Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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The loss of local responsibility has been both a product of the preponderance of the
central government and local apathy, thanks to non-taxed aid to local communities. The
provision of modern infrastructure and public services, not only offered lucrative economic
outlets to locals, but also were offered without imposing financial burdens on the local
population. The increasing secularization of the Saudi society, coupled with the rise in
economic non-taxed aid to local towns, has expedited the secularization of the urban space.
Using secular-technical criteria, the municipality and other central government departments
have replaced traditional forms of responsibility, and have undermined religious
institutions, such as waqf.
The state's substantial involvement in the production of contemporary Saudi
settlements is paradoxical, one which poses an uncompromising reality: that is benefits of
central government control (with free services but loss of local participation) versus local
control of community's affairs with less government intervention. To the political
leadership, the underwriting of community development serves as a legitimizing factor as
well as a given right for all communities to share in the national natural resource, that is oil.
Yet, the sponsorship of the modern built forms represents an economic burden on the
central state and hinders self-sustenance in the long-term. To the population, however,
discontinuity of government aid poses an acute urban conundrum, a cessation of which
conjures an image of local disaster as local communities have become more and more
dependent on government aid.
All in all, the infusion of settlements with prescriptive urban legislation and planning
models, the underwriting of infrastructure developments and social services, the application
of standardized housing programs, land distribution patterns, and the construction of
government buildings of similar architecture design (schools, mosques, clinics, police and
fire stations, post offices, etc.), all have facilitated the production of modern built forms
which, while originated from distinctive urban patterns, grew to resemble each other
despite their geographic setting, urban economies or genesis. Consequently, the
diversified architecture of the various regions of the Kingdom have dissolved into one
whole.