the UD set guidelines and criteria for development leaving to the individual municipalities<br />
the details of everyday activities, according to the ratified royal decrees, statutes and<br />
ministerial circulars issued at the central level.<br />
According to the UD of 1989, the total approved area for development in Arar was<br />
925 hectares. The UD's first domain which identifies developable land up to 1995 allowed<br />
for an area of 6,785 hectares. The second domain sanctioned another 2,240 hectares by<br />
2005, in addition to the approved area of 7,710 hectares in 1995. In total, Arar's UD<br />
earmarked a total area of 9,950 hectares by 2005 as developable, urban land. 47 Table 7.3<br />
illustrates the UD listing of existing and future projections. Table 7.3 identifies land uses<br />
and their respective areas. Government land, public and "private", accounts for 2,134<br />
hectares or 82 percent of Arar land uses. The residential uses account for 14 percent of the<br />
city's area. Through its REDF, military housing and land distribution policies, the<br />
government has been instrumental in the production of the housing units which comprise<br />
suburban growth (80% of Arar's housing units were REDF financed). For instance, the<br />
REDF alone has helped in the construction of 4,340 housing units totaling SRI,186.7<br />
billion ($330 million), or an average of SR273,425 ($78,000) per unit.<br />
As such, and especially outside the Tapline Houses, the state has set the general<br />
goals, policies, strategies, priorities and guidelines for development, thanks to its financial<br />
contribution. Through its master plans, the state outlined the structure and components of<br />
the modern physical environment. Through its massive allocation in modernizing the Saudi<br />
society and its urban systems, the government has relied on oil revenues to engage the<br />
society in an ever increasing urban and economic development. Through the creation of<br />
employment in the public sector and lucrative measures to establish a modern private sector<br />
from naught, the state has orchestrated the national march toward modernization, thereby<br />
dwarfing the market forces. By doing so, the state has envisioned the future and, through<br />
its pro-development intervention, has preempted the course of urban development for<br />
decades to come with a careful mix between modernization (e.g. Western planning) and<br />
tradition (i.e. government and municipal structures conducive to the reproduction and<br />
sustenance of the prevailing national political structure), all reflected on the contemporary
283<br />
Figure 7.11<br />
The Urban Domain for Arar which designated developable are up to 1995 (A),<br />
developable area up to 2005, and the city boundaries (outer line). Source: MOMRA,<br />
Urban Domain Development, City of Arar.
284<br />
Table 7.3<br />
Area of Land Uses As Listed in the Urban Domain of Arar (in hectares)<br />
Land Uses Existing Area Existing Area Needed Land by Needed Land<br />
(%) 1995 by 2015<br />
Residential 365 14.00 227.00 307<br />
Commercial 52 2.00 8.5 18<br />
Mixed (Comm. Res.) 48.78 1.90 15 25<br />
Industrial 3.75 0.15 50 75<br />
Government (public)* 159.80 6.15 58.5 33.50<br />
Government (private)** 693.90 26.70 693.9 -<br />
Public Services/Utilities 157 6.00 56 88<br />
Agriculture 3.75. 0.15 - -<br />
Historical - - - -<br />
Open Space 30 1.15 25 15<br />
Restricted Areas 440 16.90 2,500 150<br />
Land for Future Developable 646 24.90 2,122.5 1,528.5<br />
Total Area 2,600 100 5,756.4 2,240<br />
Total (cumulative) 2,600 - 8,356.4 10,596.4<br />
* Area designating Government (public) denotes local and regional administrative services.<br />
** Denotes governmental land that is currently or reserved for military and security<br />
departments. Source: Atlas of Saudi Cities: Urban Domain (1989), 15.
285<br />
built environment, all consistent with the political system's traditional character and<br />
contributing to the sustenance of the socio-political and economic status quo.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
From an industrial complex on the Tapline oil corridor, Arar emerged as a regional<br />
urban center serving political, economic and military functions as well housing a population<br />
of 65,500 inhabitants. The birth of Arar in 1950 represents the restructuring of the modern<br />
national urban network according to the emerging oil economy and under the auspices of<br />
the nation-state. The shift from traditional-subsistence town economies- manifest in -<br />
maritime and caravan trade centers, oasis settlements and hamlets- to a modern ones chiefly<br />
dependent on oil production and central government's backing signaled an irrevocable<br />
process of urbanization. As the significance of the Tapline project to the national economy<br />
diminished in the mid 1970s, the political importance of the town emerged as the major<br />
force behind Arar's accelerated urban growth. Originally built for pure economic reasons,<br />
that is, to meet the logistics of oil transportation, Arar's subsequent growth reflected the<br />
national government's political goals, viz as a military outpost and an administrative service<br />
center for one of the Kingdom's barren regions.<br />
The nation-state in its efforts to cultivate massive oil resources has effectively<br />
participated in the urbanization of the desolate northern region through the redistribution of<br />
oil income to all regions, including the Northern Province, by creating jobs and investment<br />
in the build environment. Arar was endowed with government departments which brought<br />
the previously industrial camp into a status capable of serving the needs of the region's<br />
population as well as to fulfill national security goals and symbolize the monarchy's<br />
suzerainty.<br />
Arar's planned growth intermittently witnessed the proliferation of haphazard growth<br />
in the form of shantytowns. Arar's development typified modern urban planning practices<br />
in Saudi Arabia manifest in the major phases of platting grid-iron land subdivisions, the<br />
less-than successful experiment with a master plan, and the latest, seemingly pragmatic<br />
Urban Domain approach. All Arar's growth phases, save the original oil complex built by<br />
the Tapline, conformed to the national codes of urban design and legislation. The<br />
uncoordinated implementation of numerous urban growth-related decrees by the central
286<br />
government and the lack of adequate planning expertise stood as the major damper against<br />
the realization of otherwise progressive pro-growth policies. The ISF planned community,<br />
though built at a higher cost per-housing unit, presents an example of controlled large-scale<br />
urban planning experiment in which some design values (e.g. respect for privacy,<br />
calculated separation between pedestrian and motor traffic movement, and organized<br />
allocation of community services in space) were adhered to. In contrast, the relaxed<br />
systems of the REDF housing program and land distribution policies encouraged scattered<br />
peripheral growth. Still, the outcome is an inevitable physical growth which resembled<br />
most Saudi contemporary built forms: urban sprawl based on the grid system and the villa<br />
model, thanks to the REDF generous housing loans and the free land policies.
287<br />
Notes to Chapter VII<br />
1 Helmut Mejcher, "Saudi Arabia's "Vital Link To The West': Some Political, Strategic and Tribal<br />
Aspects of the Transarabian Pipeline(TAP) in the Stage of Planning 1940-1950," Middle Eastern<br />
Studies 18 (October, 1982): 371.<br />
2 Mejcher, 359.<br />
^ Peter Mansfield, The New Arabians (Chicago: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Co., 1980), 68-70.<br />
4 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Selected Documents of the International<br />
Petroleum Industry, Saudi Arabia- Pre-1966 (Buffalo, New York: William S. Hein & Co., Inc.,<br />
1983), 55.<br />
5' Arabian American Oil Company, Aramco Handbook: Oil and the Middle East (Netherlands: Enschede<br />
en Zonen-Haarlem, 1968), 152.<br />
6 Doxiadis, Arar, Existing Conditions, Final Report No. 5 (1974).<br />
7 King Saud's reign was a period of ambivalence, Saud was caught in a whirlpool of tradition versus<br />
modernity which was brought about by increasing pressure from within the country's leading sectors as<br />
well as outside, both by friends and foes (see chapter two of this study). Development brought changes<br />
in the society, which in turn yearned for a larger share in the national resources and the national<br />
decision-making process.<br />
8 Doxiadis Associates, Northern Region: Urban and Regional Plan and Program for Improving Existing<br />
Conditions , Final (Revised) Report No. 1, Volume 1 (Athens, Greece: Doxiadis Associates, 1974),<br />
146.<br />
9 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Statistical Year Book 20th<br />
Issue, 1409H (1989), 635.<br />
The role of government has been instrumental to the development of modern economies based on<br />
government employment, services and development programs in agricultural as well as urban<br />
settlements. For example, Al-Shamli, in northern Saudi Arabia's Hail region, a town of 130<br />
dwellings, the government sector employs 32% while agriculture accounts for 12%. Al-Saghra of the<br />
Al-Baha district, is inhabited by a population of 32,000. The leading employer is government which<br />
employs 30%, followed by commerce 27%. and agriculture and construction which both employ 13%.<br />
In 1983, Al-Ju'ranha in Makkah's district had a population of 1,700 living in 310 dwellings (and 1,100<br />
vacant lots in modern subdivisions). The government sector was the leading sector accounting for<br />
55%, followed by transport (21%) and trade (15%) all giving the tertiary sector a ninety percent share in<br />
the town's economy. The agricultural sector employed only 3%. Muhammad Aslam Mughal," Land<br />
Use in Rural Settlements of Saudi Arabia- Transition and Prospects," In Al-Ankary and El-Bushra,<br />
Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi Arabia (1989).<br />
11 The modified form of this dwelling type prevalent in ahieaa Sha'abiyah is essentially an introverted<br />
housing unit organized around the courtyard. It also called biout Sha 'abiyah (houses or residence of<br />
the masses).
288<br />
12 Doxiadis Associates (September, 1974).<br />
13 This may be attributed to the Tapline's lack of interest; in their attempt to reap the greatest profits<br />
possible, Tapline might have justified the building of modern communities though lacking appropriate<br />
services, on the basis that the prevailing traditional and nomadic population would not appreciate such<br />
modern novelties.<br />
Royal Decree no. 8/6/1607 dated 15/9/1365H. (1935) dictated that undocumented or undeveloped land<br />
belonged to the state, henceforth.<br />
15 MOMRA's Circular no. 1855/4 dated 6/6//1390H. (1970) based on Royal Decree no. 5774 dated<br />
26/3/1390H. authorized the transfer of residential land from the Tapline to Saudi workers free of charge.<br />
Both decisions were built on Royal Decree no. 2720/1 dated 9/5/1376H. (1956) which gave Aramco's<br />
workers free land to build their units which were financed by Aramco. MOMRA, 1975, Volume II,<br />
157.<br />
16<br />
See for example, Royal Decree no. 2/1/13/1009 dated 17/6/1374H.(1954), no.l 1003 dated 8/5/86H<br />
(1966), no. 24540 dated 1/12/1388H., and MOMRA's Circular no. 563/3 dated 26/2/1387H. (waw)<br />
gave control over peripheral land to municipalities. According to Circular no. 23/5 dated 17/1/1395H.<br />
and 381/5 dated 16/11/1395H. (waw) municipalities were urged to speed up the distribution of free land<br />
to limited-income citizens to counter the illegal take over of public and private land by poor<br />
immigrants. Circular no. 211/5 dated 6/7/1398H., for example, attribute the proliferation of squatter<br />
settlements in various Saudi settlements to the slow distribution of free land by municipalities.<br />
17 The conditions concerning construction and freedom to sell or rent were dropped In 1981, the year<br />
which alone witnessed the distribution of 46,000 lots free of charge (Council of Ministers Order no. 59<br />
dated 19/4/1401H. and 9698 dated 28/4/1401H and(C.1981)).<br />
18 Circular number 15/5 dated 14/1/1398H. (waw) referred to municipal land and Circular number 1700<br />
dated 25/4/1398H. (waw) concerned rural land. However, Circular number 1700 dated 25/4/1398H.<br />
(waw) concerns land lying in villages and "cluster villages." It lists prices per square meter ranging<br />
between SR 1 and SR4 (approximately $.25-$1.00).<br />
19 For more details, refer to Royal Decrees no. 11003 dated 8/5/86H (1966), no. 437 dated 1/6/1398H (c.<br />
1978), and no. 59 dated 19/4/1401 (c. 1981) concerning criteria for low-income groups (LIG) to qualify<br />
for free land. Some of the conditions attached to an LIG's grant that he or she is 18 years or older,<br />
must not own land or has previously obtained a REDFs loan. He or she must build within a five-year<br />
duration and may not sell or rent the property without due process. The 1401H legislation was<br />
amended in the Council of Ministers' Decision number 153 dated 9/7/1407H. (1987).<br />
20 High Commission for the Development of Riyadh. Madinat Arriyadh: Lamahat Mukhtasarah (Riyadh<br />
City: Brief Aspects) (Riyadh: Al-Obaican Press, c. 1989), 2.<br />
21 Government legislation concerning the development of squatter settlements has been ambivalent. On<br />
the one hand, there is strict interest in obliterating shantytowns within the urban areas (e.g. Council of<br />
Ministers' Decision no. 977 dated 3/7/1388H. empowered municipalities to demolish shantytowns).<br />
On the other hand, the government has been considerate toward the impoverished and "limited-income"<br />
groups. For example, Royal Decrees no. 2410 dated I7/1/1386H and no. 1003 dated 8/5/1386H and<br />
Circular no. 961 dated 21/4/1386H (waw) stipulated that squatters who own no land are entitled to land
289<br />
free of charge. If such person was constructed a building on private land then his/her dwelling should<br />
be demolished. However, if a person attempted building on public land, he or she was given the chance<br />
to buy it and abide by current zoning regulations. Circulars 218/5 dated 18/7/1402 (waw) and 1528/11<br />
(meem) dated 16/11/1401H (both based on Royal Decree no. 24422 dated 16/11/1401H 961) authorized<br />
the creation of a special task force to review squatter settlements. Dwellings built before 1385H were<br />
ordered to be demolished and dwellers were given instead a 400-m^ lot in a platted area. Royal Decree<br />
no. 24422 dated 11/10/1400H. outlined measures to curtail the development of shantytowns.<br />
22 This tendency toward militarization was aptly discussed in N. Safran. Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless<br />
Quest for Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988).<br />
23 in return for their war services against the Turks, Sharief Hussein's sons, <strong>Faisal</strong> and Abdullah were<br />
rewarded by Winston Churchil, then head of the British Middle East Department, as monarchs for the<br />
newly established Transjordan and Iraq, then under the British. See for example, E. Monroe, Philby of<br />
Arabia (London: Quartet Books, 1980), 107.<br />
24 The significance of Arar was further highlighted by the Gulf War incidents, for the town lies 63<br />
kilometers from the Saudi-Iraqi border.<br />
25 The ISF is a branch of the Ministry of Interior, while the National Guard is a separate entity directly<br />
connected to the King, who holds the position of the Comman'der in Chief of the national security<br />
apparatus.<br />
26 Ministry of Interior, Urban Design and Community Development In Saudi Arabia: A Case Study:<br />
Internal Security Forces Housing Project, Vol. 1 (Jeddah: Tihama, no date), 9.<br />
27 Ministry of Interior, Urban Design and Community Development In Saudi Arabia: A Case Study:<br />
Internal Security Forces Housing Project, Vol. 2 (Jeddah: Tihama, no date),. 13.<br />
28 This is a high cost when compared to the cost of an average REDF loan of SR273,425 in Arar. A fair<br />
comparison must include the cost of land (a highly fluctuating value), the cost of servicing and laying<br />
infrastructure and social services, landscaping, construction standards, and other public utilities which<br />
are comparable to those found in the ISFs project.<br />
29 s. A1 Hathloul and A. Amroush, "The New Cities and the Regional Planning Strategies: The Cities of<br />
Tapline in Saudi Arabia," Unpublished paper presented to the "New Cities" Symposium (Jubail Saudi<br />
Arabia, Rabi'a Aththani 24-28,1409, December 3-7,1989), 29 (translated from Arabic).<br />
Doxiadis Associates, Northern Region: Urban and Regional Plan and Program for Improving Existing<br />
Conditions , Final (Revised) Report No. 5, Volume 1 (Athens, Greece: Doxiadis Associates, 1974),<br />
220. Approximate translation from Arabic text.<br />
Doxiadis Associates, Arar, Existing Conditions, Report No. 5 (1974), 223.<br />
32 ibid, 220 (translation from Arabic).<br />
33 The master plan based on the standard super block concept was used in Riyadh, which was largely<br />
duplicated as the "base blue-print" for other Saudi towns studied by Doxiadis Associates.
290<br />
34 it could also be attributed to the lack of (1) control, (2) clear perception of users and (3) the long-term<br />
range of the Doxiadis plan. In the case of the ISF housing development, the authority was vested in<br />
the Department of Housing in the Ministry of Interior whose planners maintained full control on<br />
dispensing land and funds to house specific users, at one point in time.<br />
Doxiadis Associates, Northern Region, Major Plans: Arar, Final Major Plan, No. 40, April, 1975.<br />
(Athens and Riyadh, Doxiadis Association).<br />
36 By forgoing the opportunity to synchronize population growth and demand for land, distributing free<br />
land, and the provision of community services and the laying of infrastructure, the government missed<br />
the chance to control urban sprawl.<br />
37 See additional discussion in Chapter Five.<br />
38 in autocratic political systems, planning firms are likely to be encouraged, if not explicitly requested to<br />
stay aloof of local politics and distributional issues and to avoid information that might reveal<br />
shortcomings on the part of their clients, e.g. a state.<br />
39 An example of urban development with full programmed government control over the distribution of<br />
land and suitable community services is the ISF housing development in Arar.<br />
40 Doxiadis Associates, Northern Region, Major Plans: Arar, Final Major Plan, No. 40, April, 1975.<br />
(Athens and Riyadh, Doxiadis Association), 40; Special Report, "Arar" Al-Baladiyat, No. (1989): 14-<br />
21.<br />
41 Special Report, "Arar" Al-Baladiyat, No. (1989): 14-21. The number of loans may not equal the<br />
number of units. A loan may be obtained to build a multi-unit apartment building.<br />
42 As discussed in the section on land tenure, Chapter Five, the government ministries share the<br />
responsibility of the bulging modern Saudi urban forms. Because their urban projects call for the<br />
construction of large compounds and communities, it is procedurally easier and cheaper for departments<br />
to request peripheral parcels of land which are usually owned by the government rather than seeking<br />
intown land, geared toward individual buyers in the private market. Moreover, its difficult to deal with<br />
intown land when ownership is in the hand of many individuals.<br />
43 MOMRA, Atlas of Saudi Cities, Existing Conditions (Riyadh: Deputy Ministry for City Planning,<br />
1987), 29.<br />
44 MOMRA, Atlas of Saudi Cities, The Urban Domain (Riyadh: Deputy Ministry for City Planning,<br />
1989), 30.<br />
45<br />
Royal Decree No. 13 dated 9/1/1406H (c. 1986).<br />
4^ The government's effort to inhibit urban sprawl goes back to 1977. Royal Decree 117 dated<br />
25/8/1397H. addressed the need to come up with solutions to the problems. These efforts culminated<br />
in Royal Decree No. 13 dated 9/1/1406H.
291<br />
47 A1 Hathloul and Amroush (1988) list 1987 figures of Arar's area. Citing an earlier version of the UD,<br />
they contend that Arar's land needs for the first domain (up to 1995) are 414 hectares and another 549<br />
hectares until 2005. Such estimates are based on the existing city area of 925 hectares as listed in the<br />
Saudi Cities Atlas, Existing Conditions of 1987. However, the Saudi Atlas, Urban Domain was<br />
based on studies summarized in the Saudi Cities Atlas, Existing Conditions. The UD which was<br />
sanctified in 1989 lists an existing area of the city at 2,600 hectares (as opposed to the 925 hectares<br />
originally listed in the 1987 estimates).
CHAPTER VIH<br />
STATE-LED URBANIZATION TRANSFORMS AGRARIAN FORMS:<br />
HURAIMLA, FROM AGRARIAN SETTLEMENT TO REGIONAL<br />
ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER<br />
Huraimla is an old agricultural settlement, one of the many agrarian constellations<br />
dotting the Saudi Najdi region. Its morphology and socioeconomic system closely<br />
resembled and shared, though at a smaller scale, the overall attributes of Najd's preindustrial<br />
settlements. Although it experienced considerable influence in the relatively<br />
precarious war environment engulfing Najdi towns and villages, unlike Riyadh, Huraimla<br />
did not benefit from locational characteristics, such as the proximity to the larger wadis and<br />
was not located on an established trade route. Instead, this, the little settlement acquired<br />
agricultural means to sustain its subsistence.<br />
Like most Saudi towns and villages, Huraimla was soon to enjoy the sponsorship of<br />
the central government. Though at a less considerable fashion than major cities,<br />
Huraimla's quaint village-like form was gradual witness to unprecedented development<br />
conforming to the major political and economic trends sweeping the Saudi society and its<br />
urban system. For instance, Huraimla's population, which was estimated at 500<br />
inhabitants in the late 1910s gradually increased to 3,870 by 1974 and reached 5,500 in<br />
1986. 1 Between 1975 and 1987, Huraimla's population increased from 3,900 to 5,500<br />
(or 3% per annum) while the total developed area of the traditional, old town increased<br />
from 47 hectares to 407.62 hectares. Density decreased from 126 inhabitants per hectare in<br />
the compact, old town to 14 inhabitants per hectare in the post-1968 "city." 2 With the<br />
increased central government's role in the settlement's local affairs and financial support,<br />
Huraimla was given its own bureaucracy: an imarah (house of ameer, principality or<br />
governorship) headed by the ameer who presided over the various nascent government<br />
departments' branches, namely schools, a health clinic and a police station. 3 Not only did<br />
these "modern" functions add new land uses to the traditional settlement's built form, but<br />
also the new functions generated migration disrupting the historical population stasis, for<br />
due to better living conditions, the population demanded more and better urban facilities.<br />
Huraimla began to witness the pulse economic growth that was caused, first, by<br />
increased oil revenues, which created new jobs in the modern economy and led to the<br />
emergence of a new division of labor outside the traditional subsistence economy
293<br />
(inevitably calling for the importation of out-of-town immigrants, some of whom came<br />
from nearby countries). Second, with disposable income in the residents' hands, the urban<br />
economy prospered. For example, with more outsiders in town, demand for new housing<br />
units ensued, which in turn called for growth in the construction sector's employment. The<br />
improvement in households' income also resulted in the diversification and growth of<br />
commercial uses and services. The simple, traditional socioeconomic structure of the<br />
agrarian village has drastically been altered in response to the new changes and multiplying<br />
effects associated with the modernization programs of the government enlisting oil<br />
resources in the development of the nation's urban system(s). The goal of this chapter is to<br />
outline the relationship between state-led development and the impact of such intervention<br />
on Huraimla's urban development and form.<br />
In this chapter, I will first discuss the locational and physical attributes of Huriamla.<br />
Next, I will give a brief narration of the agrarian town's history and development, which<br />
typifies the dominant cultural forces that shaped pre-industrial forms in Saudi Arabia, in<br />
general, and Najdi towns, in particular. In the remaining part of the chapter, I will focus<br />
on the urban development of Huraimla's traditional and contemporary forms with particular<br />
emphasis on political forces sweeping Najdi town and, following the consolidation of the<br />
nation-state, on the state's impact on the transformation of the local built environment.<br />
I. LOCATION AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS<br />
Huraimla is located in the Central Province, Najd, 86 kilometers north west of<br />
Riyadh, the seat of the central government. Huriamla houses the amarah and municipality<br />
for the Ashsha'eeb sub-region as well as the seat for branches of various ministries, hence<br />
serving as the administrative center for the sub-region of Ashsha'eeb. Ashsha'eeb refers to<br />
the relatively low, flat area formed by escarpments suffusing the desert basin which is<br />
confined by rugged terrain of low mountains.<br />
Ashsha'eeb comprises a number of arterial wadis and tributaries whose meager<br />
though crucial running water explained the emergence of several villages and towns, Al-<br />
Gareenah, Sodoos, Malham, Salboukh and Al-Barrah, all dominated by Huraimla.<br />
Huraimla is located at the confluence of the major wadis suffusing Ashsha'eeb's basin<br />
(Figure 8.1 and 8.2). Along with its relatively developed system of walls, the
294<br />
,^\ , ' •<br />
• v. *,>&>*>, , Huraimla<br />
•-"TO :; J ' > • ' '<br />
//I<br />
Figure 8.1<br />
Map of Saudi Arabia<br />
(inset) shows the<br />
location of Huraimal.<br />
It also shows the treelike<br />
system of valleys<br />
and the location of<br />
Huraimla at the locus<br />
of network of<br />
tributaries. Source:<br />
Esa (1986).<br />
i±r v<br />
'»<br />
-7V<br />
( * .<br />
L. V<br />
J ^/S<br />
/< » <br />
A<br />
/ y w rfv. \ ;i<br />
,-, r<br />
Figure 8.2<br />
Huraimla is<br />
surrounded with a<br />
larger area of<br />
farmland, a factor<br />
which bestowed its<br />
inhabitants with<br />
sustenance and<br />
enticed predators.<br />
Source: A1 Tua'is<br />
(1979).
