Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

CHAPTER V
MAJOR TRADITIONAL URBAN ATTRIBUTES AND THE EMERGING
URBAN FORMS
Modern cities are characterized by their high level of internal differentiation. The
ever changing modes of urban activities are sorted in space. Living standards and styles,
working conditions, supply and demand, all are parameters which shape the spatial map
of the city. Sets of zones, and residential neighborhoods are formed or transformed
exhibiting peculiar physical qualities, functional organization, and distinctive
demographic composition replete with social character and problems. Such spatial
features are repeated, though no one composition completely resembles another.
However, cities do show overall similarities, which point to correspondent factors
underlying the formation of their urban tissue. Work, residential, recreational and service
activities all compete for place in space. The understanding of internal patterns,
processes and structures of such built environments has attracted scientific inquiry. In the
West, several theoretical approaches have been devised to deal with urban queries and to
unravel the very processes that shape the spatial map. 1 Such theoretical discourse has
been transmitted by Western and Western-educated planners to many non-Western
societies in the form of master plans and proposals for solving urban problems and to
guide development.
In the previous chapters, I discussed the cultural setting of the new nation-state: its
modern history, socioreligious institutions, political structure, economy and the resulting
mode of national and urban planning. I now turn to the emerging urban forms. Like
many developing and Third World countries experiencing rapid economic growth, urban
population has increased in Saudi Arabia. As previously mentioned, the Saudi
government turned to Western expertise to tackle negative aspects of urbanization.
Western planners, overlooking local urban traditions, considerably altered the traditional
built environment and encouraged the wholesale adoption of Western-inspired urban
forms.
As shown in Chapter Three, traditional built forms were reflected in towns'
dominant subsistence economies, which barely fed their denizens, a fact which explained
the rural-pastoral homeostasis. Towns lacked economic vigor to spark urbanization.