Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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macro-social change. He states that "urbanization is not a process that requires a society to
go through the full cycle of change." To Reissman, industrialization is not a linear
direction toward a fully urbanized society; alternatives abound. 13
For example, Hamdan contends that today's civilization has reached the stage of
"post-industrialization." Citing G. Hamdan, Subhi states that "urbanization is no longer a
function of the degree of industrial growth; therefore, it is possible, and even natural, to
have big cities without big industries." 14 Similarly, Mullins questions the evolutionary
approach which stresses that urbanization implies a three-phased economic process, that is
mercantile, industrial and corporate capitalism. He examines urbanization in Australia in
which cities have passed from mercantile to corporate capitalism without passing through
the industrial stage. 15
The above theories have been based chiefly on Western urbanization, particularly that
of North America. The trend of applying Western models to non-Western societies
undergoing rapid urbanization has proven largely ineffective and problematic. Despite the
outward parallels and similarities in many nations' recent urban developments, urbanization
experience in each country poses new challenges to policy makers and urban planners. In
this study, I examine an urban transformation in which a powerful state, in a mere few
decades, has engaged its traditional society in a modernization program to attain living
standards unmatched in many developing countries. Thanks to oil affluence and cultural
coherence, the Saudi monarchy has played a leading role in this process. The synergistic
application of imported technical expertise, education and oil resources has expedited the
demise of traditional built forms and the emergence of modernized urban forms.
II. THE SAUDI CONTEXT: PEOPLE AND TERRAIN
Saudi Arabia is a vast, desolate expanse of desert and semi-desert land that
encompasses an approximate area of 860,000 square miles- approximately the size of the
United States east of the Mississippi River. Except in the southwest, rainfall is scarce and
the country has no rivers and no significant perennial streams. Prior to the discovery of oil
in large-scale production in March 1938, the country's spatial structure comprised three
complementary ways of life: nomadism, settled agriculture and towns. 16