Residents of Riyadh owe a lot to the municipality and the governorate of Riyadh for their efforts to maintain this “garden city.” I vividly remember the development of the city from the time when the first flyover was built connecting Shaara Sitheen to Shara Al Maazar in the early 1980s. It was a prefab construction, which was completed by the Korean contractors within 15 days. It was first of its kind then in the city.
This followed a series of prefab overhead bridges leading from town center to downtown Oteiga vegetable market. The development Riyadh has undergone since then is just one cannot imagine! It has now blossomed to be one of the best-kept cities in the region but we are pleased that the authorities have not relaxed and kept the development work going on.
In fact, they have doubled up their efforts to bring this great city to the standard of Calgary, Canada, that is considered to be the cleanest city in the world. Calgary has been consistently ranked among the top three of world’s cleanest cities for the past five years. With the recent floods devastating the city, Mayor Nasheed Kurban Nenshi, a lecturer by profession, hasn’t slept for 43 hours during this crisis. The citizens of Calgary are more concerned about him. He is supposed to be one of the most popular mayors in Canada.
A mayor in any city needs the backing of the residents of the city to maintain the cleanliness of that particular city. Disturbingly, I note recently, a large number of flimsy plastic bags are flying around the Riyadh roads, causing inconvenience to the motorists.
These bags are of very cheap quality and are definitely not the supermarket shopping bags, with any print on them. I urge the authorities concerned to investigate this issue and take appropriate action to maintain the standard of our “garden city,” Riyadh, it deserves! — S.H. Moulana, Riyadh
Riyadh, the ‘garden city’
