Urban/Rural Hybrids and Conflicts: New Research Perspective in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

In the last decades, geographical research on Saudi Arabia has focused overwhelmingly in urban sprawl, that have led to lose other perspectives. In the last ten years, with the shortage of housing as well as high prices of lands and accommodations within the city of Jeddah, the first ring of the northern suburbs of Jeddah have showed urbanisation in planning and architecture parallel with many mega projects in the surroundings. This is obvious on the new usage and replacement of the old sites that used to be as recreational areas, where residents of Jeddah used to escape the pressure of life and noise of the urban center in order to spend a pleasure time during weekends and vacations. However, these processes encourage changes in population as well as architectural, social and cultural heterogeneity that merits the term hybridisation. This article describes and explains these processes in the northern areas of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and clarifies the conflicts out of that.