295<br />
Ashsha'eeb's topography helped residents in securing a steady, though sluggish and<br />
precarious, development during the last four centuries. According to the 1974 census,<br />
Ashsha'eeb sub-region had a population of 6,030 inhabitants. Huraimla alone claimed<br />
3,870 inhabitants (64%) of Ashsha'eeb's total population. By 1987, Huraimla's<br />
population rose to 5,500.<br />
II. HISTORY: GENESIS<br />
Throughout its relatively short history of five centuries, Huraimla has experienced<br />
crucial episodes giving the town its distinctive character among the A'ard region which<br />
includes Riyadh and Diry'ah, the cradle of the A1 Saud house. For example, Huraimla was<br />
the first nominee for Mohammed bin Abdul-Wahhab's drive for religious reform known in<br />
the West as Wahhabism. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab called for the reestablishment of the pure<br />
teachings of the Prophet Mohammed who lived in the seventh century A.D. His reform<br />
zeal set in motion a religious-expansionist drive which culminated in the creation of modern<br />
Saudi Arabia. Huraimla was also the starting point of the second drive to unify the country<br />
under the Al-Saud dynasty following the razing of Dyri'ah by the Ottoman viceroy in<br />
Egypt, Ibrahim Basha in 1811. In 1259H/C. 1824 Huraimla's ruler, Hamad A1 Mubarak,<br />
hosted Imam <strong>Faisal</strong> Bin Turky Al-Saud, the grand father of King Abdul-Aziz, the founder<br />
of today's Saudi Arabia, following his escape from captivity in Egypt. Since its<br />
establishment in the ninth century H (c. 15th A.D.), Huraimla secured a leading position in<br />
the ensemble of settlements comprising Ashsha'eeb area. Nearby inhabitants and nomads<br />
visited the settlement for religious advice by its qadi (judge or religious scholar) and for its<br />
market.<br />
Although a reference to Huraimla can be found in pre-Islamic and early Islamic<br />
poems, sources point that the Huraimla area was part of a large territory owned by a<br />
influential Najdi ruler. 4 However, the significant indication for actual physical, building<br />
and agriculture, development goes back to 880H/1460 AD. It is commonly narrated and<br />
accepted that the existing Huraimla was first developed in 1460 by the son of a prominent<br />
tribal chief who lived in Syria. Yousuf Abo-Reeshah was told by his father, who<br />
descended from Najdi origins and probably heard about the location, to immigrate back to<br />
Najd in order to avoid the war then raging between some tribes living in Syria. Putatively,<br />
Abo-Reeshah, following the instruction of his father, found in the relatively bestowed wadi
296<br />
what met his criteria. Abo-Reeshah's sojourn in Huraimla lasted only thirteen years during<br />
which he and his entourage established farms and built houses and encircled the new<br />
investment with a wall which remains extant until today. According to the legend, Abo-<br />
Reeshah decided to return to Syria partially due to the improved situation their. Following<br />
the departure of Abo-Reeshah, the new estate enticed powerful neighbors. Huraimla fell<br />
under the control of Al-U'taiyan and later under the control of ameer Al-O'aiynah, Ibn<br />
Mu'mmar.<br />
Huraimla's second physical development commenced in 1045H (c. 1625 A.D.) when<br />
the A1 Abo-Rabbaa' clan purchased the estate from Ibn Mu'ammar, the ameer of Al-<br />
O'aynah. Under the A1 Abo-Rabbaa', Huraimla prospered and developed sustainable<br />
yields of agriculture and possessed livestock which aroused the interest of the nearby<br />
settlements' rulers. The threat posed by Huraimla's neighbors warranted the construction<br />
of several walls throughout its war-ridden history, a fate which conditioned the agrarian<br />
settlement's traditional morphology. In 1138H (c.1718 A.D.), Huriamla entered a new<br />
epoch following the arrival of Sheikh Abdul-Wahhab Bin Sulaiman Al-Musharraf, the<br />
father of Mohammed Bin Abdul-Wahhab, who founded the eleventh century's Islamic<br />
reform movement (Wahhabism). The arrival of Abdul-Wahhab Bin Sulaiman confirmed<br />
the status of Huraimla in the largely impoverished region as a learning center in Najd.<br />
Following the death of his father, Mohammed Bin Abdul-Wahhab pressed for more reform<br />
which created confrontation by feuding factions of the towns' rulers. Mohammed Bin<br />
Abdul-Wahhab was forced to leave the town following a failed assassination by an enraged<br />
mob. In 1156H (c. 1736 A.D.), Mohammed Bin Abdul-Wahhab left Huraimla to O'yainah<br />
and later to Diry'yah where he and Mohammad Bin Saud, the forebearer of today's Al-<br />
Saud dynasty, agreed to commence the Wahhabi reforms in 1744. Since the departure of<br />
Bin Abdul-Wahhab, Huraimla occupied a secondary role after Diry'yiah, which was under<br />
the leadership of Abdul-Wahhab and Al-Saud.<br />
III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRADITIONAL BUILT FORM<br />
Yosuf Abo-Reeshah's agricultural development occupied an area of 64.9 hectares,<br />
and was surrounded by a formidable wall 3,075 meters long. 5 During Huraimla's warridden<br />
history (c. 1500-1930s) five walls were constructed to shield the town from<br />
marauding Bedouin's and neighboring towns rulers' expansionist attempts. The war<br />
environment that characterized Najdi towns and villages conditioned its morphology. The
297<br />
impact of these series of battles and interludes of peace time can be traced and identified<br />
with the traditional integument of Huraimla, (1) the early, Abo-Reeshah's "scattered"<br />
pattern (880-1045), (2) the compact formation following the control of Huraimla by Abo-<br />
Rabba'a clan, and (3) the (multi-nuclear) compact-scattered growth. 6<br />
A. "Scattered" Development: 880-1045 H. (c.1460-1625 A.D.)<br />
The first structures of Huraimla's precocious v growth were laid by Abo-Reeshah<br />
following his arrival in the Ash'aeeb area (Huraimla) in 880 (c. 1460 A.D.). Abo-<br />
Reeshah's development is primarily defined by a wall, which was later named Hami Abo-<br />
Reeshah. Cognizant of the value of the investment and the threat posed by the marauding<br />
Bedouins nomads and neighboring towns' inhabitants, he swiftly laid a formidable 3,075-.<br />
meter wall system interspersed with thirteen watch towers and three gates. The 20-foothigh<br />
wall rimmed an area of 64.9 hectares of farms, including water wells and buildings.<br />
Abo-Reeshah's wall continued to serve as an outer protective wall for several internal<br />
walled developments in Huraimla and defined developed area during the first two centuries<br />
of its birth.<br />
B. Compact Pattern: 1045H/1625-1233H/1818<br />
During the first two centuries following the departure of Abo-Reeshah, Huraimla's<br />
inchoate development was marked with clusters of structures and farms grouped around<br />
water wells. This pattern was abandoned when the region passed through a period of<br />
insecurity marked by incessant bursts of raids and battles. Huraimla's built form reflected<br />
two overriding factors. On the one hand, Huraimla's residents reeled under persistent<br />
threats from outsiders. Especially in a region that was marked by penury, Huraimla's<br />
tenuous prosperity enticed rancorous interests by neighbors and Bedouins. Faced with<br />
such threats, residents were forced to live close together. On the other hand an atmosphere<br />
of feuds between families had also compelled some dissenting households to build separate<br />
quarters and encircle them with walls. Huraimla experienced a recrudescence of feuds that,<br />
coupled with migrants joining the settlement's growing population, caused the proliferation<br />
of different walled clusters which characterized the town's traditional built form.<br />
However, the process of building did not go outside Abo-Reeshah's walled area.
298<br />
The phase of the compact pattern witnessed the development of three new walled<br />
quarters, all within the confines of the original Abo-Reeshah's wall {Harm Abo-Reeshah).<br />
The oldest of the three walled quarters was that of Al-Hisian which was built during the<br />
second half of the eleventh century Hegira (c. 1630-1680 A.D). Al-Hisian wall was built to<br />
shield Huraimla's residents during a time of increased threat by outsiders. The 437-meter<br />
wall encircled an area of 12,188 square meters (1.2 hectares) and housed all of Huraimla's<br />
inhabitants leaving the farmed area unwalled. Meanwhile, after resurgence of family feuds,<br />
a group of families moved to an area to the northwest of Al-Hisian's quarter and within the<br />
Hami Abo-Reeshah. The new settlement comprised two quarters, Al-Barahah and Al-<br />
Igdah (literally the knot), combined formed a much larger area than the old Al-Hisian<br />
(compact) quarter and offered ample area for future expansion (Figure 8.3). A wall was<br />
constructed around the two new quarters and was named Al-Igdah. Al-Igdah's wall was<br />
462 meters long and encircled an area of 12,312 square meters (1.2 hectares).<br />
As Huraimla's population increased, the process of building new quarters continued,<br />
attesting to an era of prosperity rarely matched by its counterparts in the region. Four<br />
nuclei of new quarters appeared during the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries H. Al-<br />
Malqa and Garrashah were built during the period when Huraimla hosted the prominent<br />
reformer, Mohammed Bin Abdul-Wahhab whose efforts to rejuvenate the pure beliefs of<br />
Islam attracted interested students to the town (c. 1140sH/1740s.). Ibn Abdul-Wahhab's<br />
house lies in this area. The period also witnessed the outcropping of another two new<br />
quarters, Numailan and Al-Henini.<br />
The twelfth century H. brought an outburst of attacks by outsiders. Huraimla's amir,<br />
Hamad A1 Mubarak built a new, wider wall in an effort to offer all the scattered clusters<br />
comprising Huraimla with one, combined wall. The new wall was named Al-jama'ah (or<br />
group) connoting its grouping of the scattered walled areas of Al-Igdaha and AL-Hisian.<br />
The Al-Jama'ah wall was built large enough to include a sufficient area of farmland, which<br />
was sought to give residents security and a necessary supply of food. The Al-Jama'ah wall<br />
was 1,550 meters long, and rimmed an area of 155,688 square meters (15.6 hectares) The<br />
wall system also included thirteen watch towers and five gates. The wall served as the<br />
town's major walled area for the coming two centuries until it fell to ruin during the early<br />
fourteenth century H (c. 1900) and its remains were completely razed by Huraimla's<br />
municipality in 1387H./1968 to allow for the expansion of the town.
299<br />
The historical<br />
development of<br />
Huraimla's system of<br />
walls and quarters<br />
Figure 8.3<br />
• rfu ••• -• .w ""'j 5<br />
. T v:c-:: -v •--:>/<br />
A.-.C- -*'• ..^SM • .J"--' -.- ..<br />
-^p*>* r *fl8OT3te •• v*-"' -' - ' s<br />
reflected the<br />
inhabitants' great<br />
emphasis on security:<br />
(A) designates the first<br />
wall, Hami Abo-<br />
Reeshah, (B) al-<br />
Hisian wall, (C) Al-<br />
Iqdah wall, (D) al-<br />
Jama'ah wall (or Alii<br />
alad), (E) Ibn Gasim<br />
wall (or Soor Ibn<br />
Gasim). Source: Esa<br />
(1986).<br />
•I<br />
Figure 8.4<br />
Traditional Huraimla<br />
before the construction<br />
of the main road<br />
through its compact<br />
quarters. To the east,<br />
new neighborhoods<br />
sprouted with<br />
modifications<br />
accommodate the<br />
increasing number of<br />
cars. Private land<br />
outside the wall was<br />
platted forming<br />
straight streets and<br />
rectilinear lots.<br />
Source: Al-Tua'is<br />
(1970).
300<br />
In an effort to compel the residents of the Al-Hisian's quarter to join the new larger<br />
quarter of Al-Jama'ah, Hamad A1 Mubarak ordered the demolishing of the quarter and its<br />
wall. This action resulted in the addition of two new quarters to the new Al-Jama'ah<br />
quarter, namely Ghusaibah and Ashshahwani during the second half of the twelfth century<br />
H. The compact pattern phase lasted for one century, during which a total of nine quarters<br />
were established. The total area of these quarters constituted forty percent of Huraimla's<br />
extant traditional urban form (i.e. medina) occupying 86.5 hectares. During its compact<br />
patterned growth, Huraimla's built area did not cross the walls of Al-Jama'ah, nor its<br />
developed land, that is agricultural development, crossed the boundaries of Hami Abo-<br />
Reeshah. 1<br />
C. Compact-Scattered Growth: (c. 1140sH/1740s.)<br />
The drive to rejuvenate the essentials of Islam by Mohammed Bin Abdul-Wahhab and<br />
Ibn Saud consolidated the warring factions among Najdi towns by shifting neighboring<br />
settlements' energies from perennial confrontation and violent skirmishes to a common<br />
enemy at the frontier of the rapidly expanding realm of the Wahhabi state. By endorsing<br />
the Wahhabi reform, and in return for peace, Huraimla offered its support and allegiance.<br />
During this respite of peace, new quarters sprouted outside the walled settlement to the<br />
southwest. Houses and farmland proliferated outside Hami Abo-Reeshah for the first time<br />
in Huraimla's development history. Farms outside Hami Abo-Reeshah's wall<br />
accommodated 72 percent of the town's stock of farmland. Simultaneously, the building<br />
process inside the Al-Jama'ah walled mass continued in response to natural increases in<br />
Huraimla's population. During the last decades of the thirteenth century H. (c.1860-1890).<br />
Two new quarters, Mowafig and Al-Wositah grew in response to demand for land by the<br />
growing population. The two quarters added 15 percent of mass to the compacted area of<br />
traditional Huraimla. Nevertheless, the area within the walled Al-Jama'ah compact form<br />
offered sufficient area for growth until the explosive growth of the 1960s (Figure 4).<br />
But the interlude of peace did not last and soon the scourge of war lingered again.<br />
During the 1810s, Ibrahim Basha, the son of the Ottoman viceroy in Egypt, Mohammed<br />
Ali, in an effort to combat the Wahhabis, marched toward Diry'ah in an expeditionary force<br />
with a substantial surplus of tribesman. 8 Basha was instructed to lay waste the capital of<br />
the Wahhabi capital, Diry'ah then under the control of Saud ibn Abdul-Aziz ibn
301<br />
Mohammad (1803-14) the grandson of Mohammad ibn Saud, the co-founder of the<br />
Wahhabi cause. Ibn Saud, who hoped that a well-defended Huxaimla would serve as an<br />
additional defense against the marching forces of Ibrahim Pasha, ordered the ruler of<br />
Huraimla, Musa ibn Gasim, to build the longest wall ever, commonly known as Soor Ibn<br />
Gasim. The 6.5 kilometer wall which surrounded the entire developed territory, buildings<br />
and farms, encircled an area of 2.9 square kilometers (290 hectares). The wall system<br />
included twenty watch towers and several gates. Huraimla managed to survive the scourge<br />
of confronting the unprecedented army of Ibrahim Pasha who, after meeting with<br />
representatives of Huraimla headed by Hamad A1 Mubarak, agreed to safeguard the<br />
destruction of the town.<br />
Following the destruction of the Diry'ah, Najd entered an era of political hiatus<br />
interspersed with waves of disorder. The expansion of Huraimla's traditional physical<br />
environment typifies building processes of pre-industrial Najdi oasis towns. Under<br />
conditions of the perennial war environment, meager water resources, geographic isolation<br />
and adherence to stern Islamic teachings, the traditional Najdi built environment evolved.<br />
In the dramatic developments following the promulgation of the new Saudi nation state, the<br />
Najdi traditional model of physical development ceased to exist, and the traditional built<br />
environment has since undergone a profound metamorphosis under the modern political<br />
economic and technological imperatives. In the remaining part of this chapter, I will<br />
discuss the early, gradual changes which emanated from the new political and economic<br />
order and the later (post-1970s) dramatic incidents which forged the contemporary built<br />
environment in the Kingdom.<br />
IV. POST-UNIFICATION HURAIMLA: TRADITIONAL (1900-1970) GROWTH AND<br />
POST-1970S "PLANNED" GROWTH<br />
The unification of Saudi Arabia under King Abdul-Aziz brought a new era of farflung<br />
security, growth and prosperity. The consolidation of power in the form of a central<br />
state meant the cessation of feuding towns' populations engaging in an ongoing struggle<br />
over the meager resources offered by the desert environment. The establishment of a<br />
modern state ushered in political stability and, due to the discovery of oil in enormous<br />
quantities, economic support under the aegis of the central power focusing the population's<br />
energies toward growth, ostensibly starting in, and reflected upon the physical<br />
environment.
302<br />
Huraimla offers an interesting case study in which an agricultural-based subsistence<br />
economy town gave way to a service economy (by 1982,57% of Huramila's working<br />
force was employed in the tertiary sector, of which the government services, by 1989,<br />
accounted for 55% of the town's labor force). Two particular phases can be discerned in<br />
the urban process which followed the emergence of the nation state in 1932. First, as the<br />
town underwent slow, yet steady economic development, Huraimla grew following a<br />
modified vernacular architecture, using new design styles and imported building materials.<br />
This pattern dominated in the newly built structures until 1968. Second, with the<br />
multiplying of central government's wealth, Huraimla's population increasingly aspired<br />
toward the modem modus vivendi: the wholesale adoption of modem conveniences such as<br />
the car, electricity, and a massive array of consumer goods, made possible by the<br />
government's modernization programs. During this second phase, Huraimla entered a new<br />
era of "planned" growth: marked by centrally-ordained growth controls, eclectic<br />
architecture and the rectilinear layout of lots and circulation space. Because urban planning<br />
as practiced by municipal authorities is based on instructions by the national government, a<br />
process which has been essentially applied equally to most of today's Saudi settlements,<br />
Huraimla's new growth would inevitably resemble other suburban development in other<br />
Saudi settlements. 9<br />
A. Modified Traditional Growth<br />
The confluence of political stability, economic prosperity, and improved health<br />
provisions resulted in steady natural population growth nationwide. The government<br />
allocation in modernization programs, though first targeted for large cities, trickled to<br />
smaller settlements. Despite the national trend of city-ward migration by villagers and<br />
towns' residents to Riyadh and other major cities, Huraimla's population increased<br />
gradually from a mere 500 inhabitants during the late 1910s to 3,870 in 1974 and reached<br />
5,500 by 1987. Demand for new buildings started with vacant areas, within the Al-<br />
Jama'ah wall, by filling open spaces and substituting the old, ramshackle stock.<br />
Nevertheless, the building process during the formative decades of the Kingdom (1930s-<br />
1960s), or prior to 1960s, the decade which witnessed the inauguration of the municipality,<br />
remained within the confines of the Al-Jama'ah wall.<br />
Meanwhile, citizens aspired to the land outside the walled area, for the curving<br />
property lines inside the compact walled town did not suit the trend to larger houses with
303<br />
rectangular forms. In 1965-66 the government authorized the establishment of the<br />
municipality, baladyyah, to serve the growing town and the five settlements comprising<br />
Ashsha'eeb's area (county). 10 In 1968, Huraimla was connected with Riyadh by a tarmac<br />
road, which brought mixed results to the hitherto largely isolated settlement. On the one<br />
hand, it facilitated the transporting of Huraimla's crops to the expanding markets of<br />
Riyadh, hence rejuvenating the town's agricultural sector. On the other hand, with a fast,<br />
easy commute, Huramila's residents more than ever sought the Capital for their shopping<br />
needs, which dealt a blow to commercial activity in the town.<br />
To the north and north-east of the Al-Jama'ah wall, and following the new tarmac<br />
road, new land subdivisions were platted by land owners with the supervision of the<br />
municipal staff. The new neighborhoods were laid down with larger, standardized lots of<br />
15-by-15 meters, to suit the modified traditional house type served with wider, straight<br />
streets (Figures 8.5, 8.6 and 8.7). Moreover, land prices inside the walled settlement were<br />
overinflated making peripheral land more attractive. Lastiy, the new land subdivisions<br />
offered an opportunity to build anew at the improved construction standards in the newly<br />
subdivided neighborhoods, rather than building the "modernized" units and buildings<br />
amidst the ramshackle mud houses with their meandering and narrow circulation space.<br />
Al-Hillah, Assubaikhah, Attawail'ah, Azzaidani, Ashariy'ah, and Um-Alkhawabi,<br />
Al-Khawi, and Almarizah grew in response to the rising demand for larger and better<br />
equipped houses (Figure 8.4: 12-21). The process of converting farmland to subdivisions<br />
was made possible by municipally prescribed growth controls and planning regulations.<br />
Unlike the building processes in traditional built forms, where demand for new land was in<br />
response to actual need for space, contemporary growth has mostly been speculative.<br />
Owners of peripheral farms, who sought municipal approval for platting, opted northern<br />
growth, ostensibly following the tarmac road leading to Riyadh. Moreover, the northern<br />
expansion was inevitable, for the traditional, walled built mass was besieged with wadis,<br />
farms and cemeteries. The new Imarah (principality), the court, the police department and<br />
the municipality were the first to move to the modern part of town.<br />
Meanwhile, the traditional compact walled town seemed anachronistic, its tortuous<br />
and ill-serviced, technologically-lacking mud dwellings did not rhyme with the rising<br />
sentiments of residents in the progressive £lan of modernization sweeping the Kingdom.<br />
Al-Tua'is captured the common attitude,
304<br />
j<br />
IK \<br />
v-^<br />
;i • •_— • ..' -u; r-vf<br />
—-Jr'&A<br />
i<br />
. _<br />
1<br />
igtpfSTPr,„<br />
. ••, 5.. '<br />
305<br />
The built form of present Huraimla embodies the accumulation of years of<br />
political tides which forced its structures to the confines of walls. Its<br />
expansion conformed to the size of its inhabitants, security, and their<br />
superficial and limited vision to the planning of the town [sic], the similitude<br />
of all other villages and cities of Najd up to recent time. The outcome was a<br />
city of narrow alleys, short and meandering streets, some of which are deadends,<br />
non-hygienic and/or covered/roofed, all followed no controls but<br />
random expansion [sic]. 11<br />
B. Urban Planning: Intervention In The Built Environment, The<br />
Introduction Of Municipality<br />
For the purpose of this case study, urban planning is defined as the objective<br />
intervention in the built environment to attain a predetermined set(s) of social goals. On a<br />
larger-scale, it involves the rational application of means to predetermined ends, to regulate<br />
urban growth, given the prevailing means and considering competing alternative. Given<br />
the first definition, the creation of the municipality in 1965 could be considered as the<br />
benchmark for "modern" urban planning in Huraimla. The inauguration of the imarah<br />
(principality), the establishment of a police power, public schools, and municipality<br />
(baladyyah), have been an embodiment of the increasing role of the central state in the local<br />
affairs, including the management of the urban development process. As a government<br />
institution, the baladyyah derives its support and instruction from the Deputy Ministry for<br />
Municipalities and Rural affairs at Riyadh. This means that decisions concerning local<br />
urban growth and management must first be sanctioned by the central agency.<br />
Simultaneously, the baladyyah also implements numerous circulars, decrees and<br />
ordinances that are priori ratified and codified by the Council of Ministers. It also meant<br />
that the customary building practices which characterized the traditional building processes<br />
are subjected to nationally adopted municipal codes. Nevertheless, for the local population,<br />
the establishment of the municipality has been perceived as synonymous with<br />
"modernization."<br />
To Al-Tua'is, as well as to many of Huraimla's inhabitants, the inauguration of the<br />
municipality, with its technical modus operandi, constituted the deus ex machina which<br />
often was perceived as a crucial step toward modernization of their archaic town. The<br />
traditional compact form, with its tortuous, narrow circulation space and partially
306<br />
Figure 8.7<br />
The municipality's<br />
modernization practices took<br />
the form of bulldozing the<br />
town's center to allow for<br />
new building and wider,<br />
straight streets. The new<br />
structures were hastily glued<br />
to the organic fabric without<br />
respect for traditional<br />
architecture and design.<br />
Source: Al-Tuai's (1979).<br />
m GIB estate<br />
rajj)<br />
£S C.j«J<br />
KJa u^r<br />
do<br />
(<br />
Figure 8.8<br />
With more funds, the<br />
municipality has presided over<br />
the modernization of the<br />
quaint traditional built form.<br />
Map shows the impact of<br />
municipal public works such<br />
as the laying of the main road<br />
which penetrated the compact<br />
towns and the demolishing of<br />
some parts to allow for the<br />
construction of new buildings<br />
and streets. Source: Esa<br />
(1986).
