This section will briefly highlight and discuss a number of key constraints that faced the researcher in this study. The research obstacles were as follows:
Bureaucracy and lack of clarity of the system - The researcher expected to obtain approval within a month or two. However owing to unfamiliarity and lack of clarity of the procedures, it took three months. This caused some delay and changes in the programme of the main fieldwork.
Making appointments with officials and professionals - it was very difficult to make appointments with the Municipality staff and private sector professionals partly because of their busy schedules but also because of an ingrained sense of superiority that led them to cancel
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meetings without prior notice. This called for changes in the survey programme.
Making appointments with residents – it was found that the young generation were more cooperative than the older generation. However, it was hard to convince some residents to participate in something that from their perspective would not provide any tangible benefits for them. Recording an interview using a recorder – the majority of participants from both the governmental and especially the private sector did not want their conversations to be recorded so notes were taken by hand in these instances.
Transportation issues, quality of the road and infrastructure issues – in KSA generally and in Jeddah specifically research would be difficult to do without a car owing to the poor quality of the infrastructure, lack of public transportation and the heat which makes walking difficult. Although, there are taxis and buses as an alternative means of transportation they are not a practical choice. The high dependency on cars causes severe traffic jams and lost time became another serious obstacle. It used to take a half hour to reach the Municipality‟s office but now it can take an hour. Additionally, the lack of infrastructure and maintenance of some main roads created frustration and difficulty in planning time.
Family, relatives’ and friends’ commitments – according to the Arab culture and customs, especially in Saudi Arabia, the researcher must give time to sit with the family, meet the relatives and friends. In addition, during the fieldwork, my family sold the old house and, as the eldest son, I had three months to look for a new dwelling. This is a time consuming, which led to increasing stress and caused changes to the plan of the fieldwork.
Secrecy of information – although the level of transparency has increased from that of 10 years ago and data has become more widely available and accessible in KSA, there are still some private and public
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sectors who treat information as a confidential matter. Even though the researcher had official letters from both universities, he encountered this problem. This problem occurred in three departments at the Municipality: with the head of the HRD, and the head of the GIS department who was extremely conservative about giving maps and data in a GIS format, even to other departments in the Municipality. The third was at JUOC, where some statistical data was not easy to obtain.
Lack of consistent data – this issue occurred in data about the population of Jeddah in particular periods, where different sources have arrived at different population statistics for the same year.
Lack of trust - the researcher faced some issues with some architectural offices and Municipality officers during his structured interviews. On one hand, the architects were afraid to answer some sensitive questions relating to the performance of the Municipality. Some of the professionals were suspicious about the researcher and apparently thought that the researcher must be spying on them for the Municipality. The officials, on the other hand, were cautious owing to an intensive investigation into corruption that coincidently occurred during the field work period14.
Taking photos - the country is under very tight control and taking photos without permission from the province governor and the police is illegal. The researcher suffered until he got the permission from the police.
Preparing the questions of the structured interview - clarifying the questions of the interview was time consuming in English and was also time consuming in trying to render it faithfully in Arabic.
Shipping data – storage and shipping of paper heavy data from Jeddah to Newcastle was expensive.
119 3.6 Conclusion
This chapter has identified and justified the research strategy and methodology that have been used in this study, where mixed methods, case studies and UN- HABITAT UGI model were applied. A justification for selecting Jeddah city was also made. The fieldwork was done through four main phases. The study has used purposive sampling to determine the sample size for the residents, officials and professionals. The chapter has shown that to conduct fieldwork in Saudi Arabia time and season should be considered.
The chapter has illustrated various techniques that were used to collect primary (quantitative and qualitative) data by conducting interviews, observation and attending meetings. Face to face structured interview was the best method with residents, officials and professionals. Research assistants were used as an extension of the researcher in order to cover the ground. They were briefed, trained and monitored by the researcher. Secondary sources data, which included newspaper articles, official documents, statistics and maps, were collected. Case studies were identified and selected through the Municipal Council meetings and residential zones were classified into three categories (villas, apartment blocks with the new zoning regulations and mixed residential zones). It was clear from both the pilot survey and main fieldwork that in Saudi Arabia it is very hard to prosper and do any research without having the right networks and using social capital to open the doors for the researcher.
In terms of analysing the quantitative data, this research has applied descriptive statistical measurements and inferential numeric analysis. The UGI 25 sub- indicators were used initially to assess the Municipality and were recast to 20 sub-indicators that were reweighted. Description and thematic text were used to analyse qualitative data. The chapter closed by exploring ethical dimensions and the research obstacles. The following chapter discusses the planning system in Saudi Arabia at a range of levels.
Chapter Four: The Planning Framework in Saudi
Arabia
Contents
Page
4.0 Introduction ………. 121 4.1 The Economic Status ………... 121 4.2 The Nature of the Political System ……….. 122 4.3 The Nature of the Planning System ………. 125 4.4 Planning Laws ………. 137 4.5 The Process of Zoning Regulations Adoption ………. 138 4.6 The Process of Planning Permission ……… 139 4.7 Issues within the System of Urban Government …………. 140 4.8 Socio-Cultural Landscape ……… 147 4.9 Conclusion ………... 158
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SAUDI ARABIA
4.0 Introduction
To assess the performance of a government agency there is a need to understand the nature of the system of a certain country. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to explain the nature of the political, planning, economic and social transformation since the establishment of Saudi Arabia in 1932. The chapter relies on extensive literature review (both in English and Arabic). This chapter is divided into six main sections. The first briefly discusses the economy of Saudi Arabia which has played a pivotal role in the country‟s transformation. The second section explores the nature of the political and legislative systems. The third section describes the hierarchy of authority in the planning system. Section four briefly discusses the planning laws. Reflections on the planning system, including its obstacles and challenges, are provided in the fifth section. The last section shows changes in social structure, the origins and evolution of social attitudes, the importance of privacy, as well as the rapid increase in urbanisation levels and the heterogeneity of Saudi society.