urban planning in Saudi Arabia (history and current practices) The requirement: -I

urban planning in Saudi Arabia (history and current practices)

The requirement:

-I want you to write 2 pages on urban planning in Saudi Arabia (history and current practices) I need that to strengthen the claim that urban planning is central to sustainable urbanization.

– I tried to help you by read some files and take important information in order to you choose what is appropriate and rewrite it with its sources

-write these two pages in historical form, from oldest to newest. The brief is that urban planning practices have been centralized since their inception, and even in our present time there are some changes, but they are still centralized.

– Use all seven resources below, and also refer to these resources to download if you need additional information

-You are free if you want to use other sources

In the end, I only want 500 words, so choose the parts that are useful and serve the purpose of this request. There is no need to write a lot of extra words.

Saudi Arabia experienced a high rate of urbanization during the period 1970–1986 resulting in accelerated annual growth rates for Saudi cities averaging more than 6.4%. Higher than usual growth rates created demand for the opening up of huge areas to meet housing, commercial, industrial and other land uses. Government’s land grant policy and liberal interest free loans resulted in massive expansion of cities and towns all over the country with major cities of Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam having the biggest share. Lack of planning frameworks and weak city institutions could not direct the growth properly leading to sprawl and lop-sided development. This meant rapid extension of road network and utilities with high financial outlays. Saudi Arabia has a strong centralized system of government.

1 Al-Hathloul, S., & Mughal, M. A. (2004). Urban growth management-the Saudi experience. Habitat International, 28(4), 609-623.

The suburbanization of Riyadh paralleled the impressive economic and political developments of the nation-state. Yet, the control of urban management of the city, despite the transformation of its functions and multiplication of its area and population has become more centralized. In major Saudi cities, municipal decentralization has amounted to mere peripheral submunicipalities with very limited powers, while major decision-making rests with the central municipality. Lack of trust, meager human and financial resources and the absence of a tradition of public participation in municipal government all preclude the development of effective forms of urban management decentralization.

2 Mubarak, F. A. (2004). Urban growth boundary policy and residential suburbanization: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Habitat international, 28(4), 567-591.

The position of Riyadh as the capital of Saudi Arabia and the significant participation of the central government in local urban development and management means that it is impossible to isolate actions in local governance in Riyadh from actions at the central level of government. By 1985, the development actions and policies of the central government coupled with rapid growth produced a haphazard pattern of development in Riyadh and other Saudi Cities (Alkhedheiri, 2002, p. 78). Cities were sprawling as a result of leap-frog development thereby increasing the cost of service provision and reducing efficiency in their utilization. Riyadh’s growth at this time was characterized by a random expansion of subdivision, dispersion of services and facilities to sparsely populated areas, and a lack of coordination between service agencies (ADA, 1993, p. 13).

In terms of the decision-making and policy framework, Saudi Arabia has witnessed significant improvements in the capacity for both national and local governance. The management system has, however, evolved in such a way that decision-making and policy guidance is centralized at the national level while local management is restricted to implementation.

The centralized structure burdens the central administration and its agencies with decision-making on issues that are of limited national importance. This leads to delays in formulating policies, carrying out necessary reform and in general decision-making. The situation limits local initiative in management and has also resulted in resistance to change in administration.

In Saudi Arabia, the evolution of local governance has concentrated on codifying structure and establishing the framework for their management rather than on defining their fundamental role in national development. The two policies due to lack of coordination with the management of spatial growth, ultimately fueled urban expansion, encouraged speculation in land and contributed to sprawl in cities such as Riyadh. The policies also ultimately led to inefficiencies in the utilization of public investment in land development. The institutional framework for managing growth in Riyadh suffers from the lack of a clear definition of the roles of agencies involved in management.

Management of development in the city also suffers from a poor coordination of activities by the various participating agencies. There is a problem of both horizontal coordination among local agencies managing growth and vertical coordination between the local agencies and agencies of the central government. There is poor coordination between the agency planning the development of the city and the agency responsible for the development and subdivision control process (HCDR, 1997b, p. 132)

3 Garba, S. B. (2004). Managing urban growth and development in the Riyadh metropolitan area, Saudi Arabia. Habitat international, 28(4), 593-608.

From the time of the final establishment of Saudi Arabia (1932) onward, most political and administrative leaders considered urban growth essential for the economic and social well-being of the local communities. The last two to three decades, however, have witnessed the growth of a strong sentiment against the phenomenon of urban growth. A substantial body of opinion regards urban growth as highly undesirable and views these development policies as self-defeating because they fail to allocate resources in a socially desirable manner (Eben-Saleh, 2001; Garba, 2004).

In general, the issue of excessive urban growth, which has recently been placed on the Saudi national agenda can be attributed to the inherited limitations on both conventional urban planning practices and public actions for regulating urban development and service delivery. It has been indicated (i.e. Daghistani, 1991) that the lack of appropriate and coordinated policy guidance and the absence of collaboration among government units has left the public sector authorities powerless to perform the duties assigned to them effectively. Moreover, the local municipalities seemed poorly equipped to deal with the issues of urbanization, and the expansion of the administrative jurisdiction within cities required a greater degree of control over the area than the local authority was able to exercise.

Saudi Arabia, according to many observers (e.g. Garba, 2004), it seems that the spatial expansion of cities has been accelerated by the government’s public initiatives for urban development. A striking example of similar problems of policy agendas in the last four decades are the land grant policy and interest-free loans. The adoption of these polices resulted in a massive expansion of suburban areas in major cities such as Riyadh and Jeddah. Through these policies, hundreds of thousands of residential plots were distributed free of cost to the general public. This in turn has stimulated the rapid expansion of the road network and utilities with high financial outlays (Al-Hathloul & Mughal, 2004). That is to say, the persistent problem of lacking sufficient skilled staff attests to the failure of the centralized planning system by MOMRA, and calls for the adoption of genuine decentralization in the form of local governance.