307<br />
dilapidated, mud houses had become an impediment in the path to modernity. Al-Tua'is<br />
asserts<br />
Yet, the opening of Huraimla's municipality in 1385/86 (c. 1965) constitutes<br />
an important civilized leap in the history of planning the city [sic]. For it<br />
contributed to its change through the implementation of projects, one after<br />
another, according to plans each, in the long run, suits its [Huraimla's]<br />
progressive period as part of the Kingdom at present. In addition to the<br />
widening of the old streets, [the municipality] also has embarked upon the<br />
demolishing and laying of wide avenues as it aspires to eliminate the<br />
haphazard [sic] layout of the city during the coming twenty years, and the<br />
overseeing of rapid urban growth, the coordination and modern residences<br />
according to styles which suit the needs and hygienic requirements. 12<br />
The municipality has since led the march to a new growth suited to the exigencies of<br />
the modern age. The combined impact of widespread use of the automobile, the increasing<br />
population, rising living standards, and the acculturation brought about by modernization,<br />
all justified seemingly radical intervention by the fledgling municipal staff. 13 Starting with<br />
the demolishing of the Al-Jama'ah historical wall and its gates, the municipality<br />
spearheaded the sudden departure from the vernacular standards of urban design and<br />
building processes which forged the traditional built environment of Huraimla. Inside the<br />
traditional fabric, the municipality embarked upon a program of modernizing the "archaic"<br />
fabric, implementing surgical operations that disemboweled the compact walled settlement.<br />
Since its creation in 1968, in its efforts to "modernize" the ramshackle quarters, the<br />
municipality bulldozed a significant proportion of the meandering alleys of Huraimla to<br />
allow for the construction of new buildings, streets and parking space (Figures 8.5-8.7).<br />
Old buildings that lay in the way of the automobile were mercilessly demolished to allow<br />
for wider, straight streets suited for the car. Al-Tua'is, who marveled at the active role of<br />
the municipality, likened the municipality's intervention as being "civilized touches", that is<br />
the introduction of hygienic standards, implementation of new services and expanding<br />
circulation space to allow access for the increasing traffic brought about by the rising<br />
number of automobiles, despite the loss of the historical buildings. 14<br />
In 1968, the municipal staff presided over the demolishing of the traditional central<br />
suq area of Al-Mashab as part of the municipality's modernization program. The old suq ,<br />
which comprised twenty six small (2 by 3 meters) shops (stalls), some of which stood for<br />
the last 150 years old, was razed. The dilapidated structures were replaced with rows of<br />
larger shops built with concrete. While the need for a larger commercial area (suq) was<br />
justified by the fact that the crammed central area and its tiny shops could not be adopted to
308<br />
the rising demand for upgrading the civic space, the municipal staff neither respected the<br />
prevailing architecture nor the contour of the traditional massed area when it recreated the<br />
new commercial center. In typical haste, the municipality substituted the quaint, organic<br />
fabric with a cacophonous jumble of architectural styles, freestanding and patched to the<br />
old adjacent structures.(Figure 8.8).<br />
Following the construction of the new suq, the municipality turned to the old meat<br />
market, which the staff did not deem compatible with municipal hygienic standards. The<br />
improved town's economy resulted in a rise in income by residents and expatriates who<br />
were imported to work in the various sectors of the economy, hence demand for better and<br />
more local crops and imported goods multiplied. A new specialized market for meat and<br />
produce was constructed in 1969. In addition, a new, well-equipped abattoir was<br />
constructed outside the town offering free service to the town's meat merchants and the<br />
public. The municipality paid the full cost of the two projects which amounted to SR<br />
392,200 ($98,000) a considerable sum by the town's standards during that time.<br />
Meanwhile, the municipal staff was considering a profound move to build a new<br />
roadway which would split asunder the traditional tissue. In 1973, the municipality<br />
completed the construction of the 15-meter wide street which penetrated the old town, and<br />
connected the towns' tree-like circulation network to the road leading to Riyadh (Figures<br />
8.5-8.7). The municipality paid SR600,000 ($150,000) for the compensation of<br />
properties, and the paving and lighting of the central road project. In the process, some of<br />
the buildings were left half-demolished lending a scene reminiscent of a war-torn zone.<br />
The project of the central road did not include funds for landscaping. 15 Nor was minimum<br />
respect paid to the old system of open space. With the destruction of the traditional fabric<br />
to allow for the new road a tenacious network of social ties and neighorhoodness were<br />
shattered as well. Consequently, in addition to the half-demolished dwellings, a tier of<br />
buildings adjacent to the road fell to ruin as residents evacuated the area due to the inroad<br />
on the residents' privacy brought about by traffic generated by the new road (Figure 8.9).<br />
If anything has marked the municipality's enthusiasm for modernity then it was its<br />
undisputed and remarkably negative attitude toward traditional architectural heritage. This<br />
apathy could be attributed to the substantial number of foreign-educated technical staff in<br />
the municipal staff, most of whom were foreigners, hence less attentive to local heritage.<br />
The anti-vernacular attitude must also be blamed on the calculated attempts by the state to
309<br />
fr-xttxw^XvSNsvXvWx^ww&i-xyrX<br />
,"*l 2'^v^ ,<br />
:«'X«Si»<br />
&<br />
R»W:«o¥<br />
MMiiii<br />
*V'K£S"£58W<br />
lii^«lili<br />
, %<br />
Ww*$m<br />
»< > *<br />
&:':yf>xft>>w:^^:-::-\
310<br />
coax the traditional society into modernization. Saleh A1 Hathloul (1981) addresses the<br />
government role in sponsoring large-scale development which borrowed heavily from<br />
western urban design and architecture. Such wholesale adoption of paradigms inspired the<br />
new shift to alien ones. Yousef Fadan (1983) highlights the additional impact of the<br />
government's broadcasting, press and publication campaign on the population's clamorous<br />
substitution of traditional building practices with imported ones. Fadan, commenting on<br />
the unique role of government propaganda in facilitating its developmental goals, states<br />
It was served not only to foster a favorable mode regarding the government<br />
and to build for its political support, but also to create a climate conducive to<br />
national development....More important to realize, however, is that the<br />
information heard on the radio, or read and seen on the pages of newspapers<br />
and publications all complement one another in focusing the public attention<br />
always on national development. 16<br />
According to Fadan, the government-controlled media has provided the "psychosocial<br />
stimuli" to advance its development goals and cajole the population into the<br />
modernization path the state chose to follow in a cautious balance with traditional Islamic<br />
values. Fadan noted,<br />
In fact, in almost all official statements for major projects or development<br />
policies stress the conformity of the goals and policies to the Islamic law and<br />
the society's cultural heritage. On the other hand, terms such as "tamadon"<br />
(civilization), "al-tatawar" al-mi c mmari" (architectural progress), "al-iCmarah"<br />
al-mu c aasirah" (contemporary architecture), "al-taqaddom" (modernization<br />
and progress) are among the many terms presumably utilized to raise the<br />
general level of aspiration and to provide a climate for national<br />
development. 17<br />
The municipality-sponsored projects, including street widening, lighting and garbage<br />
collection, etc., were totally funded by the central state. For example, the municipality's<br />
projects ("improvements") between 1965 and 1973 totaled SR992,000 ($282,857).<br />
Between 1973 and 1976, the municipality contracted projects and services that cost<br />
SR840,395. During 1976, the municipality was contemplating a package of projects<br />
totaling SR20.8 million. In 1976 alone, the municipality presided over projects under<br />
construction that totaled SR4.9 million ($2.8 million). 18 Between 1965 and 1976, the<br />
municipality's staff spent SR40.5 million on various civic tasks, including cleaning,<br />
garbage collection, street widening and the like. During the same decade, the number of<br />
municipality's staff increased from 13 to 33 employees. The municipal staff was also
311<br />
responsible for issuing building and small business permits, supervising the compliance of<br />
construction and businesses to legal and other established growth standards, and also the<br />
platting of subdivisions.<br />
By not being responsible for the financial burden of upgrading the old town and the<br />
provision of community services, such as potable water, garbage collection and the<br />
construction of streets and municipal buildings, and other collectively consumed services,<br />
residents have become the beneficiaries of these government funded projects. As long as<br />
the municipality was willing to pick up the various civic improvement's and services<br />
expenses, residents were expected to do nothing but appreciate and marvel at the palpable,<br />
free services offered by the state. With its adept technical staff, the municipality has placed<br />
itself as the chief player and space organizer in contemporary Saudi urban systems. With<br />
local politics muted, the new imarah and the baladyyah have preempted the decisionmaking<br />
process which traditionally was carried out by local city notables and town's amirs.<br />
Likewise, the newly established government functions, school directory, health and police,<br />
and other administrative agencies, along with the state's sinew and fiscal backing, have<br />
rendered traditional influence of town's notables obsolete. Their traditional roles have been<br />
emasculated and dwarfed by the newly established, well funded government agencies.<br />
Stripped from their political power and status, city notables felt diffident as they could not<br />
match the municipality's 61an and the principality's ultimate control over the everyday<br />
affairs of the local community. In short, the municipality has become the agent for urban<br />
change, the arm the central state could depend upon to facilitate physical transformation<br />
(Figure 8.10).<br />
C. "Planned" Growth: Land Subdivisions In The Traditional Town<br />
Like almost all Saudi settlements, Huraimla's share in oil wealth was inevitable. The<br />
inauguration of the imarah (principality), the establishment of a police power, public<br />
education, and the establishment of the municipality (baladyyah) in 1965, were an<br />
embodiment of the increasing role of the central state (at the local level) in the local affairs<br />
and building practices of Huraimla. Starting with the second national five-year<br />
development plan, the state set explicit guidelines to develop rural areas, partially to mollify<br />
city-ward migration and attain a balanced rural-urban development. 19 The municipality is a<br />
government institution which derives its support and instruction from the Deputy Ministry<br />
for Municipalities and Rural Affairs at Riyadh. This meant that decisions concerning local
312<br />
XT",1^4^<br />
Figure 8.10<br />
The municipality lead<br />
urban development in<br />
Al-Hazm during the<br />
early 1980s: (A)<br />
shows a major<br />
intersection, (B)<br />
Huraimla's new 100-<br />
bed hospital, and (C)<br />
a typical subdivision<br />
comprising central<br />
(Friday) mosque,<br />
park, large asphalt<br />
space, and the villa<br />
type housing<br />
overlooking wide<br />
boulevards which<br />
symbolized status and<br />
perceived compatible<br />
with the new<br />
technology, all<br />
reflected the departure<br />
from traditional<br />
architecture. Source:<br />
Author (1991).
313<br />
urban growth and management must first be authorized by the Deputy Ministry for<br />
Municipal and Rural Affairs at the Capital. Likewise, the municipality also implemented<br />
numerous circulars, decrees and ordinances that are apriori ratified and codified by the<br />
Council of Ministers. It also meant that the customary building practices which<br />
characterized the traditional building processes were supplanted by institutionalized national<br />
municipal codes. The application of these codes en masse at the national level has<br />
contributed largely to similar urban forms in Saudi Arabia. In the pre-industrial, pre-Saudi<br />
urban environments, different regions in the country developed unique morphologies<br />
highly adapted to their physical and cultural systems.<br />
Still, to the local population, the establishment of the municipality has been perceived<br />
as synonymous with "modernization," and an arm of the wealthy state. Already by the<br />
close of the 1960s, Huraimla's growth followed the east and north axis of the new tarmac<br />
road leading to Al-Garinah, a village a few miles to the east, and Riyadh, 50 miles to the<br />
southwest. As land prices rose, farmers converted their farm land into residential uses.<br />
The municipal staff would plat their properties into rectilinear subdivisions, with straight<br />
and wider streets geared toward the accommodation of the automobile. Land was<br />
subdivided according to the gird, with streets 25 feet wide to allow for the car. The new<br />
houses in the area immediately east and north of the demolished al Jama'ah wall, were built<br />
comprising hybrid styles, essentially conforming to the post-mud pattern found in the<br />
ah'yaa ashsha'abiyah (popular neighborhoods or communities) in Riyadh, Arar and many<br />
other Saudi settlements. These units are built on rectangular lots, with no setbacks from<br />
streets and neighbors and, like their predecessors, the mud houses, included a courtyard.<br />
The ah'yaa ashsha'abiyah 's model house is a modified version, a middle-step<br />
residential unit which accompanied the transitional period from the mud house to the<br />
modem villa. It is built with cement bricks and roofs were reinforced with wooden beams.<br />
It was tiled and finished with newly adopted building materials, such as cement tiles, metal<br />
doors, wooden or metal windows with glass and outside shutters. The "post-mud house"<br />
was equipped with electrical wiring and sanitary fixtures, and later with aircooling units.<br />
Figures 8.4 and 8.5 show the differences between the town's organic organization of built<br />
cells and circulation spaces in the old settlement and the new modified neighborhoods<br />
eastern (Ashshariy'ah and Attwail'ah) neighborhoods (Assubaikhah) with orthogonal
314<br />
layouts to the north. Figure 8.11 illustrates the modified post-mud house common to the<br />
ah'yaa ashsha'abiyah.<br />
By the mid-1970s, the municipality had turned from the process of limited surgical<br />
practices of demolishing the historical tissue to allow for larger concrete buildings and<br />
wider streets, to the wholesale laying of land subdivisions according to its standardized<br />
land subdivision by-laws. Land subdivisions 307 and 314 extended the city's built area<br />
north toward the Riyadh-Gasab regional road, while in the historical suq area, land<br />
subdivision number 382 dealt with the redevelopment around the old central mosque in<br />
1980. To the southeast of the historical town, subdivision 329 was also platted. The total<br />
area of new subdivisions (307, 314 and 329) added 21.9 hectares to the walled area, only<br />
two hectares less than the combined area of the twenty two small quarters comprising<br />
traditional Huraimla (Figure 8.12).<br />
But vigorous government spending aimed at development in the 1970s* ushured in a<br />
flurry of construction which rendered the three subdivisions insufficient to meet the<br />
projected needs of public, social services and residential land. For example, the number of<br />
construction permits issued by the municipality increased dramatically from 16 permits per<br />
year in 1971 to 48 permits per year in 1974, and rose steadily to 162 in 1978 (Table 6.1).<br />
Faced with the prospect of skyrocketing land prices in the limited area north of the town,<br />
including subdivisions 307,314 and 329, due to high demand for land, the municipal staff<br />
frantically looked westward, across the wadis and farms besieging the old town for new<br />
land to develop. Despite opposition by residents who invested in northern growth, the<br />
municipality's director spearheaded the effort to win the approval of the central government<br />
to subdivide the Al-Hazm area, two kilometers west of the placid old town. 20<br />
In short, prior to the 1970s, Huraimla's development took the form of creating new<br />
neighborhoods and the demolishing of old, ramshackle structures inside the traditional<br />
fabric by the municipality to allow for new streets and structures. Yet, the piecemeal<br />
practice of demolishing structures for streets, implementing hygienic standards and<br />
documenting building processes in the traditional, walled town was not the only scope of<br />
the municipal staffs activity. During the 1970s, the government extended its free-land<br />
program to enable citizens to build their own homes and businesses. Following the central<br />
government's approval, and to encourage popular west-bound growth, Huraimla's<br />
municipality expedited the delivery of the newly subdivided government land free of charge
315<br />
Figure 8.11<br />
Starting during the 1960s, new neighborhoods grew outside the wall reflecting residents'<br />
improved living conditions. The new houses were designed around the courtyard without<br />
setbacks and with modified architecture adapted to the new novelties (e.g. electricity, air<br />
conditioning and municipal potable water. Source: Author (1991).
316<br />
iiifcES:<br />
iQsai<br />
Figure 8.12<br />
Al-Hazm (New Huraimla) is located approximately 1.5 miles to the west of the compact<br />
walled town. It encompassed land subdivisions (1, 2,3,4,5,6,10, the central<br />
government services, the new sports area, and the industrial zone). Around the old town,<br />
the process of land subdividing continued apace on private, previously farm land 7,8,9,<br />
11,12,13,14,15,16, and 17 (see Table 8.1). Source: MOMRA, Urban Domain for<br />
Huraimla (1991).
317<br />
to virtually all those who applied for a grant. The municipal staff with alacrity hastened the<br />
delivery of needed lots to ministerial departments waiting for land to commence their<br />
projects. The baladyyah commenced the radical shift by presiding over the construction<br />
spree in New Huraimla starting with the construction of its own office complex.<br />
D. Al-Hazm: "New Huraimla" (1979-Present)<br />
According to Al-Tua'is (1979), early builders of Huraimla valued security over<br />
potential natural disasters; since its birth in the ninth century H (14th A.D.) the town has<br />
been under incessant threat from raids and floods. Old Huraimla is besieged by a system<br />
of wadis, tributaries, and creeks from all sides but a small area to the north, which is<br />
obstructed by a deep-cliffed mountain range. Moreover, considerable land lying within<br />
Huraimla's vicinity has been utilized for agriculture; while the remainder was used for<br />
cemeteries, all factors which contributed to the lack of available developable land. Given<br />
population projections, Huraimla's northern option proved incapable to meet the town's<br />
rising needs for land. Despite the opposition by some land owners and residents, who<br />
favored northern growth, Huraimla's municipality's staff vehemently and resolutely led the<br />
effort to move the city to Al-Hazm area, which offered a vast expanse of land, two<br />
kilometers west of the old town. The fact that the Al-Hazm lay in an area that was<br />
government owned served as a stimulating factor to start anew unconstrained suburban<br />
development at standards which matched those followed by the Kingdom's leading cities<br />
(Figures 8.13 and 8.14).<br />
In Al-Hazm, the municipal staff envisioned a central service area (subdivision 398)<br />
housing a modern hospital, a new municipality, schools and an array of public facilities,<br />
whose construction funds had been assured by the central state (Figure 8.15). Al-Hazm<br />
offered a viable alternative to the extant natural constraints to growth in the old town where<br />
land prices skyrocketed and had become an obstacle to growth. Moreover, by moving to<br />
Al-Hazm, the municipality averted the onerous task of squeezing the newly state-offered<br />
projects into the traditional town where developable land was scarce. In addition,<br />
considerable land lying in the walled town and the surrounding farms were owned by<br />
families locked in a maze of inheritance and property rights. This rendered the<br />
expropriation of land for the new projects and new dwellings a formidable task. Such<br />
expropriation would have involved large funds, a factor which also might have resulted in
318<br />
Figures 8.13<br />
By the late 1970s some Huraimla's inhabitants turned to the villa as the preferred type of<br />
residence. However, the wide adoption of the villa was largely due to municipal land<br />
subdivision regulations which established the setback system. Source: Author (1991).<br />
Figure 8.14<br />
A new land subdivision in the Al-Hazm area ("New Huraimla"). Source: Author (1991).
319<br />
lid<br />
t)3acs<br />
• 1 11 iffrhj =3<br />
asin>==| KSBiiSggrg<br />
ecDefrn^s<br />
I li Hllri<br />
iTTTTiggSTl<br />
m<br />
Figure 8.15<br />
Al-Hazm comprised<br />
gridiron-patterned<br />
land subdivision on<br />
public land. Lots<br />
were distributed free<br />
of charge to the public<br />
by the government.<br />
Source: MOMRA,<br />
Urban Domain for<br />
Huraimla.<br />
Figure 8.16<br />
Huraimla<br />
contemporary<br />
developed area.<br />
Source: MOMRA,<br />
Urban Domain for<br />
Huraimla.
