Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

CHAPTER IV
URBAN PLANNING:
NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND CITY PLANNING
In the preceding chapter, I focused on the socio-political and economic processes of
formation, growth and location which primarily determined the shift, organization and
distribution of the contemporary spatial network in Saudi Arabia. The operation of these
forces was largely affected by the oil economy and political circumstance of the nationstate.
The scale of urbanization must not be underestimated. The pace of urbanization in
the Arab Gulf states, with urban percentages reaching 96 percent, has not been matched by
any other major areas of the world. 1 In Libya, eighty-one percent of the population is
urban, more urban than Italy. 2 A consequence is inevitable dependence on Western
planning expertise, due to Western precedence in the field. The restructuring of the
national economy under the aegis of the new nation-state spurred the urbanization process
and Saudi towns and settlements became foci of unprecedented growth, exhibiting
overcrowding, high levels of chronic deprivation and poverty. Generally speaking, the
internal organization of urban forms remained free of public accountability so that urban
development took place in an unregulated and uncontrolled fashion, resembling traditional,
organic forms. The outlying fringe of towns underwent rapid, uncontrolled growth,
lacking infrastructure, public services and social amenities. Old neighborhoods suffered
overcrowding and chronic traffic congestion as traditional tortuous circulation space,
designed for pedestrian and animal transport became clogged under the increasing use of
the automobile.
During the early decades of the Kingdom (1930-1960), new neighborhoods sprouted
housing waves of 'urban villagers' in substandard residential stock, while bedouins pitched
their tents and constructed makeshift dwellings in undeveloped sections of towns or
scattered on the periphery, forming the hilal, communities of relatively homogeneous
inhabitants sharing tribal lineage or place of origin. 3 Under these circumstances, the
government introduced a series of measures to circumscribe urban development and to
direct it toward socially desirable goals. These measures were ad hoc and applied with
limited social and environmental considerations. Later, these efforts developed to what is
currently referred to as urban and regional planning in Saudi Arabia, an elitist and
technocratic activity solely done by the central government.