Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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as practiced by Amanat Ar-Riyadh did not mean the allocation of the city's scarce resources
over a span of time, that is five or ten year projections. Rather, since municipalities' funds
(such as staff salaries and activities) were mostly provided by the national government,
mayors and other officials did not endeavor to coordinate with the economic side of urban
development. For example, new public and private investment in the city did not conform
to any integrated program for housing, open space, public utilities, transportation,
municipal services, employment and welfare. 18 The municipal planning was disjointed
and marked by lack of an integrated network of circulation, open and recreational space and
civic facilities. In short, the decades prior to the wealthy 1970s witnessed the production
of sterile urban environments with no frills.
Decisions pertaining to large scale development or concerning building activities .
laying within property owned by the government were taken by respective departments.
This left the Amanah with jurisdictions only over routine practices (such as the issuing of
building and business permits, inspection, and documentation) mainly at the center and the
surrounding districts. The Amanah's "growth control" tasks were carried out by a limited
number of magistrates who followed royal instruction. The staff was composed of Arab
engineers and, later of Saudi technocrats. The energies of the small Municipal staff were
consumed by day-to-day needs of residents, private and public construction contractors,
determining street grades and set back lines, and land owners obtaining approval for land
subdivisions, and small businesses filing for business permits. The Municipality was an
organization that applied banal bureaucratic procedures to urban development, devoid of
traditional values and citizens' participation, both of which previously helped shape
processes underlying traditional forms. The reinstatement of these cultural attributes would
have alleviated the rather centralized, governmental process, but this did not occur.
F. Land Tenure
The departure from traditional environmental patterns was evident in the adoption of
rectangular land subdivision, which was opted to accommodate the flurry of migration.
Land subdivision constituted the main process by which undeveloped, so-called "white"
land, whether rural or public was converted into urban use. Historically, Arab-Muslim
towns grew incrementally, converting outlaying land into built space by residents, a
process which conformed to net population growth. As Riyadh and other major Saudi
cities underwent rapid population growth (averaging 9 percent per annum) the pressure for