Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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2.1 percent to 8.1 percent during the same period, attesting to the emergence of the new
middle class as a substantial factor in the Saudi society. 62 All in all, the introduction and
growth of the bureaucracy has swelled the middle class, traditionally limited to the small
merchant and landed aristocracy classes. Later in this study, I will show how this growing
middle class selectively opted the new suburbs where land subdivisions are laid according
to the grid and the villa, instead of the courtyard house and the organic compact layout both
governed by religious and physical factors.
V. URBANIZATION AND URBAN RESTRUCTURING OF THE NATION
Urbanization is a function of increase in national population living in cities and the
increase in the number of settlements designated as cities, while urban growth is a function
of the rate of natural increase (births minus deaths) and city-ward migration. But this does.
not answer the question as to why urban growth proceeded so much more rapidly than did
the total population growth (3 percent per annum). Urban growth in Saudi Arabia has been
extremely rapid (running at from 10 to 12 percent per annum) natural increase, rural
migration and immigrants from outside the country, especially during the 1970s (Table
3.4). One powerful force in shifting population from rural to urban locations was the direct
and indirect impact of the rapidly expanding oil industry. (The direct impact is that of
urbanization spurred by the oil industry's need for workers while the indirect impact is
related to oil revenues available to the state which in turn allotted money to modernizing the
society.)
Foreigners rushed to the Kingdom to fill the demand for semi-skilled and
professional occupations created by the new oil industry (Table 3.4). In the Eastern
Province, where oil activity is prevalent, old towns prospered and new ones sprouted to
house the increasing urban population. In other parts of the country, nomad, rural-and
foreign migration increased in response to the growing government employment, services
and investment which targeted urban centers first.
Due to the kaleidoscopic developments at the national level, the urban sphere has
mutated exhibiting change in a profound fashion. Firstly, the new oil industry offered
good job opportunities, attracting both bedouins and agriculturalists to the gradually
expanding oil industry in the Eastern Province. For example, by the mid-1970s the
average annual income for an unskilled worker in the oil industry averaged $2,675, while a