320<br />
the suspension or the loss of the proposed projects by the central government, the<br />
municipality and the local population yearned to attain both for need and prestige. 21<br />
In 1977, the municipality began the free land rush in Al-Hazm area, or "New<br />
Huraimla." The first two land subdivisions (310 and 319), which were approved for<br />
distribution of 1,196 residential lots, readily covered an area of 144 hectares. By 1985, the<br />
Al-Hazm development comprised seven new subdivisions including 310 and 319,<br />
comprising 2,600 residential lots occupying an area of 3.08 square kilometers. The lots<br />
took the rectilinear form with dimensions of 20-by-20 for lower income groups and 30-by-<br />
30 meters for minah grants (land obtained through royal courtesy) and the setback villa<br />
was the official residential pattern for single housing units. The Al-Hazm development also<br />
included a subdivision, 354, for recreational use, and subdivision 398 for government and<br />
commercial services. To encourage small-scale, service-oriented industries, the<br />
government offered interest-free loans and rent land at nominal prices ($0.08 per m 2 ) for<br />
industrial establishments. Huraimla's subdivision number 346 was designated for<br />
industrial uses in compliance with the state industrial incentive program. By 1987, the total<br />
platted area of Al-Hazm amounted to 3.85 square kilometers, as opposed to the old village<br />
non-farm, developed area of 0.84 square kilometers, including the 0.24 square kilometers<br />
area which laid within the old, walled town). In short, out of the 329.9 hectares of<br />
residential land subdivisions since 1972, only 32.3 were converted from private land,<br />
while the remaining 396.7 hectares were government land which underwent privatization.<br />
Although the Al-Hazm offered a viable alternative to the next-to-town growth, due to<br />
its free land factor, Al-Hazm did not negate conterminous growth of Huraimla proper.'<br />
Huraimla's planned northern growth continued following the tarmac road to Riyadh, yet at<br />
a slower pace. In the area adjacent to the walled town, the municipality also approved<br />
subdivisions 144, 147, 152, 161, 245, 307, 314, 318, 321, 329, 334 for sale to the public<br />
(Figure 8.12, subdivisions 7 through 9 and 11 through 17). However, land owners were<br />
forced to keep their land prices competitive and in tune with the overall factors shaping the<br />
land market.<br />
The demand for more minah (gifts by the King in the form of plots) free lots<br />
continued uninterrupted, by both residents and other Huraimlawis who lived outside<br />
Huraimla. The free land program, although giving priority to lower income groups and<br />
town residents, was also expanded to outsiders who wished to apply for land in
321<br />
Huraimla. 22 Between 1970 and 1975,20 hectares were added to the town's area. In<br />
addition to land inside the walled area (either on demolished mud houses and/or in small<br />
farms within the wall), the area north of the town in particular, was targeted in the post<br />
1960s. Between 1975 and 1980, another 30 hectares were added to the old compact mass.<br />
In 1989, the area of Hiiramila's residential use jumped to 329.9 hectares, and a total urban<br />
area reaching more than 407.62 hectares (Table 8.1).<br />
Because of Huramila's unique terrain, which limited the prospect of connected,<br />
uninterrupted growth with the old town, and due to the dramatic economic developments<br />
since the 1970s, detached suburban development ensued which resulted in a bipolar urban<br />
form. Al-Hazm comprises the modern, planned, serviced part of the town, while the old,<br />
compact area is the old town. As such, and to some extent, Al-Hazm can be considered as<br />
an example of a wholly planned community more than a suburb. Table 8.1 corroborates<br />
the dramatic government-led urban process: centrally-controlled municipal planning,<br />
construction of public projects, generous housing subsidies (through the REDF) and the<br />
private sector's pro-growth promotion, and distribution of free public land for residential<br />
and industrial uses.<br />
Yet, Huraimla's expansion to Al-Hazm ("New Huraimla") was not merely the<br />
function of local market forces of supply and demand at inertia. Rather, the bold decision<br />
to transfer the town's administrative and public center and substantial residential tracts for<br />
residential use two kilometers to the west, must be seen in light of the policies and<br />
programs implemented by the central state. Since its promulgation in the 1930s, the<br />
government has been allocating substantial sums of capital in the provision of basic social<br />
and physical infrastructure and public services and suburbanization-oriented policies. In<br />
short, the transformation of the traditional built environment must be placed in the context<br />
of political, administrative, and economic developments that have been orchestrated by the<br />
central state. 23<br />
5. The Urban Domain (1989-Present)<br />
With the increase in national oil income in the 1970s, the state has been engaging the<br />
traditional society in ambitious developmental programs. The modernization of the<br />
economy has been supplemented by urban policies, such as free and subsidized housing,<br />
agricultural loans and the distribution of free land to virtually all qualified adult residents.
322<br />
Table 8.1<br />
Number of Lots/Buildings In Old and New Huraimla (Al-Hazm)<br />
Subdivision Type of Approval Area No. of No. of %<br />
Use Date (ha) Dev.<br />
lots<br />
Old Huraimla* Mixed - 23.8 367 - -<br />
144 Residential 1980 0.49 24 0 0<br />
147 Residential 1980 4.2 11 0 0<br />
152 Residential 1981 0.53 18 8 45<br />
161 Residential 1982 0.46 18 10 55<br />
248 Residential 1975 1.04 14 0 0<br />
307&314 Residential 1977 25.6 229 2 0.9<br />
318 Residential 1978 42 42 0 0<br />
321 Residential 1978 0.4 4 0 0<br />
329 Residential 1977 6.1 20 5 25<br />
334 Residential 1978 3.8 20 7 35<br />
310 Residential 1977 78 744 334 45<br />
319 Residential 1977 73 355 127 36<br />
370 Residential 1980 39 446 14 3<br />
384 Residential 1980 40 376 1 0.3<br />
423 Residential 1983 40 300 6 2<br />
437 Residential 1984 9.5 42 0 0<br />
453 Residential 1985 36 240 0 0<br />
346 . Industrial 1980 38.5 n.a. -<br />
Zone<br />
354 Sports Area 1980 15 n.a. -<br />
398 Gov.& 1982 24.2 n.a<br />
-<br />
Services<br />
Total 407.62 2,902 514 17<br />
* Old Huraimla comprises 22 quarters (neighborhoods). Sources: Isa, S. (1986), 17,37, Report On The<br />
Domain of Urban Development For Huraimla City (1989), 50.
323<br />
In Huraimla, to encourage and expedite the transfer of new residential, commercial,<br />
industrial growth to Al-Hazm area, the municipal staff stepped up their efforts to win royal<br />
approval to give out free lots to the public. Because land lying immediately within the<br />
vicinity of the old town was essentially private and mired in complex property rights, and<br />
because of their rising prices, the transfer of new growth to Al-Hazm was only a matter of<br />
time.<br />
Al-Hazm was essentially subdivided en masse at one point and lots were distributed<br />
free on a random basis. Applicants rushed to take advantage of the free land offer although<br />
some did not intend to actually build in the near future. Recipients either built or sold their<br />
lots for cash and used the money to buy land in another location that suited their needs. In<br />
both cases, the construction flurry which was made possible by the REDF loans and the<br />
Land Distribution Program (LDP) fueled a spate of speculation in the real estate market<br />
unprecedented by the town's standards. These lucrative ventures brought mixed results.<br />
On the one hand, investment in the real estate market brought additional income to<br />
participants and prosperity to the construction industry. On the other hand, the speculative<br />
practices also resulted in higher prices close to the center, where services, for example<br />
schools, existed, hence causing a continuous centrifugal movement toward the periphery<br />
where land prices were less expensive. Due to the fact that few recipients actually intended<br />
to build on their lots, dispersed growth marked new suburban development in Al-Hazm.<br />
Some of those who obtained land through the Land LDP did not originally intend to build<br />
in the near future, for some land recipients did not live or work in Huraimla, and could not<br />
build their own homes for lack of sufficient funds, or lived with their parents. 24<br />
Moreover, plots were also received by those who had lived or showed proof that the<br />
applicant descended from one of Huraimla's families, though do not live in the town.<br />
The combined effects of demanding free or less expensive land at the outer rim where<br />
the government guaranteed free infrastructure and assured the provision of social and<br />
public services helped the spread of the urban area ahead of actual need. By 1987,<br />
Huraimla's bipolar urban form reached a total area of 407.62 hectares, out of which 31<br />
percent was developed and only 17 percent of residential lots in subdivisions, since 1972,<br />
were actually built. 25 Consequently, the urban area continued to bulge outward<br />
inefficiently. 26
324<br />
To counter this inefficient growth of Saudi settlements, largely caused by their<br />
modernization programs, the government introduced the Urban Domain (UD) in 1986, as<br />
mentioned earlier. Huraimla's UD was adopted in 1988. Accordingly, its,peripheral<br />
development would be subjected to controls limiting growth to two phases, 1995 and 2005<br />
respectively, based on analyses of general trends in each town, the needed developable<br />
land, type of public services needed and quantities to be allowed per phase (Figure 8.16). 27<br />
The UD projections were meant to help government planners allocate sufficient funds for<br />
the coming two decades in line with the national five-year development plans.<br />
Table 8.2<br />
Huraimla's Land Uses, Current Area and Future Needs (in hectares)<br />
Land Uses Existing Existing Needed Land Needed Land<br />
Area Area by 1995 by 2005<br />
(hectares) (%) (hectares) (hectares)<br />
Residential 51 10.8 20 27<br />
Commercial 0.7 0.15 2 3<br />
Mixed (Comm. Res.) 0.5 0.11 1.5 3.5<br />
Industrial 0.2 0.04 1.5 4.5<br />
Government (public)* 24.73 5.3 8.57 6.95<br />
Government (private)** - - - -<br />
Public Services/Utilities 30 6.4 6.3 8.14<br />
Agriculture - - - -<br />
Historical 1 0.2 - -<br />
Open Space 20 4.3 1 1.5<br />
Restricted Areas - - - -<br />
Land for Future 342 72.7 233 107<br />
Development<br />
Total Area 470 100 273.87 161.59<br />
Total (commulative) 470 - 743.40 905.00<br />
* Area designating Government (public) denotes local and regional administrative services.<br />
** Denotes governmental land that is currently or reserved for military and security departments. Source:<br />
Atlas of Saudi Cities: Urban Domain (1989), 15.<br />
Table 8.2 shows current and projected land uses based on 1987 surveys of Huraimla.<br />
It tallies the trend of the large share of government ownership and management of<br />
considerable land uses and functions in contemporary urban forms. Huraimla's new<br />
industrial zone, which accounted for 38.5 hectares is owned and rented by the municipality<br />
to establishments at subsidized, nominal fees, while "public services," "open space,"<br />
"restricted areas" are controlled and developed directly by the state. The total area of these<br />
land uses amounted to 73.4 percent of the total developed area of Huraimla in 1987. When
325<br />
compared to the traditional built environment, the private (mostly residential) uses<br />
accounted for the majority of the mass area. What could be considered public space in the<br />
traditional environment was that of circulation, religious and cemeteries; all the remaining<br />
space was private.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
The role of the state in shaping the product of the spatial map of Huraimla can be<br />
summarized in the following points. First, the state has set the standards of the<br />
contemporary urban forms by using its prerogative right to make decisions concerning<br />
municipal zoning and land use regulations. Second, the central government has*contributed<br />
immensely to the production of the modern spatial system, both in character and scope, by<br />
directly allocating funds for construction and maintenance of public, military and social<br />
services, all paid by the government without the imposition of taxes on the inhabitants.<br />
Third, the indirect role of the state must not be underestimated. By offering free land, the<br />
government has increased the number of landed population dramatically. Also, through<br />
REDFs generous free-interest housing loans, the central government has increased the<br />
number of home owners, and specifically expedited the adoption of the villa, the hallmark<br />
of Saudi contemporary housing forms. Since the establishment of REDF in 1975,<br />
Huraimla inhabitants have obtained 346 loans, with costs totaling SR85.5 million ($23.75<br />
million or $68,654 per loan), which amounted to 42% of Huraimla's 818 unit housing<br />
stock. These provisions helped recipients gain extra income which consequently<br />
contributed to the improvement of the construction sector, and, through the multiplier<br />
factor, gave impetus to a nascent private commercial and service sector.<br />
The promulgation of the new nation-state has ushered in a new era of peace and<br />
security to the Kingdom's settlements. In its efforts to modernize the nation, the<br />
government has supplied administrative, police, social and public services to every<br />
settlement based on various criteria, including population size, urban economy, and<br />
national security, among others. The inauguration of the imarah (principality), the<br />
establishment of a police power, the resumption of public schools, and the establishment of<br />
the municipality (baladyyah) in 1965, embodied the increasing role of the central state in<br />
the local affairs and building practices of Huraimla. The municipality is a local government<br />
institution which derives its support and instruction from the national Deputy Ministry for<br />
Municipalities and Rural Affairs at Riyadh. This means that decisions concerning local
326<br />
urban growth and management must first be authorized by the central agency. In addition,<br />
the municipality has implemented numerous circulars, decrees and ordinances which were a<br />
priori ratified and codified by the Council of Ministers. This government intervention,<br />
manifest in its local agencies, in general, and the municipality in particular, meant that the<br />
customary building practices which had characterized the traditional building processes<br />
have been supplanted by national municipal codes. Yet, for the local population, the<br />
establishment of the municipality has been perceived as synonymous with "modernization."
327<br />
Notes to Chapter VIII<br />
1 H. St. John Philby, Arabia of the Wahhabis (London: Constable, 1928); Mohammad H. Abo-Sin,<br />
"Tawziea' Assukkan fee Imarat Huraimla" [Population Distribution in Huraimla's Principality] In<br />
Imarat Huraimla: Dirasah Joghraphiya wa Maidaniyah [Huraimla's Principality: Geographic and Field<br />
Study] (Riyadh: Islamic University of Imam Mohammad Bin Saud), 289-314; Ministry of Municipal<br />
and Rural Affairs (MOMRA), General Directory for Municipal and Rural Affairs, Riyadh Region,<br />
Taqreer Nitaq Annomou Al Omrani Lee Madinat Huraimla [Report on Domain of Urban Development:<br />
City of Huraimla] (Riyadh, MOMRA, 1989).<br />
2 According to MOMRA's definition, a settlement is considered a "city" if it contains a municipality.<br />
The presence of the political amarah, which houses the town's ameer (town governor), the<br />
municipality and the other government administrative organs, health, educational and police, and<br />
commercial services all justify the elevation of a village and/or a town to the status of city. Ministry<br />
of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA), General Directory for Municipal and Rural Affairs, Riyadh<br />
Region, Taqreer Nitaq Annomou Al Omrani Lee Madinat Huraimla [Report on Domain of Urban<br />
Development: City of Huraimla] (Riyadh, MOMRA, 1989), 25.<br />
3 Actually, in addition to his bureaucratic role, the ameer serves as a ceremonial, paternalistic viceroy of<br />
the King, in the town. The ameer reports directly to the Ministry of Interior and usually performs<br />
duties similar to the King at the local level. He accepts petitions, intervenes on behalf of citizens to<br />
the various government departments in his domain and the central power. The town's ameer<br />
coordinates the tasks of the representatives of the various ministries in his territory and solicits advice<br />
and agreement when necessary, though each representative reports directly to his ministry at the central<br />
government for approval. In short, unlike the traditional chief who used to be one of the major and<br />
prestigious clans of the town or a tribe, the modern (administrative) ameer combines the paternalistic<br />
character of the traditional chief with the tasks of the bureaucrat.<br />
4 It is documented that the whole area belonged to a prominent tribal chief named Houthah Bin Ali Al-<br />
Hanafi. He was contacted by Prophet Mohammed who asked him to join the new religion of Islam.<br />
Al-Hanafi, fearing to lose some of his status, refused. Saleh Nasir Al-Tua'is, The Geography ofAl<br />
Shai'eeb Area: the City of Huraimla, (Riyadh, unknown press, 1979).<br />
5 Al-Tua'is, (1979), op. cit., and Salah, A. Esa, "Madinat Huraimla: Nasha'tuha, wa Nomouwha Al<br />
Omrani (The City of Huraimla: Its Birth and Urban Development), In Imarat Huraimla: Dirasah<br />
Joghraphiyyah wa Maidaniyyah [Huraimla's Principality: Geographic and Field Study] Second Part,<br />
(Riyadh: Islamic University of Imam Mohammad Bin Saud, 1986), 8-46, based on archaeological<br />
evidence.<br />
6<br />
Esa (1986).<br />
7<br />
Ibid., 32.<br />
^<br />
The force was said to consist of a brigade comprising 2,000 cavalry, 5,600 infantry, 12 guns.<br />
9 Not all settlements received equal funding by the central government. Settlements were variably<br />
bestowed due to many factors such as the settlements strategic role, based on economic and/or<br />
sociopolitical criteria.. For example, the allocation in modernizing the nation's military has bestowed<br />
tremendous funds on some Saudi towns and cities. Cities of Hafr Al Batin, Khamis Mushait and
328<br />
Tabuk have been transformed into bustling military bases. The Holy cities of Makkah and Madinah<br />
received tremendous sums of capital from the state due to their religious status.<br />
I consider the year 1968 a watershed in Huraimla's urban history. Huraimla's Municipality, which was<br />
inaugurated in 1386H/1965, started subdividing the land north of the walled, compact town ostensibly<br />
following the grid iron system and lots were larger by traditional standards.<br />
11<br />
Al-Tua'is, 181.<br />
12 Al-Tua'is, 183, (author translation).<br />
13 Saudi citizens living in villages and towns were affected by urban strides which they confronted during<br />
their visits to major cities such as Riyadh, where the economically better off population had adopted<br />
architectural elements in the design of housing units and other buildings. The interaction between the<br />
country's population and the government's intensive pro-modernization propaganda through the<br />
government-controlled press, and government-owned television and radio broadcast systems have<br />
expedited the wholesale adoption of the mostly Western architecture (see for example Faddan, 1983).<br />
1 4 Ibid, 225.<br />
15 Clause Four of the Council of Ministers' Decision No. 977 dated 3/7/1388H (1968) stipulated that,<br />
once they were compensated, property owners are responsible for the clearing of the remaining<br />
demolished buildings or building walls or to hide the remaining parts.<br />
16 Yousef M.O. Fadan, The Development of Contemporary Housing in Saudi Arabia [1950-1983]: A<br />
Study in Cross-Cultural Influence Under Conditions of Rapid Change. Unpublished Ph.D.<br />
<strong>Dissertation</strong> (Cambridge: MIT, 1983), 182.<br />
1 Ibid, 186.<br />
1® By comparison, during the same period (1965-1976), Riyadh's Municipality allocated SR2.9 billion<br />
($828.6 million). Arar's municipality, an agency with a staff of 85, spent SR 85.1 million. Ministry<br />
of Interior, Deputy For Municipalities, Annashrah Annisflyah Lee lhsa 'at Al Baladyyat: AnnisfAl<br />
Awaal, 1392H (1976) [Semi-Annual List For Municipal Statistics, First Half (Riyadh: Ministry of<br />
Interior), 176.<br />
l^ In its official publications and media, the government has been emphatic about the its commitment to<br />
"...balanced regional development" and "the provision of basic services to all citizens in the Kingdom."<br />
See for example, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Planning, Summary of the Fifth<br />
Development Plan, 1410-1415 (1990-1995) (Riyadh: Ministry of Planning Press), 85. The Plan<br />
earmarks SR38.9 billion for the total planned public expenditures for municipal programs throughout<br />
the nation for the five-year period.<br />
20 MOMRA, Circular No. 563/3 dated 26/2/1387H (1967) (letter waw), gives municipalities development<br />
rights over undeveloped land surrounding towns and cities. Royal Decree No. 11003 dated 8/5/1386 H<br />
(1966) authorizes municipalities to subdivide speedily and sell lots to citizens according to defined<br />
nominal prices. The Decree also permits municipalities to allot lots of 400 to "limited-income"<br />
citizens free of charge.
329<br />
21 For example, the estate al Al-U'daibyyah is owned by tens of households whose members descend from<br />
the same grand parents and whose descendants live all over the country. This makes if difficult to sell<br />
the estate without the collective agreement by the members or their legal representatives. Because<br />
those affected by its sale are numerous, the monetary return per member included in the will is<br />
minuscule, hence no reward or incentive warrant its sale.<br />
22 See for example Royal Decree no. 7,800 dated 10/7/1380H (c.1960), which stipulates a royal<br />
permission for granting land; no. 11003 dated 8/5/86H (c. 1968), no. 437 dated 1/6/1398H (c. 1978),<br />
and no. 59 dated 19/4/1401 (c. 1981) concerning criteria for lower income groups (LIG) to qualify for<br />
free land. Some of the conditions attached to an LIG's grant that he or she is 18 years or older, must<br />
not own land or obtain a REDF loan, among others. However, citizens can also request a royal grant<br />
by applying for land without the necessary LIG status. The King is entitled to grant land to individuals<br />
under certain rules. In this case, a citizen may be granted land in any locality in the nation, depending<br />
on the availability of land that is undergoing distribution by a government agency, i.e. the<br />
municipality.<br />
23 The phenomenon of rapid conversion of large peripheral tracts into land subdivisions has characterized<br />
contemporary development of virtually all Saudi settlements. For example, in Hafr Al-Batin, which<br />
lies in the northeast of the country, land speculation has, by 1979, extended to an area which can<br />
accommodate the needs of a population of 411,000, or 26 times more than its current population. This<br />
population figure would take 65 years to be realized (assuming a 5% annual population growth). A. H.<br />
Azzahrani, "Dirasat fee Hajm al-Moroor wa Attanabou'at Al Morooryyah" (Studies in Traffic Size and<br />
Traffic Projections.), Unpublished paper presented to the Symposium on Planning and Design.(Riyadh:<br />
King Saud University, March 25-26,1986), 3. In the case of Madinah, the city which houses the<br />
prophet's mosque, hence revered by Muslims worldwide, developed plots comprise 30% of all the<br />
subdivided plots, and "are scattered in fragmented subdivisions." Walead Abdulaal (1990): 728.<br />
24 According to the LDP program, adults, 18 years or older, are eligible for free land. At this early age,<br />
many conform to the "limited income" condition in the LDP program and few are likely to build a<br />
house in the near future. See for example, Council of Ministers' Order No. 437 dated 1/6/1398H, No.<br />
59 dated 19/4/1401H, and MOMRA's Circular No. S'ad/9751 dated 29/8/1407H.<br />
25<br />
MOMRA (1989), 24.<br />
26 For discussion of land tenure in Saudi Arabia see the elaboration in the special section on this subject<br />
in chapter five on Riyadh.<br />
27 In its efforts to control peripheral development, the government introduced the Urban Domain. The<br />
UD includes government policies concerning right of services to peripheral land. The UD concept<br />
started as early as 1977 (see Council of Ministers' Decision no. 1170 dated 25/8/1397H and MOMRA's<br />
Circulars no. 641 dated 18/1/1398 H.(Kha), no 5942 dated 18/9/1398,1383 dated 24/3/1399H, no.<br />
2492 dated 11/6/1399H (Waw), no. 1383 dated 24/3/1399H., no. 84 dated 24/7/1405H. and Council of<br />
Ministers Decisions no. 7/1397 dated 1/1/1405H., no. 69 dated 9/8/1405H., and finally Council of<br />
Ministers' Decision no. 13 dated 9/1/1406H. which halted the issue of land subdivisions for a period of<br />
two years to give government agencies and municipalities time to ponder methods to control peripheral<br />
growth.
