The shape of any city is determined by two factors: Geographical nature and climate plus the planning system applied by the authorities. Some people mistakenly think that cities come up accidentally and architectural designs and planning systems emerged without any effort or intent.
Developed nations give utmost importance to planning systems and continue to develop them in order to meet society’s requirements. A city is like a mold that forms the clay which is put into it. The mold for a sphere will not of course produce a cylinder. I mean the shape of a city, the distribution of its districts, the relation between the districts and architectural designs play a big role in shaping the society in the city.
In other countries, governments use planning as an effective tool to develop their societies in the way they want and to keep things in harmony with the philosophy of life they follow. We have adopted most of our planning systems from Western countries and applied them to our society without thinking of the consequences and without foreseeing the changes they would naturally bring about in our society.
All these things have taken place in an atmosphere of rapid development and change in our country. The officials responsible for planning did not have enough time to conduct research on the effects of the planning patterns imported from the West on our societies. We have also suffered just as much from a shortage of qualified planners to carry out these vital studies.
I believe that the time has come for us to stand for a while and review our calculations and see what the features are which we want to encourage in our society and what the things are which we want to prevent or change for the better by careful city planning.
Strong social relationships between members of a district was one of the outstanding features of our society in the past. Traditional town planning encouraged these relations by the construction of narrow streets within the districts, the presence of most basic supplies there and suitable architectural plans that encouraged the formation of large extended families in buildings actually linked to each other. This is an example of a good quality which we want to preserve. On the other hand, negative things which we want to resist and eliminate include crimes. By creating an atmosphere which encourages strong relationships among its residents, traditional districts help reduce crimes. But the fact is that the number of crimes in our modern cities is growing day by day.
I am not suggesting that we should plan our cities as they were planned in the past. My point is that we ought to review the systems we use to make them suitable to the social values and norms which we believe in. Our first concern should be the comfort of humans, not the facilities for cars. There should be harmony between the layout of Saudi cities, their plans and construction systems and the values of our Muslim Saudi society. Town planning should serve our social objectives and should not be an impediment as it is now. It should not take society to a place we do not want to go. Unfortunately that might happen if we do not change our ways now.
Arab News Opinion 20 April 2003
