Saudi Arabia is building The Line, a new city enclosed

Running head: URBAN PLANNING OF SAUDI ARABIA
Urban Planning of Saudi Arabia
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1URBAN PLANNING OF SAUDI ARABIA
Introduction:
One of the most rapidly growing countries of the world in terms of its urban planning is
that of Saudi Arabia. The nation has experienced a huge transformation from being a rustic and
nomadic civilization to one of the most urbanized society. The current planning of Saudi Arabia
involves not only its urban growth but also the growth in terms of economy, regional level and
spatial. The following paper aims to talk about the integration of the planning at national,
regional as well as local level and what implications does the land subdivision activity have on
the urban growth of Saudi Arabia.
Discussion:
Accordig to Rizzo (2014), Saudi Arabia has moved beyond development in the petrol,
and faced a rapid change in its space and province, due to the urbanization. The integration and
planning at the national, regional and local level had been possible with the Saudi Urban Forum,
which had been organized in the year 2016 (AlQahtany, Rezgui and Li 2014). According to the
Deputy Minister of Town Planning of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Urban Forum has been organized
in the face of the rising global and regional urban development challenges. The Forum is being
organized in the face of rising local and global urban growth challenges, Also as per the
discussion of Aina et.al. (2019), in the middle of related social services and infrastructure
development constraints there has been a need for more employment opportunities, affordable
housing and facilities for the recreational purposes.
Since there had been a change in the economy, the development in the economical
aspects and the growth in the population is in demand of greater land. In this context, as per the

2URBAN PLANNING OF SAUDI ARABIA
discussion of Aldalbahi and Walker (2015), there has been an intervention of the international
challenges and the attainment of the Sustainable Goals of the other nations leave an imprint upon
the need for a national development of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government is quite
aware of the growing challenges and in order to keep its pace, the government has launched a
program in the year 2015, which is named Future Saudi Cities Programme (Rizzo 2014). This
program is in partnership with the UN habitat and together they aim to make a review of the
spatial policies of the nation. These policies would include the regional planning of Saudi
Arabia, the National Spatial Strategy as well as the national urban policies.
The National Spatial Strategy is a spatial plan for the entire nation which is focused on
several aspects of the kingdom. These include capitalizing on provincial economic potential in
supporting economic growth while reducing regional disparities and promoting regional
planning's role (Huggins et al. 2014). A further important legislative agenda was the
implementation of the technology networks strategy for better communication. Keeping in mind
the current situation and scenario, there had been development in the regional planning for the
local areas as well. Almahasheer (2018) discusses that the cities such as Riyadh, Eastern
Province, Madinah, Qassim and Mekkah in Saudi Arabia experienced a lot of development and
growth regarding the urban areas, the economy, the revenue and the public sector. Arriyadh is
now one of the leading political and financial hub of the nation, which experiences a spatial
development along with higher rates of economic and commercial growth. Also there have been
development programs for the villages and the cities with proper and comprehensive
development plans on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government (AlQahtany, Rezgui and Li
2014).