CHAPTER IX<br />
CONCLUSION: ENVISIONING THE PLURALISTIC CITY<br />
The essence of cities is not material accretion, but human action,<br />
human institutions, human organizations.<br />
- E.C. Monkkonen<br />
During the last six decades, Saudi Arabian society has mutated from a predominantly<br />
rural and nomadic society to an urbanized one, characteristically centered in cities and<br />
towns. Even those living in rural areas have abandoned agriculture as the mainstay of their<br />
previously subsistence economies and engaged in government and other service<br />
employment, the major pillars of towns' modern economies. The previously tripartite<br />
spatial system comprising the religious-trade towns of the Hijaz region, the scattered<br />
agrarian settlements, and the nomads, has been transformed into an established network of<br />
industrialized urban sub-systems. Yet the urbanization of Saudi Arabia was not simply the<br />
result of population increase in cities. The concurrent rise in cities' share of the national<br />
population depended on complex processes for which the concept of the nation-state offers<br />
the beginning of an explanation, as I have shown.<br />
Due to the dominant role of the state in urban process and the massive allocation of oil<br />
revenues in modernizing the society, Saudi settlements evolved exhibiting a similar urban<br />
pattern, character and landscape. Although largely modernized and distinctively<br />
westernized technologically, the contemporary urban form has also been sparse and blind<br />
to cultural values and physical context. The central argument of this study is that our<br />
understanding of the Saudi city must consider the relationship between the state and the<br />
society, for such a relationship determines the state's role vis a vis urban development.<br />
This relationship has set the pace and character of state intervention in the urban process.<br />
In Saudi Arabia, the emergence of the monarchic nation-state and government-led<br />
industrialism has transformed the urban landscape so that the present Saudi city differs<br />
dramatically from its historical predecessors.<br />
I have argued that the promulgation of the nation-state in 1932 constituted the turning<br />
point in the traditional stasis in Saudi Arabia. The consolidation of power under King<br />
Abdul-Aziz and his progeny transferred the hitherto dispersed control over the nation's<br />
isolated communities to the new political center, Riyadh, the seat of the Royal family. This
331<br />
polarization of power under the King was soon to be reinforced with the flow of oilderived<br />
funds dispensed from the capital; the funds were then allocated to the growing<br />
settlements. Under the new nation-state, the society enjoyed a new sense of security and,<br />
thanks to the government's encouragement, aspired to progress.<br />
A promising life seemed more than ever attainable in the growing major towns and<br />
induced migration to the cities. Small villages thrived. A few evolved into regionaladministrative<br />
centers. As the nation-state guaranteed protection and security, urban forms<br />
grew out of their walled enclaves and, with vigorous government modernization programs,<br />
exploded into a sprawl, leaving behind atrophied cores. At the periphery, the ease and<br />
simplicity of low-density land subdivision preempted any rigorous physical planning. In<br />
short, the rise of the Saudi nation-state has resulted in the emergence of a new typology of<br />
national government backed settlements composed of administrative cities, industrial cities,<br />
and military towns, in addition to the ancient holy cities of Makkah, Madinah and<br />
commercial cities like Jeddah.<br />
Due to the prevailing political character and structure of the monarchic government<br />
and its prerogative right to oil revenues, it is reasonable to view the contemporary urban<br />
network under the monarchy as a system of unified settlements which fed on a central and<br />
dominant capital, Riyadh. This channeling of oil revenues to local communities gradually<br />
supplanted the settlements' traditional economies, hence reinforcing the economic<br />
dependence of cities, towns and villages on the central state. Further, it contributed to the<br />
political integrity of the fragile and nascent nation-state. Modernization, which has been<br />
effectively employed by the government, can also be seen as a legitimizing instrument in<br />
the volatile political environment of the Middle East generally and of Saudi Arabia, in<br />
particular. Moreover, owing to the peculiar developmental stage of the traditional,<br />
impoverished and illiterate society during the formation of the new nation-state, consequent<br />
urban development took place in a heavily centralized state-regulated framework.<br />
This profound metamorphosis cannot be merely attributed to impersonal changes in<br />
technology brought about by the new imperatives of the oil industry. Similarly, the whole<br />
substitution of traditional built forms with modern ones cannot be attributed merely to the<br />
shifts in responsibility and in the use of private ownership and residents' control of their<br />
neighborhoods; that is, symptoms must not be confused with causes. Nor can the legal<br />
system, a sub-system of a culture, be solely relied upon to explain the complex processes
332<br />
comprising the whole. In short, an isolated understanding of cultural sub-systems does not<br />
yield a complete picture of the complex urban process.<br />
Rather, as this study has shown, in a traditionally-based political economic system<br />
and other forms of autocratic states, spatial restructuring of the national urban network and<br />
internal organization of built forms is better understood by the role the state plays in the<br />
urban process. The nature and character of the government vis a vis the society determines<br />
just how representative the decision-making process is, both in the society, and, in<br />
particular, in urban planning. While the built environment is the product of cumulative<br />
decisions in space, it particularly reflects the interests of the powerful actors in the society,<br />
viz the state in this case study. 1 In non-democratic, developing political systems, attempts<br />
to fathom urban processes that overlook the peculiar role of the state in social development<br />
are very likely to end up with an only partially effective, if not erroneous, conclusion.<br />
Indeed planners and urban designers need to understand the socio-political environment of<br />
the local or host societies and devise methods suited for them.<br />
In this study, particular attention was given to the profound influence and direct input<br />
of the Saudi government on the departure from traditional building processes and the<br />
wholesale adoption of Westernized, modernized urban forms. I have also addressed urban<br />
planning as one component of the government's whole process of transformation toward<br />
modernizing the society. Due to its absolute de facto power and control of the oil resource,<br />
the Saudi government has preempted the decision-making process at the national level,<br />
including urban planning activity and urban policy making.<br />
From the early introduction of municipal legislation to bring order to the growing<br />
holy cities of Makkah and Madinah in the 1940s, to the adoption of the Urban Domain<br />
approach in the late 1980s, urban planning in Saudi Arabia has teen the domain of the<br />
central bureaucracy. There are rich sources of information on which planners and<br />
researchers can build. The creation of the so-called "Arab" oil towns, despite<br />
shortcomings, is among them. Also included are the widespread use of grid land<br />
subdivisions in suburban development outside the traditional towns, the resort to master<br />
plans in larger towns, and the adoption of "model" planned communities.<br />
In analyzing the transformation of the Saudi urban system, I have attempted to place<br />
the urban process in the larger picture of the nation's sociopolitical and economic
333<br />
development. This requires the examination of the state's developmental policies, its<br />
political economic contexts and their direct and indirect impacts on the built environment. I<br />
explored the various apparatuses the state has developed to maintain order in Saudi<br />
settlements undergoing rapid urbanization and to achieve modernization. This process has<br />
been compatible with, and complementary to, the monarchy's power and status in the<br />
society, a path the government deemed in the best interest of the population.<br />
I. CONTEMPORARY URBAN FORMS<br />
The dramatic episodes of the first three decades of development (1930s-1960s) rose<br />
to a crescendo during the 1970s and 1980s, two decades in which the Saudi city exploded<br />
into a far-flung, though inefficient and cumbersome sprawl. In the three case studies of<br />
Riyadh, Arar and Huraimla I have focused on the scope and character of government<br />
intervention in the modern urban development process in the Kingdom. Thus, for<br />
example, the previously compact, pre-industrial walled town of Riyadh grew into a<br />
bustling urban sprawl teeming with freeways, mega-projects and myriad specialized urban<br />
functions. Arar grew from an industrial camp on the pipeline, transporting oil to the<br />
Mediterranean Sea in the late 1940s, into a regional administrative center and military<br />
"outpost" in the desolate northern region of the Kingdom. The socially representative and<br />
environmentally efficient built form of Huraimla shed its traditional integument for a bipolar<br />
urban form whose discrete parts lie at odds with each other.<br />
The implications of the social, political and economic developments on the<br />
Kingdom's urban forms have been profound. Oil wealth facilitated the miraculous<br />
emergence of the metropolis on the desolate desert landscape, while the political character<br />
shaped it and largely determined its growth pattern. At the same time, the Saudi<br />
settlements' internal structures have developed from the pre-industrial traditional forms of<br />
the Middle Eastern-Muslim settlements to new, modernized urban areas, with increasing<br />
division of labor and specialization of land uses. Due to the new centralized control, spatial<br />
stratification in the modern metropolis is no longer endogamous, that is chiefly based on<br />
family, tribe or place of origin criteria, a factor which shaped the composition of traditional<br />
settlements' quarters.<br />
Rather, access to living in modern neighborhoods is economic- based on the ability to<br />
pay, and, in the case of REDF housing loans and land distribution by the state, to secure a
334<br />
loan. The physical development of contemporary Saudi urban forms can be outlined as<br />
follows. First, around the traditional compact form, a ring of "traditional suburban"<br />
development took place outside the wall and abutting it. This "traditional suburban" ring<br />
retained the very characteristics of the traditional urban processes, however, with little<br />
modifications to allow for the introduction of the automobile, although a tendency to build<br />
on a large scale also marked the early phase. Second, with the improving national income,<br />
the trickle of urban migration soon became a flood as the national government diverted oil<br />
revenues to the development of various settlements, a process which altered the spatial map<br />
of the nation.<br />
New communities, ah'iyaa ashsha'abiyah, sprouted, adopting new technological<br />
improvements. The traditional mud house, comprising irregularly-shaped indoor spaces<br />
clustered around a courtyard, was modified to the so-called "Arab" house which had larger<br />
openings and was equipped with electrical and sanitary improvements reflecting the rising<br />
living standards of the population. However, the development during this transitional,<br />
intermediate phase, given the developmental stage of the government and the society, was<br />
too frantic to permit adequate control. This phase also included the proliferation of<br />
Bedouin camps and shanty towns. Third, by the 1950s, the villa, a freestanding and<br />
outward-facing housing unit, was adopted by the royalty and the upper class. It<br />
symbolized prestige and status. At the same time, another basically new form, the rental<br />
apartment complex, began to line the major roads. The complexes had been introduced to<br />
house the increasing expatriate population.<br />
The 1960s witnessed the spread of the villa to the expanding middle-class, a group<br />
which grew because of government employment and spending. The 1970s' government<br />
subventions and suburban-oriented housing programs fueled suburbanization at an<br />
unprecedented tempo. Finally, the suburbanization of the Saudi city reached an<br />
unprecedented level in the 1980s when the distribution of free land allowed limited-income<br />
groups to reach out for their share of the generous pro-sprawl housing subsidies.<br />
Movement to the suburbs became attainable among the lower-income population. In<br />
addition, with the increase of automobile ownership, the city's periphery became accessible<br />
to families of modest means. By the late 1980s, the limited-income suburbs had<br />
leapfrogged across the elegant boulevards, while the REDF-subsidized housing units<br />
expanded beyond municipally-serviced areas. Modernized, sanitized urban forms- fancy
335<br />
residential suburbs, megalomaniac government projects, commercial malls, glass and<br />
marble-wrapped high-rise buildings, and freeways- bestowed an image of progress.<br />
II. TRADITIONAL MEDINA VS. THE PRAGMATIC METROPOLIS<br />
The following section comprises a discussion and an evaluation of the contemporary<br />
built forms in light of the six traditional cultural attributes that were discussed in Chapter V.<br />
Modernization programs, coupled with increasing technology, and the expansion of<br />
bureaucratic control have caused the demise of traditional cultural attributes which forged<br />
traditional built forms, that is the medina (Chapter V). The consolidation of the various<br />
regions' "town-states" which constitute today's Saudi Arabia has focused the dispersed<br />
populations' energies into one geopolitical unit, that is the nation-state. Nationalism, as<br />
with technology itself, has come to substitute, in part, the traditional cultural values and<br />
functions, operating in effect as a secular force (e.g. rational decision making and technical<br />
urban planning) and as a key integrative mechanism in modern Saudi society. The state has<br />
supplanted religion as the major force in shaping urban forms.<br />
New modes of political control, urban design and planning, land tenure and<br />
distribution policies, home ownership, and infrastructure provisions have emerged under<br />
the auspices of the central state. In table 9.1,1 present a matrix outlining the major cultural<br />
attributes in both traditional built environments, and the ones in the modern era.<br />
A. Government and Political Control<br />
The traditional amir around whom the political, economic and social affairs turned has<br />
been replaced with a new political center: a powerful king aided with a complex<br />
bureaucracy, oil revenues and a modern security apparatus. As power increasingly shifted<br />
to the center, the state's economic aid to local settlements has eclipsed concerns over local<br />
control, and the traditional amirs' powers which were based on subsistence economy have<br />
eroded. At the local level, the town's amir (who traditionally represented his people) was<br />
substituted with the bureaucratic amir, a viceroy who represents the king at the local level. 2<br />
While in the past, the amir exercised substantial powers using discretion, consultation<br />
with notables who represented major clans, and, if needed, coercion to maintain the<br />
cohesion of his realm, the modern amir, with the help of the heads of the various local
336<br />
CULTURAL<br />
ATTRIBUTES<br />
Government<br />
Control<br />
Economy<br />
Urban Planning and<br />
Design<br />
Land Ownership and<br />
Distribution<br />
Home Ownership<br />
Public<br />
Infrastructure<br />
Table 9.1:<br />
Matrix of Cultural Urban Attributes<br />
TRADITIONAL BUILT<br />
FORMS<br />
• Princedoms, Tribal sheikdoms,<br />
Decentralized<br />
(1) Inter-Settlements:<br />
• Dispersed political nodes of power<br />
• Minimum interaction with a<br />
political center<br />
(2) Intra-Settlement:<br />
• Traditional authority<br />
• Intricate system based on an<br />
hierarchy of customary decisionmaking<br />
forms of participation<br />
• Local administration of residential<br />
quarters<br />
• Subsistence agriculture and pastoral<br />
economy<br />
• Atomistic markets<br />
• Tax-based income<br />
• Informal sector<br />
• Local initiative<br />
• Spontaneous growth,<br />
• Governed by social norms<br />
(as opposed to technical)<br />
• Environmentally responsive<br />
• Macroclimate<br />
• Land was a social resource,<br />
• Post development tenure,<br />
• Irregular lots,<br />
• Islamic inheritance law allows for<br />
divisibility of property<br />
• Shufah helped forge kinship-based<br />
quarters<br />
• Buildings determined lot shape,<br />
hence town/ neighborhoods forms.<br />
• Cooperatively financed and<br />
Self-Help,<br />
• Mostly local building materials,<br />
• Extended family<br />
• Residents maintained neighborhoods,<br />
Waqf supported public services<br />
• Minimum intervention by<br />
authorities in local affairs<br />
CONTEMPORARY BUILT<br />
FORMS<br />
• Monarchy, Nationalism,<br />
Centralized<br />
(1) Inter-Settlements:<br />
• Hierarchical organization of centrally<br />
administered regions, sub-regions and<br />
settlements<br />
(2) Intra-Settlements:<br />
• The bureaucratic amir relies on and<br />
coordinates a network of specialized<br />
state agencies such as the<br />
municipality, police, schools, health,<br />
etc.<br />
• Traditional (symbolic) viceroy<br />
• Oil-based national economy,<br />
• Nationally integrated,<br />
• Diversified urban economies, highly<br />
dependent on oil revenues through<br />
government allocation mechanisms,<br />
and employment<br />
• Formal sector<br />
• Excessively and central state activity<br />
• Top-down<br />
• Technical (secular)<br />
• Western-inspired<br />
• Microclimate<br />
• Land as commodity<br />
• Large-scale acquisition of land and<br />
subdivision,<br />
• Indivisibility of land<br />
• Conversion of raw land based on<br />
actual need and market speculation<br />
• Credit: Private Institution<br />
• Credit: state subsidized<br />
• Largely imported building materials,<br />
• Nuclear family<br />
• Government provided
337<br />
branches of the central government, coordinates bureaucratic functions to implement<br />
national goals. 3 The new town's principality, the imarah, and municipality, the baladiyah,<br />
and other central government branches served as surrogate organizations which<br />
implemented progressive national modernization programs and urban planning legislation.<br />
Consequently, local autonomy was gradually transformed into subservient administrative<br />
parts of the central political order.<br />
B. Economy<br />
As previously mentioned, oil revenues have offered windfall income to the central<br />
government. This has greatly diminished the significance of settlement revenues to the<br />
central government, which abandoned reliance on towns' generated taxes (e.g. zakat) and<br />
other sources of local revenue following the discovery of oil. Oil income has enabled the<br />
central state to be a distributor of the natural resource, hence heralding an increasing role of<br />
the elitist and paternalistic welfare state in modern urban economies. As oil revenues<br />
poured into government coffers, the central state helped in the expansion of employment,<br />
absorbing a large number of the working force, from the traditional sectors to the newlyestablished<br />
public agencies (schools and health clinics, etc.). In addition, the massive<br />
modernization programs helped in the creation of considerable jobs in the private sector,<br />
and transformed traditional town subsistence economies into modern, diversified, yet<br />
heavily subsidized urban economies.<br />
Due to the expansion of employment outside the traditional sectors, new divisions of<br />
labor ensued, which vastly contributed to the division of work and living spaces in the<br />
contemporary city. Moreover, the booming decades of the 1970s and 1980s engendered<br />
work opportunities which required the recruitment of skilled and non-skilled Saudis and<br />
foreigners to the growing cities, bringing new lifestyles and values into every settlement,<br />
hitherto closed to the outside world. The modern developments fostered the emergence of<br />
a formal capital intensive economic sector characterized by regulated entry to the various<br />
economic activities, reliance on imported resources (commodities, labor, technology)<br />
corporate organization, large-scale operation. Indeed, the government underwriting of<br />
local settlements' economies did transform the national network of settlements, changing it<br />
from a patchwork of small villages thriving on agriculture and fishing into a national<br />
complex of urban centers and settlements largely dependent on government aid.
338<br />
C. Urban Design and Planning<br />
Under pressures of urbanization, the state scrambled for expertise in urban<br />
development. First, it sought oil companies' planners and, later foreign planning<br />
consultants, to design communities for workers enlisted in the oil industry. Gridiron land<br />
subdivisions were laid outside the traditional medina, in a hectic response to the<br />
proliferation of shanty towns and squatter settlements. The flexible and socially-responsive<br />
mechanisms that fostered the traditional built environment were overlooked.<br />
The centrally funded and well-staffed municipality was soon to take over the<br />
responsibility of maintaining neighborhoods and assumed the duties of providing public<br />
works and services traditionally handled by settlements' populations without external<br />
intervention. As an organ of the central bureaucracy, the municipality implemented<br />
standardized technical regulations in the conversion of new land into developable lots en<br />
masse.<br />
Relying on foreign expertise and Western-educated Saudi professionals, the<br />
municipality has, since its indoctrination, used secular (that is, technical and legal urban<br />
practices largely molded after those developed under colonial powers in nearby Arab<br />
countries) rather than developing local urban growth mechanisms based on local values in<br />
the design of new communities and in the upgrading of old ones. Platted rectilinear blocks<br />
containing large lots and wide boulevards shaped the post-traditional growth, outside the<br />
traditional walls and in the new planned towns.<br />
Newly laid boulevards were constructed besieging the compact cores, occasionally<br />
and mercilessly ripping through their historical sanctity. Setbacks, partially a result of<br />
acculturation as well as imposed municipal legislation, were widely adopted. Municipal<br />
codes ignored issues of privacy. Under municipal and other prescriptive bureaucratic<br />
procedures, neighbors could not object to openings that infringed on their privacy.<br />
Likewise, the environmentally compatible traditional built environment with its<br />
macroclimatic solutions stood in contrast to the modern metropolis, largely blind to the<br />
harsh climate of the desert. In the metropolis, modern transportation and<br />
telecommunications made it possible for the different land uses to scatter in space. A<br />
relatively authoritarian, planning-by numbers approach has become the norm, substituting<br />
technical know-how for local participation.
