Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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rectangular forms. In 1965-66 the government authorized the establishment of the
municipality, baladyyah, to serve the growing town and the five settlements comprising
Ashsha'eeb's area (county). 10 In 1968, Huraimla was connected with Riyadh by a tarmac
road, which brought mixed results to the hitherto largely isolated settlement. On the one
hand, it facilitated the transporting of Huraimla's crops to the expanding markets of
Riyadh, hence rejuvenating the town's agricultural sector. On the other hand, with a fast,
easy commute, Huramila's residents more than ever sought the Capital for their shopping
needs, which dealt a blow to commercial activity in the town.
To the north and north-east of the Al-Jama'ah wall, and following the new tarmac
road, new land subdivisions were platted by land owners with the supervision of the
municipal staff. The new neighborhoods were laid down with larger, standardized lots of
15-by-15 meters, to suit the modified traditional house type served with wider, straight
streets (Figures 8.5, 8.6 and 8.7). Moreover, land prices inside the walled settlement were
overinflated making peripheral land more attractive. Lastiy, the new land subdivisions
offered an opportunity to build anew at the improved construction standards in the newly
subdivided neighborhoods, rather than building the "modernized" units and buildings
amidst the ramshackle mud houses with their meandering and narrow circulation space.
Al-Hillah, Assubaikhah, Attawail'ah, Azzaidani, Ashariy'ah, and Um-Alkhawabi,
Al-Khawi, and Almarizah grew in response to the rising demand for larger and better
equipped houses (Figure 8.4: 12-21). The process of converting farmland to subdivisions
was made possible by municipally prescribed growth controls and planning regulations.
Unlike the building processes in traditional built forms, where demand for new land was in
response to actual need for space, contemporary growth has mostly been speculative.
Owners of peripheral farms, who sought municipal approval for platting, opted northern
growth, ostensibly following the tarmac road leading to Riyadh. Moreover, the northern
expansion was inevitable, for the traditional, walled built mass was besieged with wadis,
farms and cemeteries. The new Imarah (principality), the court, the police department and
the municipality were the first to move to the modern part of town.
Meanwhile, the traditional compact walled town seemed anachronistic, its tortuous
and ill-serviced, technologically-lacking mud dwellings did not rhyme with the rising
sentiments of residents in the progressive £lan of modernization sweeping the Kingdom.
Al-Tua'is captured the common attitude,