Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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how changes brought by the new political and economic developments shuffled the national urban network.
Third, with the transition from a traditional subsistence economy to an exportoriented
economy, urbanization accelerates creating substantial infrastructural problems.
As urban areas become recipients of throngs flocking to the city for jobs and proximity to
services limited to urban centers, the demand for urban services expand more rapidly than
supply. This leads to rapid increases in urban land and housing prices, overcrowded
housing and shortages of essential services. During the early decades prior to the 1970s
increase in world oil prices, the majority of Saudi cities suffered infrastructure shortages.
However, after the launching of the Five-Year Development Plans this situation has been
assuaged in Saudi Arabia. The increase in oil revenues allowed for the allocation in the
development of the urban infrastructure paralleling the urbanization process and industrial
development.
Fourth, acceleration of the urbanization process places pressure on urban land
available for development leading to speculation in the real estate market and, if housing
production lags, a housing problem ensues affecting both lower and middle income
groups. In Saudi Arabia, the Five-Year Plans called for massive allocation in
infrastructural development transforming the country's major cities and towns into a flurry
of construction activity. Numerous foreign firms were called upon to participate in what
became known as "the construction boom" of the 1970s. With the advent of the
construction firms, an influx of expatriates were imported to achieve the targets of the Plan.
N. C. Grill estimated that seventy per cent of the 2.5 million Saudi labor force was being
imported. 73 This resulted in an unprecedented housing shortage and, in some areas, rents
rose to a price equal the property's market value.
The housing shortage was augmented by a city-ward migration by ruralites and
bedouins as demand increased for labor both in the private sector and the rapidly growing
public sector traditionally reserved for nationals. Finally, due to economic transformation
and accelerated development, especially in economically less endowed Third World
countries, a massive proliferation of squatter settlements occurred as the private housing
market failed to meet the increasing demand. Until the 1970s, accelerated migration
resulted in a recrudescence of shanty towns dotting the city periphery and undeveloped land
within the urban areas. 74