Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

233
The modern urban form possesses a circulation space three-times its traditional
predecessor. The modern street network devours 20 per cent of developed land, while
seventy-five per cent of the land is assigned to private land use in the traditional built
environment, the developed residential stock in the metropolis has diminished to 19 per
cent. Finally, the semi-private space (endorsed by Islamic shariy'ah ) of the old town has
been obliterated from the new urban form. 61 Together with these changes, a dramatic
outcropping of specialized land uses were introduced in the new modern urban form such
as office space, recreational uses and parks. Unlike the traditional city where the
commercial organ is located in the hub, the new commercial uses migrated from the core as
customers settled in the periphery. According to a 1989 report, only 495 square kilometers
of the City's area of 1,012 square kilometers was developed (including the road network).
So Riyadh was continually bulging but never able to expand efficiently.
The beginnings of this form of sporadic development followed the inception of the
Kingdom in the 1940s, and was exacerbated in the 1950s and 1960s, and took momentum
in the construction boom decade of the 1970s. This growth was put into check in 1986
when the Council of Ministers adopted the Urban Domain (No. 13, 9/1/1406 H./1986).
The U.D. was adopted in response to incessant building activity at the periphery, hitherto
guaranteed free state-paid public services and infrastructure by the government. With less
oil revenues available to the government (oil revenues dropped from $102 billion in 1981 to
$37.3 in 1985) more attention was given to the economic ramifications of uncontrolled
urban growth. In addition to Riyadh, the new UD was applied to 198 major Saudi cities
and towns (Figure 6.17).
D. Government Land Uses
Most notable about the contemporary Saudi settlement, in general, is its large share of
directly built or indirectly subsidized land uses. By the mid-1980s, the government sector
employed 78 per cent of the city's Saudi labor force and 13 per cent of the foreign labor
force. These figures indicate the city's heavy reliance on the government sector for its
survival, a factor which has been translated into a preponderance of government-related
functions in space. The government-built land uses including the buildings and the street
network, are entirely built by the respective public agencies. Government-developed uses
account for 54 per cent of the city's developed area (including the road network). The
entirely government-built and maintained road system constitutes 20% of the city's