339<br />
Whilst steps toward integrated national, urban and regional planning are now<br />
apparent in the Kingdom, city planning is hampered by the very solutions which were<br />
ostensibly devised to solve city problems and guide its growth: a sprawl marked with<br />
indifference to environment, efficiency, and popular scrutiny. It is tempting to blame the<br />
haphazard jumble of half-built land uses on the involved government agencies, but the lure<br />
of suburban life- with its modern, tree-lined streets, spacious lots, sense of rising living<br />
standards, generous free land and subsidized, pro-ownership housing programs- was too<br />
enticing to government officials and inhabitants to await the development of a genuine<br />
urban model. 4 Obviously, higher standards of living (better, spacious houses, potable<br />
water networks, water-refuse systems, modern transportation and telecommunications,<br />
social mobility in vastly expanding economic sectors) prevail now as compared to a few<br />
decades ago, and surely millions of people have been comfortable housed. To a large<br />
extent, the government, paternalistic as it has been, proceeded with what ever planning<br />
expertise it deemed necessary to the betterment of the settlement physical and social<br />
standards.<br />
D. Land Ownership and Distribution<br />
The booming decade of the 1970s witnessed unprecedented population growth and<br />
deployment of considerable sums of capital in the building of cities. Initially, surgical<br />
programs for the redevelopment or conservation of existing communities resulted in the<br />
relocation of scores of city center inhabitants to the commercialized land of the suburb. In<br />
effect, a process of displacement occurred in which ruralites and non-professional laborers<br />
inhabited the dated traditional cores as nationals moved to the periphery. 5 New public and<br />
public-private housing programs and large-scale government urban developments were<br />
vigorously launched during this decade and the decade of the 1980s.<br />
To comply with energetic development plans, which called for allocation of large<br />
outlays in infrastructure, large tracts of land were moved from the public to the private<br />
domain, subdivided and sold or distributed free of charge according to several criteria.<br />
Real estate speculation became a grand obsession, in part because property was one of the<br />
few secure forms of investments open to many. Virtually all social groups were engaging<br />
in building and selling of property as a speculative venture, some as a secondary venture<br />
besides their permanent occupation. By the mid 1980s, the Saudi government had<br />
distributed 2.5 million parcels of land and lots, averaging one lot for every four citizens. 6
340<br />
In a move to bring order to the growing cities, the municipalities subjected new<br />
subdivisions to formulas which regulated the proportions of streets to building space,<br />
percentage of built space within lots, and building type height. They relied excessively on<br />
rationalistic by-laws planning in the layout of peripheral land, creating uniform and<br />
monotonous streets and blocks.<br />
The above approach culminated in the large-scale platting of zoned urban spaces and<br />
the application of city master plans. Easy terms of land distribution policies enabled many<br />
citizens to become landowners, some of whom lacked interest or the financial means to<br />
develop their lots in the near future. However, with the increase in car ownership,<br />
residences and other buildings were scattered amidst half-empty lots according to a mostly<br />
market pricing system.<br />
Although many citizens were able to obtain land under the government distribution<br />
programs, their control over how to develop their parcels has become locked in obligatory<br />
conditions under nationally standardized municipal guidelines. As such, the application of<br />
traditional principles were discontinued. For example, the principle of shufa'a (the priority<br />
given to a neighbor to buy property next door to them) was no longer sanctioned under the<br />
new municipal controls or the legal system. Nor was subdivision of a property according<br />
to Islamic inheritance law permissible. 7 Finally, the concept offina, a semi-private space<br />
abutting the house, which traditionally belonged under the collective control of the house<br />
owners, was now outlawed and replaced with rigid segregation of private and public (e.g.<br />
street) uses.<br />
E. Home Ownership<br />
The influx of large numbers of people to the growing urban centers intensified the<br />
demand for housing. Traditional methods of construction (based on meager credit and selfhelp)<br />
fell short of meeting skyrocketing demand. Moreover, Islamic conventions have<br />
slowed the adoption of Western-like credit institutions which helped in the creation of the<br />
private housing sector in many countries. To help uplift the living standards of the Saudi<br />
population, the government has invested substantially in the provision of healthy and<br />
decent shelters. To fill the gap in credit housing markets, the central government<br />
experimented with various housing programs, such as free and subsidized public housing<br />
for government employees and subsidized private housing through the REDF, which gave
341<br />
such a dynamism to suburban growth. Because of these programs, most Saudi households<br />
have managed to move to modern housing, leaving their traditional mud and stone houses<br />
to deterioration in the traditional cores.<br />
F. Public Infrastructure<br />
The influx of workers from the various Saudi regions and foreign countries has<br />
rendered traditional rules of responsibility obsolete: modern cultural heterogeneity defied<br />
collective responsibility among neighborhoods' residents. This has posed a challenge to<br />
traditional roles collectively played by neighborhood members. With the suburbanization<br />
of contemporary Saudi settlements, access to modern neighborhoods became a function of<br />
land market pricing, receivability of free government land, or employment agency as<br />
opposed to kinship. 8<br />
Instead, without efforts to develop localism, that is buttressing traditional institutions to<br />
accommodate modern technology and urban needs, traditional attributes and hence urban<br />
continuity were disrupted; the state has assumed the leadership to modernize the society. A<br />
first step was to improve the well-being of the population, as the basis for economic<br />
revival. Economic development required the allocation of an enormous portion of oil<br />
revenues to upgrade Saudi settlements' infrastructure systems and public services,<br />
inevitably necessitating the importation of technology. The laying of new platted annexes,<br />
equipped with electricity, telephone networks, sewage systems, piped water, and increased<br />
automobile accessibility, all required the creation of specialized bureaucracies to handle the<br />
new services. These modern functions would not have been possible through the meager<br />
surplus offered by the traditional economies of towns. The national government has<br />
emerged as the agent to pick up the slack.<br />
With the coordination of other central government departments, the municipality has<br />
presided over the maintenance and the construction of streets, parks, schools, fire stations,<br />
police, bridges and other public projects and services all paid through the central state (not<br />
through the waqf institution). Instead of allowing the development of local systems of<br />
governance that could utilize centrally-supplied funds based on government-set quotas, the<br />
government has expanded the tentacles of its bureaucratic apparatus to determine the needed<br />
funds for development for every settlement.
342<br />
The loss of local responsibility has been both a product of the preponderance of the<br />
central government and local apathy, thanks to non-taxed aid to local communities. The<br />
provision of modern infrastructure and public services, not only offered lucrative economic<br />
outlets to locals, but also were offered without imposing financial burdens on the local<br />
population. The increasing secularization of the Saudi society, coupled with the rise in<br />
economic non-taxed aid to local towns, has expedited the secularization of the urban space.<br />
Using secular-technical criteria, the municipality and other central government departments<br />
have replaced traditional forms of responsibility, and have undermined religious<br />
institutions, such as waqf.<br />
The state's substantial involvement in the production of contemporary Saudi<br />
settlements is paradoxical, one which poses an uncompromising reality: that is benefits of<br />
central government control (with free services but loss of local participation) versus local<br />
control of community's affairs with less government intervention. To the political<br />
leadership, the underwriting of community development serves as a legitimizing factor as<br />
well as a given right for all communities to share in the national natural resource, that is oil.<br />
Yet, the sponsorship of the modern built forms represents an economic burden on the<br />
central state and hinders self-sustenance in the long-term. To the population, however,<br />
discontinuity of government aid poses an acute urban conundrum, a cessation of which<br />
conjures an image of local disaster as local communities have become more and more<br />
dependent on government aid.<br />
All in all, the infusion of settlements with prescriptive urban legislation and planning<br />
models, the underwriting of infrastructure developments and social services, the application<br />
of standardized housing programs, land distribution patterns, and the construction of<br />
government buildings of similar architecture design (schools, mosques, clinics, police and<br />
fire stations, post offices, etc.), all have facilitated the production of modern built forms<br />
which, while originated from distinctive urban patterns, grew to resemble each other<br />
despite their geographic setting, urban economies or genesis. Consequently, the<br />
diversified architecture of the various regions of the Kingdom have dissolved into one<br />
whole.
343<br />
HI. ENVISIONING THE PLURALISTIC CITY<br />
What can be done to restore desirable traditional urban attributes as well as<br />
authenticity and to promote economic independence while acknowledging modern time<br />
exigencies (i.e. the political economic structure under the modem nation-state and<br />
technology) is a crucial and challenging question which needs to be addressed in this<br />
closing part of the study. In his analysis of modern housing development in Saudi Arabia,<br />
Peter Rowe characterizes the contemporary urban landscape as "distinctly modern and<br />
Western." 9 Yet the modernization of the built environment in Saudi Arabia has also<br />
amounted to rigid, cumbersome urban sprawl out of sync with the culture and at odds with<br />
the prevailing sterile desert ecosystem. The indulgence in Western suburbanization<br />
conveyed a sense of prosperity which cloaked the increasing alienation of the desert<br />
physical environment and masked the enormous social and economic cost of the bulging<br />
sprawl.<br />
Writing about the ramifications of modernizing traditional societies, C.E. Black stated<br />
that, "at the heart of alienation is the impersonality of the societies in which the entire life of<br />
an individual— work, home, nourishment, health, communication, recreation— is managed<br />
by a variety of bureaucratic organizations that tend to treat individuals as numbers, bodies,<br />
or abstract entities." 10 Anne Moudon (1988) contends, "A rigid or hard physical system<br />
exists when the decisions of a few individuals affect the collective realm of the large<br />
physical scale." 11 A major factor behind this rigidness in Saudi Arabia, I argue, has to do<br />
with alienation, that is the distancing of residents from control over their immediate<br />
environment.<br />
Paternalism and a quest for socio-political order and oil wealth marked the Saudi<br />
modernization process and shaped its urban form. Modernization theory presupposes a<br />
positive relationship between socioeconomic development and political participation.<br />
According to the theory, the spreading of political information and political awareness must<br />
accompany socioeconomic mobility and urban modernization. 12 Yet central power has<br />
accrued in Saudi Arabia at the cost of emasculating local communities' political<br />
development. The government has orchestrated the society's change from traditional,<br />
independent subsistence socioeconomic urban systems to consumer-based, service-oriented<br />
and modernized ones highly dependent on government financial backing.
344<br />
Such government intervention was predicated on the tacit conviction that the society<br />
would be unable to transform itself without the active role and specialized organs of the<br />
central bureaucracy. Ostensibly, the Monarchic government was skeptical that the mostly<br />
illiterate and underdeveloped society could meet the increasing pressure for change brought<br />
about by oil industrialization, without the commanding role of the state. Thus the decisionmaking<br />
process, including urban planning, has increasingly concentrated within the central<br />
bureaucracy, a realm under the control of the King. At the local level, the degree of control<br />
over the environment was drastically diminished with the creation of the central<br />
bureaucratic municipality, rather than the local community. To bring about change,<br />
residents have had to rely on a ponderous municipal system and other constricting<br />
procedures, a process entangled in a bureaucratic labyrinth.<br />
In good city form, Lynch contends that the betterment of a city can be induced by<br />
improving its "fit," that is "to put the control of it into the hand of its immediate users, who<br />
have the stake and the knowledge to make it function well." 13 Lynch considers a "good<br />
place" to be "one which is appropriate to the person and her culture, makes her aware of<br />
her community, her past, the web of life, and the universe and of time and space in which<br />
those are contained." 14 To mollify the rigid, bulging, environmentally incongruent and<br />
impersonal Saudi built forms, a decentralization of central power is necessary and timely.<br />
Centralized, technocratic and technical urban planning must gradually give in to local<br />
control of urban development.<br />
The delegation of power to local communities will help foster indigenous political<br />
personality and, thus on the urban level, infuse pluralism in urban planning and design. In<br />
the realm of urban design, an intricate system of organizing open circulation and built<br />
spaces should adhere to formulas that both meet and guarantee neighbors' needs for<br />
privacy and mollify the harsh desert environment of the Kingdom. This could be attained,<br />
for example, by gradually empowering local municipalities to form local governments with<br />
elected officials.<br />
Local control might be attained by reestablishing traditional forms of city controls,<br />
that is the notables' role (e.g. the mukhtar and the omdah) in shaping their districts or<br />
quarters. Then community residents could propose creative measures reflecting their needs<br />
in their immediate built environment as opposed to the existing impersonal, spaceless and<br />
standardized regulations of the central bureaucracy. Within the new municipal
345<br />
government, a greater flexibility would be granted to local districts to establish procedures<br />
by which, for example, land allocation and other forms of subventions are granted on an<br />
actual needs basis. For example, absenteeism and lax land development controls are at the<br />
center of the present urban sprawl. This results in costly infrastructure and an ineffectual<br />
supply of public services at the city scale. Land distribution policies can be controlled by<br />
local communities and delivered to those able to utilize them.<br />
By increasing local participation it is hoped that locally determined measures would<br />
help relieve the vexing problem of scattered development which the Urban Domain was<br />
introduced to solve in the late 1980s. Finally, municipal governments may be encouraged<br />
to compete in attracting central government funds on a feasibility basis which, in the longrun,<br />
aims at creating economically solvent urban economies. Ultimately, towns could<br />
economize urban development. In short, I argue for environmentally compatible,<br />
efficiency based, and collectively justified urban development.<br />
The hope for the political realm is that diverse patches will result in a quilt of<br />
personalized urban communities, as opposed to the prevalent hard, rigid and singular<br />
physical systems. Economically, the government's overburdened commitment to finance<br />
local, spread-out urban forms will presumably be lessened by local supervision of the<br />
distribution of land to eligible recipients and allocation of public services and utilities to the<br />
population. Bureaucratically, the process of reestablishing local participation in the<br />
decision-making process ostensibly eases the cumbersome and bloating functions of the<br />
central administrative system.<br />
Saudi urban development reflects the attempts of the state to coax its traditional<br />
society into the industrial era. Oil riches have allowed the state to engage the society in a<br />
rapid development process while maintaining the social coherence and political stability of a<br />
nation-state with a traditional monarchy at its top. In the Saudi course of economic<br />
development, market forces take a secondary role in the production and conditioning of the<br />
modern urban scene; for economic and urban policies conform less to efficiency than to the<br />
sociopolitical character of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, apolitical approaches to understand the<br />
Saudi urban transformation fall short of rendering a complete picture.<br />
The Saudi city's mutation reflects the society's yearning to attain modernization. The<br />
remarkable development of the modern Saudi city has been due to propitious conditions.
346<br />
In the quest for modernization, the state's underwriting of massive public, infrastructure,<br />
and large-scale urban development has satiated the urban network with immense financial<br />
backing. The intent has been to transform the traditional medina to meet the modern<br />
functions introduced as part of the modernization of the society. In the process, traditional<br />
urban qualities were obscured and the resulting contemporary built form is an expression of<br />
modern urban development process.<br />
The modernization of the built environment has served several basic cultural<br />
purposes. It has served as an outlet for government spending, avowed by public officials<br />
as a sine qua non step to prepare Saudi nationals for an active future economic<br />
independence. The improvement of the Saudi population's health, living, and educational<br />
standards, and provision of massive, modern infrastructure are sought to lessen the<br />
country's economic dependence on the oil sector. At the same time, massive funding of a<br />
newly built environment has served as a means for redistribution of the swelling national<br />
treasury to what was once predominantly poor, illiterate population. From this perspective,<br />
the form of the Saudi city should not be seen as an engine for economic growth primarily,<br />
rather it is better understood as a means for collective consumption, a means for<br />
redistribution of oil wealth to the population, for sociopolitical stability and for cultural<br />
integrity in the transition to modern urban life in Saudi Arabia.
347<br />
Notes to Chapter IX<br />
1<br />
The ability of powerful actors to influence the urban process holds, though at a different degree, in<br />
democratic free-market economies such as the United States. In his article, "Economics and Zoning<br />
Laws", William A. Fischel criticizes traditional economic theories for downplaying political factors in<br />
analyzing zoning and related land use controls. He argues for a property-rights approach to zoning,<br />
because it addresses "the motives of zoning officials realistically, "and "places zoning in its proper<br />
sphere, local politics." Fischel argues for an "economic theory of politics" to understand zoning. He<br />
shows how politicians, doing what they are supposed to do in a democratic society, will use zoning to<br />
win voters support by yielding to their demands. For example, the "special-interest model" addresses<br />
the fact that voters cannot follow closely what is going on. This leaves ample space for special<br />
interest groups to influence officials to whom they promise campaign contributions.<br />
2<br />
In most cases, contemporary amirs do not necessarily belong to a noble local family in the town or<br />
city. Especially, in regions with vital economic and political weight, a senior member of the A1 Saud<br />
dynasty is appointed as amir.<br />
^<br />
It must be noted here that in addition to these tasks, local amirs exercise symbolic traditional duties<br />
such as those of the majlis (See footnote 11, Chapter HI).<br />
4<br />
Virtually, all Saudi planners and bureaucrats who I interviewed during the information gathering stage<br />
of this study acknowledged the need to search a compromising urban paradigm that blends modem<br />
technology with traditional values. Being pragmatics, they admitted that with their ramshackle mud<br />
communities, unproperly serviced and inaccessible to automobiles, etc., traditional centers of Saudi<br />
settlements lost against the Westernized modern suburbs. What is lacking is a vision of how to forgo<br />
the "enticing" reality for an unclear idealism.<br />
5<br />
Approximately 50% of Riyadh's population lives in 50 square kilometers, or 5% of the city's area of<br />
1062 square kilometers. Source: High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh. Program for the<br />
Development of the Governing Palace Area: Third Stage (Rabi Awwal, 1409/1989), 3.<br />
6 Fahad A1 Saud (the King). "Public Speech Addressing the Saudi Students in the US, 11/23/1404H." In<br />
Wathaek Littariekh, Mukhtarat min Kalimat wa Liqaat Jalalat al Malik Fahad bin Abdul-Aziz<br />
[Documents for History: Selective Speeches by H.M. King Fahad Al Saud]. Riyadh: Ministry of<br />
Information, no date of publication, not dated), 260.<br />
7<br />
See discussion of Islamic inheritance law under land tenure in Chapter II and, in Chapter V, under home<br />
ownership.<br />
8 To help relieve housing shortages and to entice employment, some government agencies and military<br />
departments built their own housing complexes which were only distributed to their employees.<br />
9 Peter Rowe, "Dual Aspects of Tradition in Saudi Arabian Urban Housing Development," In Setha Low<br />
and Erve Chambers, Housing Culture and Design: A Comparative Perspective (Philadelphia:<br />
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 314.<br />
C.E. Black. The Dynamics of Modernization: A Study in Comparative History (New York: Harper &<br />
Row, Publishers, 1966), 32.
348<br />
11<br />
Anne Vernez Modoun. Built for Change: Neighborhood Architecture in San Francisco (Cambridge,<br />
MA: MIT Press, 1986), 92.<br />
12<br />
Karl Deutsch, quoted in East Cam, "Urbanization and Political Behavior." In The Middle East City:<br />
Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World, edited by A. Saqqaf (New York: Paragon House<br />
Publishers, 1987), 339.<br />
1<br />
^ Kevin Lynch loosely relates the "fit" of a settlement, that is the degree to which "its spatial and<br />
temporal pattern matches the customary behavior of its inhabitants," to comfort, satisfaction and<br />
efficiency Kevin Lynch, Good City Form (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), 152. I risk the<br />
general proposition that the contemporary Saudi built environment does not meet such criteria,<br />
especially comfort and efficiency. Tarik Al-Solaiman (1989), who attempted to gauge such a<br />
subjective indicator, cautiously concluded that the totally designed and built "model" communities,<br />
such as the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh and the Internal Security Forces' community housing in<br />
Arar, are a "more favorable alternative to that of grid-iron speculative land sub-divisioning," which<br />
marks the majority of contemporary uiban development in the Kingdom T. Al-Soliman, "The<br />
Characteristics of Planned Communities and their Impact on Urban Development and Residents<br />
Perceptions." In Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi Arabia, edited by K. Al-Ankaiy and El-Sayed El-<br />
Bushra, 45-76 (Berlin: Gebrudem Borntraeger, 1989), 73.<br />
14 Lynch, 142.
BIBLIOGRAPHY<br />
Abdulaal, Walead. "Implications of Subdivision Activity for the Urban Growth of<br />
Madina." Urban Studies 27 (May, 1990):725-738.<br />
Abu-Lughod, J. L. and Richard Hay, Jr. Third World Urbanization. New York:<br />
Methuen, 1977.<br />
Abu-Lughod, J. L. "Contemporary Relevance of Islamic Urban Principles (extract)."<br />
Ekistics 280 (JanVFeb., 1980): 6-10.<br />
Abu-Lughod, J. L. Rabat: Urban Apartheid In Morocco. Princeton, New Jersey:<br />
Princeton University Press, 1980.<br />
Abu-Lughod, J. L. "The Islamic City- Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary<br />
Relevance. International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (May 1987): 155-176.<br />
Abu-Lughod, J. L. "What is Islamic About A City Some Comparative Reflections." In<br />
The Proceedings of the International Conference on Urbanism In Islam, 193-218.<br />
Tokyo, Japan: ICUIT, 1989.<br />
Abu-Sin, Mohammad H. "Tawziea' Assukkan fee Imarat Huraimla" [Population<br />
Distribution in Huraimla's Principality], In Imarat Huraimla: Dirasah Jophraphiya<br />
and Maidaniyah [Huraimla's Principality: Geographic and Field Study], edited by M.<br />
Arrouaithy, M. Mahmoud, A. Abdul-Hafidh, and M. Mahsoub, 289-314. Riyadh:<br />
Islamic University of Imam Mohammad Bin Saud, 1986.<br />
Akbar, J. Crisis in the Built Environment: the Case of the Muslim City. Singapore:<br />
Concept Media Pte Ltd.<br />
Akhdar, Farouk M. "The Philosophy of Saudi Arabia's Industrialization Policy." In Saudi<br />
Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning, And Industrialization, edited by R. El<br />
Mallakh and D. H. El Mallakh, 15-20. Lexington, Mass. Lexington Books, 1982.<br />
A1 Abbadi, Ahmad, M. "Min Madhahir al-Hayat al-Iqtisadiyah fee al-Madinah al-<br />
Islamiyah" [Aspects of Economic Life in the Islamic City]. A 'lam Alfikr<br />
(April/May/June, 1980): 127-160.<br />
A1 Ankary, K. M. and El-S. El-Bushra, eds. Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi Arabia.<br />
Berlin: Gebruder Borntrageger, 1989.<br />
A1 Ankary, Khalid M. and El-Sayed El-Bushra. "Urban Growth and Urbanization in<br />
Saudi Arabia." In Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi Arabia, edited by Khalid M. Al-<br />
Ankary and El-Sayed El-Bushra, 3-14. Berlin: Gebrudern Borntraeger, 1989.<br />
A1 Farsy, Fouad A. "King <strong>Faisal</strong> and the First Five Year Development Plan." In King<br />
<strong>Faisal</strong>: and the Modernization of Saudi Arabia, edited by Willard A. Beling, 58-74.<br />
London: Croom Helm, 1980.<br />
A1 Farsy, Fouad A. Saudi Arabia: A Case Study in Development. London: KPI, 1986.
350<br />
A1 Hathloul, S. A. Traditions, Continuity and Change in the Physical Environment: The<br />
Arab-Muslim City. Unpublished <strong>Dissertation</strong>. Department of Architecture, MIT,<br />
1981.<br />
A1 Hathloul, S. and A. Amroush. "Almodoun Aljadidah wa Istrategiyat Attakhteet<br />
Aliqlimi: Modoun Khat-attablain fee Almamalakah Alarabiyah Assaudiyah" [The New<br />
Cities and the Regional Planning Strategies: The Cities of Tapline in Saudi Arabia]<br />
Unpublished paper presented to the "New Cities" Symposium. Jubail Saudi Arabia,<br />
Rabi'a Aththani 24-28, 1409/December 3-7,1988.<br />
A1 Hathloul, S. and Anis-ur-Rahmaan. "The Evolution of Urban and Regional Planning in<br />
Saudi Arabia." Ekistics 312 (May/June 1985): 206-212.<br />
A1 Hathloul, S. "The Development of Settlements in Najd Region During the 14th Century<br />
A.H. [c. 20th A.D.], Al-Badaie in Gassim, a Case Study." In Saudi Cities:<br />
Distribution and Morphology, edited by A. S. Abdo (Chair), 137-169. Riyadh: King<br />
Saud University Libraries, 1987. In Arabic (abstracts in English).<br />
A1 Hussayen, M. "Urban Pattern of Riyadh City." In Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi<br />
Arabia, edited by Khalid M. Al-Ankary and El-Sayed El-Bushra, 127-142. Berlin:<br />
Gebrudern Borntraeger, 1989.<br />
A1 Kadi, Abdullah H. Urban Planning Legislation in Saudi Arabia: A Systematic<br />
Classification, Vol.11 (Appendix). Unpublished Thesis, King <strong>Faisal</strong> University,<br />
Dammam, Saudi Araba, 1989.<br />
A1 Mawled, Farhaj M. "Aljoughraphiyah Assiyassiyah lil-Mamlakah al-Arabiyah<br />
Assaudiyah, al-Moqauimat al-Bashariyah lil-Dawlah" [Political Geography of the<br />
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Human Resources of the State]. Saudi Studies (Riyadh:<br />
Diplomatic Studies Institute, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Part II, 1987): 137-174.<br />
A1 Mawled, Farhaj M. "Aljoughraphiyah Assiyassiyah lil-Mamlakah al-Arabiyah<br />
Assaudiyah, al-Moqauimat Attabiyah" [Political Geography of the Kingdom of Saudi<br />
Arabia, Natural Resources] Saudi Studies (Riyadh: Diplomatic Studies Institute,<br />
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Part 1,1986): 11-42.<br />
A1 Musallim, H. S. and A. F. Al-Quraishi. "A1 Istitan wa-al Qawai'd allati Tahkum<br />
Nomou wa Takween A1 Hijar" [Sedentarization: the Rules that Govern its Growth<br />
and Formation]. Second Conference for Municipalities and Rural Communities,<br />
First Edition. Riyadh: National Guards Press, 1985.<br />
A1 Nuaim, Abdullah A (Mayor of Riyadh). "Profile-Riyadh City Construction: Experience<br />
and Modern Development." Riyadh: Arab Urban Development Institute, no date of<br />
publication.<br />
A1 Nuaim, Abdullah A.(Mayor of Riyadh). "Summary of A Lecture on Environmental<br />
Issues and Riyadh City's Experience." Paper presented to the International Summit<br />
on Critical Environmental Issues. Los Angeles: April 19-20,1990.