4 Mandeli, K. N. (2008). The realities of integrating physical planning and local management into urban development: A case study of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Habitat International, 32(4), 512-533.

Urban governance in Saudi Arabia has developed and is still evolving around the concept of urban management. Dubbed as ‘local governance’, it refers to the ways by which many governmental agencies exercise their duties of decision and policy-making in the administration and development of regions, cities and rural areas (12).

Urban governance represents the driving force of smart and effective change in the urban milieu. A glance at the aforementioned issues of regional planning, placemaking and sustainable urban development, reveals that none of them can be endorsed, embraced or even implemented without the presence of sound urban governance and this rationalizes its significance to the Kingdom. Notwithstanding, the practice of urban management in Saudi Arabia is confronted by a number of challenges that weaken the overall urban performance.

Distributing urban responsibilities among many entities who report to different authorities and eventually lack proper coordination is the most recognized challenge. Regions as well as cities are dealing with numerous governing agencies, sometimes driven by conflicting directions, with no common platform for coordination or appropriate channel for building a unified vision.

Limited resources in terms of mandated power or allocated budget is another obstacle that faces urban management in the Kingdom. In this regard, the establishment of development authorities to guide urban management at regional level, in some administrative areas, is seen as a forward leap to empower local entities with needed authority as well as to enhance the regional dimension in Saudi urban planning.

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http://www.ksclg.org/en/publication-project/urban-planning-trends-and-challenges-in-the-pursuit-of-saudi-vision-2030/

The form of urban governance in Saudi Arabia affects urban management and sustainable urban development because changes in urban governance approaches have historically been constrained by a highly centralized policy-making process. Urban development has been administered through a centralized framework (Garba, 2004; Mandeli, 2008, 2016; Mubarak, 2004).

It should be noted that the changes in Saudi urban governance have not been experienced by some vital aspects of sustainability. The legislative framework and the administrative procedures for sustainable urban development are still mainly in business as usual mode. There is a need to implement a framework of legislation and administrative procedures to ensure proper sustainable institutionalised urban governance. Also, the drive towards decentralization has not been farreaching. The municipalities still depend on the central government for their finance. The adopted public-partnership has faced the challenges of lack of operational framework and legislation.

6 Aina, Y. A., Wafer, A., Ahmed, F., & Alshuwaikhat, H. M. (2019). Top-down sustainable urban development? Urban governance transformation in Saudi Arabia. Cities, 90, 272-281.

The regional concentration of population in Saudi Arabia can be attributed to two main historical economic factors and contextual factors: the nature and evolution of the Saudi urban system; and the highly centralized nature of development policies adopted during the early stages of modern development plans.

Urban planning and management in Saudi Arabia remain largely centralized. Despite efforts to transfer more powers to municipalities, the central government has significant control over local governance, including the right to dissolve local administrations, remove members of local councils and set local tax rates.

The kingdom’s traditional centralized hierarchical governance system is gradually evolving and the role of local authorities growing, albeit slowly. Ministries, however, still play a key role in the formulation and enforcement of policies.

Saudi Arabia has a strong centralized system of government, which includes planning and urban administration. Central technical agencies and ministries are responsible for developing national, regional and local urban plans, while the power of municipal authorities is restricted to the implementation of local plans.However, the prevalent centralization within the governance framework is evidenced in the policy formulation and in planning and management of development, with subnational levels of government essentially acting as implementing arms for the national government. Such centralization tends to create unnecessary bureaucracy through long channels of communication and decision-making, thereby limiting the ability to promptly address development issues so as to meet the needs and aspirations of citizens.

https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2020/05/saudi_city_report.english.pdf

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It can be noted that Saudi Arabian urban authorities have not changed institutional practices enough to achieve effective urban policies. Numerous studies on urban governance and urban growth management in Saudi Arabia (e.g., [19,23,25]) confirm that the urban planning process is based on centralized decision making, a lack of community participation, low coordination levels, poor information quality, and limited institutional performance. This implies that the effectiveness of technical policy instruments is likely to be low and thus unable to provide practical solutions to urban challenges.

Urban policy instruments in Saudi Arabia are administered using a centralized approach [19,25,26,30,31]. In a highly centralized system, decisions are made solely by top management so as to adhere to urban planning objectives [13]. Recent academic research has concluded that the decision-making process is still centralized in Saudi Arabia [19,53,54].

In Saudi Arabia, the current coordination mechanisms are inadequate due to two major issues: a lack of communication between the various urban institutions, and overlapping roles between separate authorities [23].

Existing studies indicate that the annual budget allocated to urban institutions in Saudi Arabia is considerable yet insufficient to manage sustainable urban growth [24]. Furthermore, rapid urban growth in Saudi Arabia has accelerated the growing demand for space, infrastructure, and services, leading to an increase in costs for the application of urban policy instruments [27,31].

The study findings confirm that the technical policy instruments used to manage urban growth in Saudi Arabia are ineffective. Factors contributing to this include a lack of community participation, deficient levels of coordination, and poor quality information.

Effective coordination reduces conflict and delays, while ensuring local urban authorities can function more efficiently. Ambiguous responsibilities and overlapping roles at the multi-sectoral levels should be addressed. Thus, coordination needs to occur across all multi-sectoral levels, with managers expanding coordination between levels and sectors.

8 Aldegheishem, A. (2023). Urban Growth Management in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: An Assessment of Technical Policy Instruments and Institutional Practices. Sustainability, 15(13), 10616.