“The towns and cities are now the last choice for them. They consider them to be congested, noisy and costly,” one told Arab News.
The sociologists believe that trends point to migration from the towns and cities to villages and suburbs in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi citizen Falih Al-Harbi said in the past people flocked in large numbers from the villages and hamlets to the towns and cities looking for a better quality of life, but were soon put off by the crowds and high living costs. “They also began to encounter new social problems that they had not experienced before and as a result suffered from a host of psychological problems,” he said. Al-Harbi said the very elements that attracted people from the country toward the cities are now repelling them.
“People started to escape from the towns and cities to the countryside looking for serenity and quiet.
“The migration of Saudis from rural areas to urban cities was not a random phenomenon that happened coincidentally. It was caused by a number of factors. This resulted in some cities being more developed than others, but the rising costs of living, high rent and noise forced them to return or seek nearby suburbs.”
He noted that a number of Saudis now prefer to live in suburbs and work in cities.
“It is cheaper for them to commute to and from the cities every day than to live there permanently,” he said.
Social researcher Nasser Al-Maimouni said mass migration to urban cities in the Kingdom took place between 1974 and 1984 when a large number of them went to live in Riyadh, Jeddah and Makkah.
He noted that Riyadh attracted over 72 percent of the people living in the Central Region in 1984.
“There were 650,000 inhabitants in Riyadh in 1974. This number increased by more than 500 percent to 3.5 million in 2005, while the number of people living in Makkah increased by 350 percent from 1.7 million to 5.7 million during the same period,” he said.
Al-Maimouni said migration patterns in Saudi Arabia over the last 30 years changed the country and created immense pressures such as the so-called phenomenon of rural poverty.
“The rural-urban migration caused various social, economic and psychological changes which directly or indirectly affected the behavior, thought and personality of residents,” he said.
Muayyad Al-Sayigh, another social researcher, said migration to towns and cities led to the spread of poverty and an increasing number of low-income citizens.
“The migrants could not cope with civil life or the rising costs of living. So they concentrated in cheap underdeveloped areas in the cities. As a result, they felt frustrated and began thinking about a return to the country,” he said.
The researcher said the increasing number of people in cities led to a rise in crime rates.
“There were 88,609 recorded crimes in the Kingdom in 2005 compared to around 20,000 20 years ago, an increase of over 400 percent,” he said.
Hassan Al-Mastouri, a medical doctor, supported the idea of a reverse migration, which he believes will strengthen social ties terribly lacking in towns and cities because everyone was busy with their work and problems.
“The social Takafol (solidarity) characterizes rural life where social links are stronger and family ties are cohesive,” he said.
Journalist Ahmad bin Muhamamd Al-Omari said the focus was always on developing towns and cities at the expense of rural areas.
“A more balanced focus on development did not occur until Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah called for a rapid development of rural areas,” he said.
He noted that due to the king’s directives, rural areas and the countryside are witnessing integrated development through the establishment of economic cities and universities.
Examples include the King Abdullah Economic City in Rabigh, knowledge cities in Madinah and Hail and an oil refinery in Jazan.
Writer Atif Al-Qadi said the more balanced development has led to a reverse migration from cities to villages, where people can now have access to a good education and medical facilities.
“The establishment of economic cities and universities turned the small villages into big towns and tempted people to go back to the places they had left a long time ago,” he said.