351<br />
A1 Rashid, Ibrahim. Documents on the History of Saudi Arabia, Vol. II: The<br />
Consolidation of Power in Central Arabia Under Ibn Saud, 1925-1928. Salisbury,<br />
N.C.: Documentary Publications, 1976.<br />
A1 Rashid, Ibrahim. Documents on the History of Saudi Arabia, Vol. Ill: Establishment of<br />
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Under Ibn Saud, 1928-1935. Salisbury, N.C.:<br />
Documentary Publications, 1976.<br />
A1 Rashid, Ibrahim. Saudi Arabia Enters the Modern World, Part II, U.S. Documents on<br />
the Emergence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a World Power, 1936-1949, Vol.<br />
V. Salisbury, N.C.: Documentary Publications, 1980.<br />
A1 Sabban, A. S. "Saudi Arabia Municipalities: History, Organization and Structure." In<br />
Politics, Administration, and Development in Saudi Arabia, edited by Ahmed H.<br />
Dahlan, 97-127. Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1990.<br />
A1 Said, Abdulrahman H. "The Transition from a Tribal Society to a Nation-State." In<br />
Saudi Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning and Industrialization, edited by R. El<br />
Mallakah and D. H. El Mallakh, 99-105. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1982.<br />
A1 Shalhoob, A. A. 1991. "Riyadh Completes its Embellishment By Year 2000" (An<br />
interview with Riyadh's Mayor) Al Yamamah (January 2,1991): 28-33.<br />
A1 Shamkh, Ahmad. Spatial Patterns of Bedouin Settlements in Al Qasim Region, Saudi<br />
Arabia. Ph.D. Unpublished Ph.D. <strong>Dissertation</strong>, University of Kentucky, 1975.<br />
Al Soliman, T. M. "The Characteristics of Planned Communities and Their Impact on<br />
Urban Development and Residents Perceptions." In Urban and Rural Profiles in<br />
Saudi Arabia, edited by Khalid M. Al-Ankary and El-Sayed El-Bushra, 45-76.<br />
Berlin, Gebrudern Borntraeger, 1989.<br />
Al Subaie, Abdullah N. IktishafAnnift wa Atharuhu ala al-Hayah al-Iqtisadiyahfee almantiqahAshsharqiah:<br />
Dirasah feeAttariekh al-Iqtisadi, 1352/1933-1380/1960 [The<br />
Discovery of Oil and its Impact on the Economy in the Eastern Province: A Study in<br />
Economic History]. Riyadh: Asharief Press, 1989.<br />
Al Subaie, Abdullah N. Iktishaf Annift wa Atharuhu ala al-Hayat al-Iqtisadiyahfee almantiqah<br />
Ashsharqiah: Dirasah fee Attariekh al-Ijtimai, 1352-1380HJ1933-1960<br />
[The Discovery of Oil and its Impact on the Economy in the Eastern Province: A<br />
Study in Social History]. Riyadh: Asharief Press, 1989.<br />
Al Tua'is, Saleh N. Joughraffiyat Mantiqat Ashshaa'eeb: Maidnat Huraimla [The<br />
Geography of Al Shai'eeb Area: the City of Huraimla]. Riyadh, 1979.<br />
Al Washmi, Ahmed M. Arriyadh: Madinah wa Sukkan, Kaifa Canat wa kaifa Ashou<br />
[Riyadh City and Residents, How it was and How they Lived]. Riyadh: National<br />
Guard Printing Press, no date of publication.<br />
Ali, A. Y. (translator). The Holy Quran. Brentwood, MA: Amana Corporation, 1989.
352<br />
Appleyard, D. "Styles and Methods of Structuring a City." Environment and Behavior 1<br />
(June, 1970): 100-118.<br />
Arab City Development Institute. Arriyadh: Madinat Al Mustaqbal [Riyadh: The City of<br />
Future]. Riyadh: King Saud University Press, no date of publication.<br />
Arabian American Oil Company. Aramco Handbook: Oil and the Middle East.<br />
Netherlands: Enschede en Zonen-Haarlem, 1968.<br />
"Arar, a Special Report." Al-Baladiyat (1989): 14-21.<br />
Asad, Muhammad. The Principles of State and Government in Islam. Gibraltar: Dar Al-<br />
Andalus, 1980.<br />
Assaa'eed, Subhi A. "Coin Telephone Booths in the City of Riyadh: A Geographical<br />
Study of Characteristics and Spatial Distribution." Occasional Papers. Riyadh:<br />
Department of Geography, King Saud University Press, 1990.<br />
Azzahrani, A. H. "Dirasat in Hajm al-Moroor wa Attanabou'at Al Morooryyah" [Studies<br />
in Traffic Size and Traffic Projections]. Paper presented to the Symposium on<br />
Planning and Design. Riyadh: King Saud University, March 25-26,1986.<br />
"Back in Business." The Middle East (August, 1990): 25-26.<br />
Badcock, B. Unfairly Structured Cities. Oxford: UK: Basil Blackwell Publisher Limited,<br />
1984.<br />
Bear, G. "The City." In Readings in Arab Middle Eastern Societies and Culture, edited<br />
by Abdulla M. Lutfiyya and Charles Churchill. Paris: Mouton. 1970.<br />
Beling, Willard A. King.<strong>Faisal</strong>: and the Modernization of Saudi Arabia, edited by Willard<br />
A. Beling. London: Croom Helm, 1980.<br />
Berry, Brian, The Human Consequences of Urbanization. London: Macmillan, 1973.<br />
Bianca, Stefano. "The Threat to Historic Islamic Cities Through Western Style<br />
Development: The Case of the Holy City of Medina." Islamic Quarterly 2 (1982):<br />
108-116.<br />
Bin Khamis, Abdullah M. Addriyah, al-Asimah al-Oola [Dirriah, the First Capital].<br />
Riyadh: Al Farazdaq Commercial Press, 1982.<br />
Bin Said, Hasan S. Ministry of Interior: Security and Development. (1989).<br />
Black, C. E. The Dynamics of Modernization: A Study in Comparative History. New<br />
York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966.<br />
Blake, G. H. and Lawless, R. I. eds. The Changing Middle Eastern City. London:<br />
Croom Helm, 1980).
353<br />
Bligh, Alexander. "The Saudi Religious Elite (Ulama) As Participant in The Political<br />
System of the Kingdom." Int. Middle East Studies 17 (1987): 37-50.<br />
Bonine, M. E. "Oil and Urban Development: The Transformation of the Small Arab Town<br />
in the United Arab Emirates." Petites Villes et villes moyennes dans le Monde Arabe,<br />
URBAMA 16-17 (1986): 621-636.<br />
Bonine, M. E. "The Urbanization of the Persian Gulf Nations." In The Persian Gulf<br />
State: A General Survey, edited by Alvin J. Cottrell, C. Edmund Bosworth, R.<br />
Burrell, K. McLachlan, and R.M. Savory, 225-278. Baltimore: John Hopkins<br />
University Press.<br />
Bonine, M.E. "Cities of The Middle East and North Africa." In Cities of the World,<br />
eidted by Stanley D.Brunn and J. F. Williams, 281-321. New York: Harper & Row,<br />
1983.<br />
Brown, Kenneth, ed. Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective. London: Ithaca -<br />
Press, 1986b.<br />
Brown, Kenneth. "The Uses of A Concept: The Muslim City." In Middle Eastern Cities<br />
in Comparative Perspectives, edited by Kenneth Brown, 73-81. London: Ithaca<br />
Press. 1986b.<br />
Busch, N. "Life Visits Arabia." Life Magazine 14:22 (May, 1943): 69-88.<br />
Cam, East. "Urbanization and Political Behavior." In The Middle East city: Ancient<br />
Traditions Confront a Modern World, edited by A. Saqqaf, 335-340. New York:<br />
Paragon House Publishers, 1987.<br />
Castells, M. City, Class and Power. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982.<br />
Castells, M. The City and the Grassroots: a Cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social<br />
Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.<br />
Castells, M. "Urbanization and Dependecy in the Third World". Class Notes<br />
(Transcribed from audio tape). PLUS 508, School of Urban & Regional Planning,<br />
Los Angeles: University of Southern California (Spring, 1984).<br />
Chudacoff, H. The Evolution of American Society. Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc,<br />
1975.<br />
Clark, David. Urban Geography. Baltimore. Maryland: The John Hopkins University<br />
Press, 1982.<br />
Clark, G. and M. Dear. "The State in Capitalism and the Captialist State." In Urbanization<br />
and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society, edited by Michael Dear and Allen J. Scott,<br />
45-61. London: Methuen, 1981.<br />
Colse, Donald P. Nomads of the Nomads. Arlington Heigths, HI: AHM Publishing,<br />
1975.
354<br />
Costa, F. J. and Allen G. Noble. "Planning Arabic Towns." The Goegraphic Review 76:<br />
2 (April, 1986): 160-172.<br />
Costello, V. F. Urbanization in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University<br />
Press, 1977.<br />
Daghistani, A. I. Ar-Riyadh: Urban Development and Planning. Riyadh: Saudi Arabian<br />
Printing Company, 1985.<br />
Dahlan, Ahmed H. "The Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers: Its Environment, Its Role<br />
and Future." In Politics, Administration, and Development in Saudi Arabia, edited<br />
by Ahmed, H. Dahlan, 61-80. Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1990.<br />
Datakura, Motoko. Bedouin Village. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1977.<br />
Daunton, M. "The Social Meaning of Space: The City in the West and Islam." The<br />
Proceedings of the International Conference on Urbnanism in Islam, Vol. I, 26-58<br />
(ICUIT), October, 1989.<br />
De Montequin, Francois-Auguste. "Religious, Social, and Physical Qualities of Islamic<br />
Urbanization." Hamdard Islamicus 1 (Spring 1983): 63-86.<br />
Dear, M. and Allen Scott, eds. Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist State.<br />
London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1981.<br />
Dear, M. and Allen Scott. "Towards a Framework for Analysis." In Urbanization and<br />
Urban Planning in Capitalist State, edited by Michael Dear and Allen J. Scott, 3-16.<br />
London: Methuen and Co. Ltd. 1981.<br />
Depaule, Jean-Charles. "Daily Life and Living Space in Mashriq." In Middle Eastern<br />
Cities in Comparative Perspective, edited by K. Brown, 203-212. London: Ithaca<br />
Press, 1986b.<br />
Deutsh, Karl W. "Social Mobilization and Political Development." American Political<br />
Science Review LV.(September, 1961): 493-514.<br />
Dhahir, Ahmed, J. Al-Madinah al-Khalijiyah Baa'd Annift: Dirasah Ijtimaiyah Siasiyah<br />
[The (Persian) Gulf City After Oil: Social and Political Study]. Alkhaleej Alarabi<br />
19:2 (1987): 61-99.<br />
Doxiadis Associates, Northern Region, Major Plans: Arar, Existing Conditions, Final<br />
Report No. 5 . Athens and Riyadh, Doxiadis Association, September, 1975.<br />
Doxiadis Associates. Northern Region, Major Plans: Arar, Final Major Plan, No. 40.<br />
Athens and Riyadh, Doxiadis Association, April, 1975.<br />
Doxiadis Associates. Northern Region: Urban and Regional Plan and Program for<br />
Improving Existing Conditions, Final (Revised) Report No. 1, Volume 1. Athens,<br />
Greece: Doxiadis Associates, June, 1973.
355<br />
Doxiadis Associates. Northern Region: Urban and Regional Plan and Program for<br />
Improving Existing Conditions, Final (Revised) Report No. 1, Volume 2. Athens,<br />
Greece: Doxiadis Associates, June, 1973.<br />
Doxiadis Associates. Riyadh, Existing Conditions. Athens, Greece: Doxiadis Associates,<br />
July, 1968.<br />
<strong>Dr</strong>akakis-Smith, D. Urbanization, Housing and the Development Process. New York:<br />
St. Maritn's Press, 1980.<br />
Dua'ais, Ismail, M. "Al-Malamih al-A'ammah lil-Iqtisad al-Arabi Assauidi [General<br />
Charactersitics of Saudi Arabian Economy]. Saudi Studies Part 7(1986): 83-218.<br />
Duncan, G. "Saudi Arabia: Some British Work, Planning A Region." RIBAJ 83 (June,<br />
1976): 234-237.<br />
Dyckman, John A. Kreditor and T. Banerjee. "Planning in an Unprepared Environment:<br />
The Case of Bahrain." TPR 2 (1984): 212-227.<br />
Edel, M. "Capitalism, Accumulation and the Explanation of Urban Phenomena." In<br />
Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist State, edited by M. Dear and A. Scott,<br />
19-44. New York: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1981.<br />
Eisenstadt, S.N. and A. Shachar. Society, Culture and Urbanization. Newbury Park:<br />
Sage Publications, 1987.<br />
El-Haj, Badr. Images From the Past: Saudi Arabia. London: Riad el-Rayyes Books,<br />
1989.<br />
Elliot, John. Comparative Economic Systems . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing<br />
Company, 1985.<br />
Esa, Salah A. "Madinat Huraimla: Nasha'tuha, wa Nomouwha A1 Omrani (The City of<br />
Huraimla: Its Birth and Urban Development), In Imarat Huraimla: Dirasah<br />
Joghraphiyyah wa Maidaniyyah [Huraimla's Principality: Geographic and Field<br />
Study, Part II], edited by M. Arrouaithy, M. Mahmoud, A. Abdul-Hafidh, and M.<br />
Mahsoub, 8-46. Riyadh: Islamic University of Imam Mohammad Bin Saud, 1986.<br />
Fadan, Yousef M.O. The Development of Contemporary Housing in Saudi Arabia [1950-<br />
1983]: A Study in Cross-Cultural Influence Under Conditions of Rapid Change.<br />
Unpublished Ph.D. <strong>Dissertation</strong>. Campridge: MIT, 1983.<br />
Faris, Adeeb. Ar Riyadh: Wathbat Izdiharfee Assahra'a alArabiyh [Riyadh: Leap in the<br />
Arabian Desert]. Published <strong>Dissertation</strong>. Beirut: Nimnim, 1982.<br />
Farouk-Sluglett, M. and P. Sluglett. "Research on the History of Aleppo: A Review and<br />
Some Proposals." In Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective, edited by K.<br />
Brown. London: Ithaca Press, 1986b.<br />
Feldman, M. M. "A Contribution to the Critique of Urban Political Economy: the Journey<br />
of Work." Antipode 2 (September, 1977): 30-50.
356<br />
Feldman, M. M. "What Kind of Economics For What Kind of Planning" Journal of<br />
American Planning Association 4 (1987): 427-429.<br />
Field, M. "Saudi Arabia's Industiral Future" (interview with Minister of Industry and<br />
Electricity). Middle Eastern International 85 (July, 1987): 18-19.<br />
Field, M. "Saudi Arabia: The Eastern Province Before Oil." Middle East International 86<br />
(August, 1978): 27-29.<br />
Fischel, W. A. "Economics and Zoning Laws." Urban Land 35 (July, 1986): 34-36.<br />
Fishman, R. Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia. New York: Basic<br />
Books, Inc, 1987.<br />
Foel, Carmichael. "Prince of Arabia." Foreign Affairs 4(1942): 719-731.<br />
Foglesong, R. Planning the Capitalist City: The Colonial Era To The 1920s. Princeton U.<br />
Press, 1986.<br />
Freidmann, John. "Intention and Reality: The American Planner Overseas." AIP Journal 3<br />
(May 1969): 187-194.<br />
Friedmann, John. "The Strategy of Deliberate Urbanization." AIP Journal 6 (Novmeber,<br />
1968): 364-373.<br />
Galantay, E. "Islamic Identity and the Metropolis: the Search for Continuity." The<br />
Proceedings of the International Conference on Urbanism in Islam Vol. 1,5-24.<br />
Tokyo, Japan: October 22-28,1989.<br />
Galantay, E.Y. "Islamic Identity and The Metropolis: Continuity and Conflict." In The<br />
Middle East City: Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World, edited by A.<br />
Saqqaf, 5-41. New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987.<br />
General Office for Civil Services. Alkhidmah Alrnadaniyahfee Argam, 1409-1410 [Civil<br />
Service in Numbers, 1989]. Riyadh: National P-Press House.<br />
George, Alan. "Bedouin Settlement in Saudi Arabia." Middle East International 51<br />
(September, 1975): 27-30<br />
Glasse, Cyril. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. New York: Harper San Francisco,<br />
1991.<br />
Goldfield, D. R. and Brownell, B. A. Urban America: From Downtown to No Town.<br />
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979.<br />
Goldsmith, W. and Jacobs Harvey. "The Improbability of Urban Policy: the Case of the<br />
United States." APA Journal 1 (Winter 1982): 53-66.<br />
Gottdiener, M. The Social Production of Urban Space. Austin: Univeristy of Texas<br />
Press, 1985.
357<br />
"Governmental Services and International Cooperative Offices in Riyadh." Al Baladiyat 5<br />
(March, 1986).<br />
Grill. N.C. Urbanization In The Arabian Peninsula. Occasional Papers Series. Durham,<br />
U.K.: Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Durham, 1984..<br />
Hakim, B. S. and Peter Rowe. "The Representation of Values in Traditional and<br />
Contemporary Islamic Cities." Journal of Architecture Education 4 (1983): 22-28.<br />
Hakim, B. S. Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles. London: Kegan<br />
Paul International, 1986.<br />
Hakim, B. S. "Islamic Architecture and Urbanism." In Encyclopedia of Architecture,<br />
Design, Engineering, and Construction, Vol. 3, edited by J. Wilkes, 86-103. New<br />
York: John Wiley and Sons, c 1989,<br />
Hancock, John. "Planners in the Changing American City, 1900-1940," In American<br />
Urban History: An Interpretive Reader with Commnetaries, edited by Alexander B.<br />
Callow Jr., 596-614. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.<br />
Harvey, D. Consciousness and the Urban Experience: Studies in the History and Theory<br />
of Capitalist Urbanization. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press,1985.<br />
Harvey, D. "The Urban Process Under Capitalism: A Framework for Analysis." In<br />
Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist State, edited by M. Dear and A.<br />
Scott, 91-121. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1981.<br />
Harvey, D. "The Urban Process Under Capitalism: a Framework for Analysis." In<br />
Urbanization, Urban Planning in Capitalist Society, edited by M. Dear and A. J.<br />
Scott, 91-122. London: Methuen, 1981.<br />
Hassan, Riaz. "The Nature of Islamic Urbanization- An Historical Perspective." Islamic<br />
Culture (1969): 233-237.<br />
Hay, I. M. "A State of Mind: Some Thoughts on the State in Capitalist Society."<br />
Progress in Human Geography 12 (1990): 34-46.<br />
Heller, M. and Nadav Safran. The New Middle Class and Regime Stability in Saudi<br />
Arabia. Harvard Middle East Papers, Modern Series 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Center<br />
For Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1984.<br />
High Commission For The Development of Arriyadh. Program for the Development of<br />
Governing Palace Area, Third Stage, 1989.<br />
High Commission For The Development of Arriyadh. Program for the Development of<br />
Governing Palace Area: Second Stage, 1987.<br />
High Commission For the Development of Arriyadh. Taqreer Nitaq Annomou al-Omrani<br />
Lee Madinat Arriyadh, Amanat Madinat Arriadh [Report on Urban Domain For the<br />
City of Riyadh, Riyadh Municipality]. Riyadh: Ashshark al-Awsat Press, 1409/1989.
358<br />
High Commission for the Development of Airiyadh. Al Manakh al-Iqtisadi fee Arriyadh,<br />
[Economic Environment in Riyadh City ]. Jubail: Support Industry Printing Center,<br />
1990.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh. Demographic, Transportation, Land<br />
Use, and Economic Studies For the City of Arriyadh, Executive Summary . Riyadh:<br />
National Offset Printing Press, October, 1987.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh. Madinat Arriyadh, Nathrah [Riyadh<br />
city: a Glimpse]. Riyadh: Al-Obaican Press, 1990.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Arryadh. Haiy Assafarat [Embassies'<br />
Quarter]. Riyadh, 1989.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Arryadh. Istratigiyat AttatweerAl Hadary Lee<br />
Madinat Arriyadh [Strategy for Urban Development for the City of Riyadh]. Riyadh:<br />
DarAshshibl Publications, Shawwal, 1411/1991.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Riyadh. Madinat Arriyadh: Lamahat<br />
Mukhtasarah [Riyadh City: Brief Aspects]. Riyadh: Al-Obaican Press, c. 1989.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Arryadh. Masirat Attataour [The March to<br />
Development]. Riyadh: Supporting Industries Press, Dhul-Hijjah, 1410 (1990).<br />
High Commission for the Development of Riyadh. Land Use Survey: Summary Report.<br />
Riyadh: Al Shathry Consulting Engineering, 1987.<br />
High Commisstion for the Development of Riyadh. Decmographich, Transportation, Land<br />
use and Economic Studies for the City of Riyadh: Landu Use Survey, Summary<br />
Report. Riyadh; CH2M Hill, Engineers, Planners Economists Scientists/Al-Shathry<br />
Consulting Engineers, 1987.<br />
High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh. Demographic, Transportation, Land<br />
Use, and Economic Studies for the city of Arriyadh. Riyadh: National Offset<br />
Printing Press, October, 1987.<br />
Hill, R. C. "Capital Accumulation and Urbanization in the United States." Comparative<br />
Urban Research 4 (1977): 39-60.<br />
Hill, R. C. "Separate and Unequal: Governmental Inequality in the Metropolis." American<br />
Political Science Review 68 (1974): 1557-1568.<br />
Hohenberg, P. M. and L.H. Lees. The Making of Urban Europe, 1000-1950 .<br />
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.<br />
Howard, Ebenezer. Garden Cities of To-morrow. London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1946.<br />
Howrath, D. The Desert King: the Life of Ibn Saud. London: Quarter Books, 1980.<br />
Huntington, Samuel P. "Political Development and Political Decay." World Politics<br />
(April 1965): 386-430.
359<br />
Huntington, Samuel P. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale<br />
University Press, 1968.<br />
Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. "Arab Social Change: Six Profiles." The Jerusalem Quarterly 23<br />
(Spring, 1982): 13-23.<br />
Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. "Ciro: A sociological Profile," in The Middle East City: Ancient<br />
Traditions Confron a Modern World, edited by A. Saqqaf, 209-226. New York:<br />
Paragon, 1987.<br />
Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. "Urbanization in the Arab Wrold: The Need for an Urban Strategy."<br />
In Arab Society: Social Science Perspective, edited by N.S. Hopkins and S.E.<br />
Ibrahim, 123-147. Cairo: The American University Press, 1985.<br />
Johany, Ali. "The Saudi Economy: Yesterday's Performance and Tomorrow's Prospects."<br />
In Saudi Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning and Industrialization, edited by R.<br />
El Mallakh and D. H. El Mallakh, 1-14. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1982.<br />
Johnson, M. "Communal Solderaties and Political Struggles: Clientelism as A System in<br />
Muslim Beirut." In Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective, edited by K.<br />
Brown, 313-326. London: Ithaca Press, 1986b.<br />
Kadi, Omar A. and Hazim M. Ibraeem. Takhteet al-Modun fee al-Mamlakah al-Arabiyah<br />
Assao'udiyah [City Planning in Saudi Arabia]. Riyadh: Saudi Arabian Press Co.<br />
Ltd., 1981.<br />
Kanovsky, E. Saudi Arabia's Dismal Economic Future: Regional and Global Implications.<br />
Research Paper. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, The Dayan Center For Middle<br />
Eastern and African Studies, 1986.<br />
Khakee, Abdul. "Urban Economics, Urban Geography and Planning." Planning Outlook<br />
24 (1981): 72-97.<br />
Khuri, Fuad. "Ideological Constants and Urban Living." In The Middle East City:<br />
Ancient Traditins Confront a Modern World, edited by Abdulaziz Y. Saqqaf, 69-76.<br />
New York: Paragon House, 1987.<br />
Kimball, Solon T. "American Culture in Saudi Arabia." The New York Academy of<br />
Sciences 18 (March, 1956): 469-484.<br />
King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology. Master Development Plan. 1981.<br />
Kingsley, Davis. "The Urbanization of Human Population," In The City in Newly<br />
Developing Countries: Readings on Urbanism and Urbanization, edited by Gerald<br />
Breese, 5-20. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1960.<br />
Kirk, Grayson L. "Ibn Saud builds an Empire." Current History 41 (1934): 291-297.<br />
Klosterman, Richard E. "Arguments for and Against Planning." Town Planning Review<br />
56 (1985): 5-20.
360<br />
Kostiner, J. "On the Instruments and Their Designers: The Ikhwan of Najd and the<br />
Emergence of the Saudi State." Middle Eastern Studies 3 (July, 1985): 298-324.<br />
Lapidus., I. M. "Muslim Urban Society." In Middle Eastern Cities, edited by I. M.<br />
Lapidus. Berley and Los Angeles, 1969.<br />
Lefebvre, H. "Space: Social Product and Use Value." In Critical Sociology, edited by J.<br />
W. Freiberg, 160-185. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1979.<br />
Lenczowski, George. "Tradition and Reform in Saudi Arabia." Current History<br />
(February, 1967): 98-104.<br />
Lepetz, A. "The New Tendencies in the International Division of Labor: Regimes of<br />
Accumulation and Modes of Regulation." In Production, Work, Territory: The<br />
geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism, edited by A. Scott and M. Storper.<br />
Boston: Allen and Nunwin, 1987.<br />
Levy, J. M. Contemporary Urban Planning. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice hall,<br />
1988.<br />
Lewis, Captain C. C. "Ibn Saud and the Future of Arabia." International Affairs (July,<br />
1933): 518-534.<br />
Lindblom, Charles E. The Policy-Making Process, 2nd Edition. Englewood, N.J.: New<br />
Jersey, 1980.<br />
Lynch, K. Good City Form. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987.<br />
Mansfield, Peter. The New Arabians. Chicaco:J.G.: Ferguson Publishing Co., 1981.<br />
McKenzie, R.D. "The Ecolocical Approach to the Study of the Human Community." In<br />
The City, edited by R.E. Park, E. W. Burgess and R.D. McKenzie. Chicago:<br />
University of Chicago Pres, 1925.<br />
McMinn, Stuart, John Robertson, and Hassan Reda. "Socio-Economic Development of<br />
the Yanbu Sub-Region, Saudi Arabia: The Impact of the Construction Workforce."<br />
Third World Planning Review 4 (November, 1983): 311-332.<br />
Mechkat, C. "The Islamic City and the Western City: A Comparative Analysis." In The<br />
Middle East City: Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World edited by Abdulaziz<br />
Saqqaf, 25-41. New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987.<br />
Mejcher, Helmut. "Saudi Arabia's 'Vital Link To The West': Some Political, Strategic and<br />
Tribal Aspects of the Transarabian Pipeline (TAP) in the Stage of Planning 1940-<br />
1950." Middle Eastern Studies 18 (October, 1982): 359-377.<br />
Minisitry of Public Information. "Public Speech Addressing the Saudi Students in the US,<br />
11/23/1404H." In Documents For the History, Selective Speeches by H.M. King<br />
Fahad Al Saud. Riyadh: A1 Obikan for Publications, no date.
361<br />
Ministry of Communications. Highway Planning and Development, Technical Book 1.<br />
Riyadh: National Offset Printing Press, 1987 est.<br />
Ministry of Communications. Roads of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Pictures.<br />
Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Central Department of Statistics, Statistical<br />
Year Book, Twenty Fifth Issue, 1409/1989. Riyadh: CDS, 1989.<br />
Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Maslahat al-Ihsa'at al-A'amah (General<br />
Statistical Agency). Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Labor Force in the Kingdom of<br />
Saudi Arabia: 1986.<br />
Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Real Estate Development Fund. Daleel<br />
Qourood al-Istithmar Attijari [Handbook for Commercial Investemtn]. Riyadh,<br />
Ishaa' Press, 1403 (1983).<br />
Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Real Estate Development Fund: Annual<br />
Report, 1987/1988.<br />
Ministry of Finance and National Economy. Statistical Year Book 20th Issue, 1409H<br />
(1989).<br />
Ministry of Interior, Deputy For Municipalities. Annashrah Annisfiyah Lee Ihsa'atAl<br />
Baladyyat: Annisf, 1392H--1989 [Semi-Annual List(s) For Municipal Statistics].<br />
Riyadh: Ministry of Interior, 1976 (MOMRA. Annual Municipal Statistics, since<br />
1975).<br />
Ministry of Interior. Urban Design and Community Development In Saudi Arabia: A Case<br />
Study: Internal Security Forces Housing Project, Vol. 1. Jeddah: Tihama. c. 1985.<br />
Ministry of Interior. Urban Design and Community Development In Saudi Arabia: A Case<br />
Study: Internal Security Forces Housing Project, Vol. 2. Jeddah: Tihama, c. 1985<br />
Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affairs (MOMRA), General Directory for Municipal<br />
and Rural.Affairs, Riyadh Region, Taqreer Nitaq Annomou Al Omrani Lee Madinat<br />
Huraimla [Report on Domain of Urban Development: City of Huraimla]. Riyadh,<br />
MOMRA, 1989.<br />
Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affaris (MOMRA). Atlas of Saudi Cities, Existing<br />
Conditions, 1407H (1987). Riyadh: Deputy Ministry for City Planning, c.1987.<br />
Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affaris (MOMRA). Atlas Nitaq Annomou al-Omrani<br />
Lee Madinat Arar, [Urban Domain Development, City of Arar]. Riyadh: Deputy<br />
Ministry for City Planning, c. 1989 (in Arabic).<br />
Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affaris (MOMRA). Atlas Nitaq Annomou al-Omrani<br />
Lee Madinat Huraimla [Urban Domain Development, City of Huraimla]. Riyadh:<br />
Deputy Ministry for City Planning, c. 1989 (in Arabic).<br />
Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affaris (MOMRA). Atlas of Saudi Cities, The Urban<br />
Domain . Riyadh: Deputy Ministry for City Planning, c. 1989.
362<br />
Ministry of Planning. Achievements of the Development Plans: 1390-1403/1970-1983.<br />
Riyadh: Minsitry of Planning Press, 1983.<br />
Ministry of Planning. Al Ahdaf al-Aammah wa al-Ossus al-Istrategiyah lee-Khittat<br />
Attanmiyah al-Khamisah, 1410-1415/1990-1995 [The General Goals and Istrategic<br />
Basis for the Fifth Development Plan, 1990-995]. Riyadh: Ministry of Planning<br />
Press, 1989.<br />
Ministry of Planning. Development Plan, 1390 A.H. (1970). Riyadh: Ministry of<br />
Planning, c.1969.<br />
Ministry of Planning. Fifth Development Plan: 1410-1415/1990-1995. Riyadh: Ministry<br />
of Planning Press, c.1989.<br />
Ministry of Planning. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Achievements of the Development<br />
Plans: 1390-1407/1970-1987. Riyadh: Ministry of Planning Press, 1987.<br />
Ministry of Planning. Summary of the Fifth Development Plan, 1410-1415/1990-1995.<br />
Riyadh: Ministry of Planning Press.<br />
Ministry of Planning. Summary of the Fifth Development Plan, 1410/1990-1415/1995.<br />
Riyadh: Ministry of Planning Press, 1989.<br />
Ministry of Public Information, Domestic Information. Wathaiek littariekh, Mukhtarat min<br />
Kalimat wa Liqaat Jalalat al Malik Fahad bin Abdul-Aziz [Documents for History:<br />
Selective Quotes From King Fahad's Speeches and Meetings]. Riyadh: Al-Malek<br />
Publishing House, no date of publication.<br />
Minogue, Kenneth. "Nationalism." In The Social Science Encyclopedia, edited by A. K.<br />
and J. Kuper, 551-552. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985.<br />
Mofett HI, G. D. "Desert Cities See <strong>Dr</strong>ought of Funds." The Christian Science Monitor<br />
(September 9, 1989).<br />
Mohammad, F. Z. "Adwaa Ala Addiblomasiyah al-Arabiyah Assaudiyah, Aththawabit wa<br />
al-Mustajaddat" [Light on the Saudi Arabian Diplomacy, Persistant and Introducory<br />
Aspcets]. Saudi Studies 2 ( 1987): 49-136 (Riyadh: Diplomatic Studies Institute,<br />
Ministry of Foreign Affairs).<br />
Mohammadain, M. "Traffic Accidents in the City of Riyadh." In Saudi Cities: Distribution<br />
and Morphology, edited by A. S. Abdo, 335-377. Riyadh: King Saud University<br />
Press, 1983.<br />
Monkkonen, E. H. America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities & Towns,<br />
1780-1980. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.<br />
Monroe, M. Philby of Arabia. London: Quartet Books, 1980.<br />
Mordechai, Abir. "The Consolidation of the Ruling Class and the New Elites in Saudi<br />
Araiba." Middle Eastern Studies 2 (April, 1987): 150-171.
363<br />
Morris, A.E.J. History of Urban Form: Before the Industrial Revolutions. New York:<br />
John Wiley & Sons, 1986.<br />
Moudon V. A. Built for Change: Neighborhood Architecture in San Francisco.<br />
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.<br />
Mughal, Muhammad A. "Land Use in Rural Settlements of Saudi Arabia- Transition and<br />
Prospects." In Urban and Rural Profiles in Saudi Arabia, edited by Al-Ankary and<br />
El-Bushra, 155-164. Berlin: Gebruder Borntraeger, 1989.<br />
Mumford, L. The City in History. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961.<br />
Mumford, L. The Culture of Cities. New York: Harcousr Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970.<br />
Nasr, S. V. R. "Islamic Econmics: Novel Perspectives." Middle Eastern Studies 4 (Oct.<br />
1989): 516-530.<br />
Nasr, Seyyed Vali R. "Islamic Economics: Novel Perspectives." Middle Eastern Studies<br />
25 (October, 1989): 516-530.<br />
Nehme, Michael G. Saudi Arabia: Political Implications of the Development Plans.<br />
Unpublished <strong>Dissertation</strong>, Graduate Program in Political Science. New Jersey:<br />
Rutgers University, 1983.<br />
North, D. C. "Ideology and Political/Economic Institutions." Cato Journal 8: 1 (Spring,<br />
Summer): 15-28.<br />
Nour, M. M. Abd-El-Aziz. "Factors Underlying Traditional Islamic Urban Design."<br />
Planning Outlook 24(1981): 29-32.<br />
O'Dea, Thomas, ed. Social Change in Saudi Arabia: Problems and Prospects. Dhahran:<br />
Arabian American Oil Company, 1963.<br />
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Selected Documents of the<br />
International Petroleum Industry, Saudi Arabia- Pre-1966. Buffalo, New York:<br />
William S. Hein & Co., Inc., 1983.<br />
Pahl, R. E. "Stratification, the Relation between States and Urban and Regional<br />
Development." Journal of Urban Research 1 (1976): 6-18.<br />
Philby, H. St. J. B. A Pilgrim in Arabia. London. Robert Hale Limited, 1946.<br />
Philby, H. St. J. B. Arabia of the Wahhabis. London: Constable, 1928.<br />
Philby, H. St. J. B. Arabian Jubilee. New York: The John Day Company, 1953.<br />
Philby, H. St. J. B. "Riyadh: Ancient and Modern." The Middle East Journal 2(1959):<br />
129-141.<br />
Philby, H. St. J. B. "The New Reign in Sau'di Arabia." Foreign Affairs 2-4(1954):<br />
446-458.
364<br />
Pickvance, C. G. "Comparative Urban Analysis and Assumptions about Causality." In<br />
Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective, edited by K. Brown, 29-52.<br />
Lindon: Itahca Press, 1986b.<br />
Procter, I. "Some Political Economies of Urbanization and Suggestions for a Research<br />
Framework." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 6:1 (1982): 83-<br />
95.<br />
Rapoport, Amos. "Learning About Settlements and Energy From Historical Precedents."<br />
Ekistics 325 (July/Agust-Oct./Dec., 1987): 262-268..<br />
Rapoport, Amos. The Meaning of the Built Environment, A Nonverbal Communication<br />
Approach. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1982.<br />
Reismann, L. The Urban Process: Cities in Industrial Societies. New York: The Free<br />
Press, 1970.<br />
Reissman, L. The Urban Process: Cities in Industrial Societies. New York: The Free<br />
Press, 1970.<br />
Relph, E. The Modern Urban Landscape. Baltimore, Ma: The John Hopkins University<br />
Press, 1987.<br />
Renaud, Bertrand. National Urbanization Policy in Developing Countries. New York:<br />
Oxford University Press, 1981.<br />
Rendel, Geralding. "Across Saudi Arabia" The Geographic Magazine (January, 1938):<br />
163-180.<br />
Roberts, Bryan. Cities of Peasants. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Publications, 1978.<br />
Roberts, Bryan. Cities of Peasants: The Political Economy of Urbanization in Thrid World<br />
Countries. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Publications, 1984.<br />
Rowe, Peter G. "Dual Aspects of Tradition in Saudi Arabian Housing Development." In<br />
Housing, Culture, and Design: A Comparative Perspective, edited by Setha Low and<br />
Erve Chambers, 303-334. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.<br />
Roweis, S. R. and Allen J. Scott. "The Urban Land Question." In Urbanization and<br />
Urban Planning in Capitalist State, edited by M. Dear and A. Scott, 123-157.<br />
London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1981.<br />
Roy, Delwin A. "Islamic Banking." Middle Eastern Studies 27 (July, 1991): 427-456.<br />
Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. Introductory Information.<br />
Safa, Helen I., ed. Toward A Political Economy of Urbanization in third World Countries.<br />
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982.<br />
Safran, N. Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security. Ithaca: Cornell University<br />
Press, 1988.
365<br />
Salamah, Gasssan. "Saudi Arabia: Development and Dependence." The Jerusalem<br />
Quarterly 20 (Summer, 1980): 109-122.<br />
Samman, N.H. "Saud,i Arabi and the Role of the Emirates in Regional Development." In<br />
Politics, Administration, and Development in Saudi Arabia, edited by Ahmed, H.<br />
Dahlan, 85-96. Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1990.<br />
Saqqaf, A., ed. The Middle East City, Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World. New<br />
York: Paragon House, 1987.<br />
"Saudi Arabia Faces the 1990s." The Middle East (September, 1989): 5-9.<br />
"Saudi Arabia: A New Challenge for the Private Sector: Austerity and Self Reliance." The<br />
Middle East (January, 1987): 29-30.<br />
"Saudi Arabia: Industry Leads the Way: Special Report." The Middle East. (January,<br />
1987): 31-32.<br />
"Saudi Arabia: Riyadh and Jeddah Business Centers for the 1990s." The Middle East<br />
(August, 1991): 25-36.<br />
"Saudi Arabia: Special Report, Why Pay Interest On Loans" The Middle East (Janurary,<br />
1987): 33-34.<br />
"Saudi Arabia: The Peninsula Under Najdi Rule." In Traditional Monarchies, edited by <br />
Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency. Annual Report, 1410/1411 (1990). Riyadh: Ayyoubi<br />
Printers, 1990 est.<br />
Schleifer, Abdullah. "Islamic Jerusalem as Archetype of a Harmonious Urban<br />
Environment." In The Middle East City: Ancient Traditins Confront a Modern<br />
World, edited by A. Saqqaf, 163-175. New York: Paragon House, 1987.<br />
Schlereth, T. J. US 40: A Roadscape to the American Experience. Indianapolis, Ind.:<br />
Indiana Historical Society, 1985.<br />
SECT International/SEDES. Arriyadh: Hadirah Dawliyah [Riyadh: International<br />
Metropolis] (e. 1977).<br />
Self, Peter. Ecnocrats and the Policy Process: the Politics and Philosophy of Cost-Benefit<br />
Analysis. London: Macmillan, 1975.<br />
Self, Peter. "Urban Planning." In The Social Science encyclopedia, edited by A. Kuper<br />
and J. Kuper, 876-877. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985.<br />
Serjeant, R. B. ed. The Islamic City. France: Unesco, 1980.<br />
Setevns, Paul J. "The Interaction between Oil Policy and Industrial Policy in Saudi<br />
Arabia." In Saudi Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning, And Industrialization,<br />
edited by R. El Mallakh and D. H. El Mallakh, 27-45. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington<br />
Books, 1982.
366<br />
Sharp, T. The Anatomy of the Village. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,<br />
1946.<br />
Shoukry, T. and A. Scott. "The Urban Land Question," in Urbanization and Urban<br />
Planning in Capitalist Society, edited by M. Dear and A. J. Scott, eds, 123-158.<br />
London: Mathuen, 1981.<br />
Sinclair, Clive A. and J. S. Birks. "Manpower in Saudi Arabia, 19801985." In Saudi<br />
Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning, and Industrialization, edited by R. El<br />
MaUakah and Dorothea H. El Mallakh, 161-176. Mass. MA: Lexington Books,<br />
1982.<br />
Sjoberg, G. The Preindustrial City: Past and Present. New York:The Free Press, 1960.<br />
Smith, M. P. and J. R. Feagin, eds. The Capitalist City. Padstow, Great Britain: T.J.<br />
Press Ltd, 1987.<br />
Speerplan Regional-Und Stadtplaner. Riyadh Diplomatic Quarter: Master Plan <strong>Dr</strong>aft<br />
Report. Germany, 1978.<br />
Stevens, Paul J. "The Interaction between Oil Policy and Industrial Policy in Saudi<br />
Arabia." In Saudi Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning and Industrialization.<br />
edited by R. El Mallakah & D. H., El Mallackh, 27-45. Lexington, MA: Lexington<br />
Books, 1982).<br />
"Survey, Arabian Peninsula." The Economist (February 19, 1983): 14-19.<br />
Takabayashi, T. Toward A Modern Islamic Kingdom: A Socio-political Analysis of<br />
Contemporary Saudi Arabia. Working Papers Series No. 8. The Institute of Middle<br />
Eastern Studies, International University of Japan, 1986.<br />
Thompson, Ian, "Urban Planning Practice In Aghadir." In Middle Eastern Cities in<br />
Comparative Perspective, edited by K. Brown, 169-180. London: Ithaca Press,<br />
1986b.<br />
United Nations, Department of International Economics and Social Affairs. World<br />
Urbanization, Prospects 1990: Estimates and Projections of Urban and Rural<br />
Populations and of Urban Agglomerations. New York: United Nations, 1990.<br />
"Villas in the Desert." The Middle East 129 (July, 1985): 39-40.<br />
Walker, R. A. "A Theory of Suburbanization: Capitalism and the Construction of Urban<br />
Space in the United States." In Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist State,<br />
edited by M. Dear and A. Scott, 383-430. London: Methuen, 1981.<br />
Warner, S. B. The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Growth. Philadelphia:<br />
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967.<br />
Webber, M. W. "The Urban Place and the Nonplace Urban Realm." In Explorations into<br />
Urban Structure, edited by M. W. Webber, 79-153. Philadelphia: The University of<br />
Pennsylvania Press, 1964.
367<br />
Wilber, C. and K. Jameson. "Paradigms of Economic Development and Beyond." In The<br />
Political Economy of Development and Underdevelopment, edited by C. Wilber, 3-<br />
27. New York: Random House, 1988.<br />
Williams, M. O. "Guest in Saudi Arabia." The National Geographic Magazine 38 (1945):<br />
463-487.<br />
Zubaidah, S. "The City and Its Other in Islamic Political Ideas and Movements." In Middle<br />
Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective, edited by K. Brown, 327-341. London:<br />
Ithaca Press, 1986b.
VITA<br />
<strong>Faisal</strong> Abdul-Aziz M. Mubarak<br />
Born: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1957<br />
EDUCATION:<br />
High School<br />
Ma'had Al-Aasimah Annamouthaji (Capital Model Institute), 1974/75<br />
Bachelor of Architecture,<br />
King Saud University,<br />
Riyadh, 1981<br />
Master of Urban and Regional Planning<br />
(Urban and Regional Planning/International Development)<br />
University of Southern California<br />
Los Angeles, 1986<br />
Ph.D.<br />
University of Washington,<br />
College of Architecture and Urban Design and Planning<br />
(Department of Urban Design and Planning)<br />
Seattle, 1992.<br />
AWARDS<br />
University of Washington:<br />
Social Sciences <strong>Dissertation</strong> Fellowship, 1991<br />
King Saud University, Scholarship for graduate education for the Master and Ph.D.,<br />
1983-1992.<br />
Summer internship: by King Saud University; GMW Partners, Architects and Planners:<br />
London, Great Britain, 1979.<br />
WORK EXPERIENCE<br />
Teaching Assistant, 1982.<br />
College of Ai -Picture and Planning, King Saud University.<br />
Architect (Co-founder), 1981-82.<br />
Saudi Designers, Architecture and Interior Design.<br />
Architect/Project Coordinator, 1981.<br />
General Organization for Social Insurance, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia