Towards an Approach to Residential Neighborhood Planning in Riyadh According to “Smart Growth” Design Principles

Abstract

The paper sets out to analyze neighborhood design and development in Riyadh based on the data provided by the ADA 2005 Riyadh digital map. It starts by discussing the principles of sprawl-oriented neighborhoods and “Smart Growth”-slant ones. For the purpose of comparison between neighborhoods of different styles, the Riyadh city was subdivided into four study areas. The first area consists of the urban core which has primarily a traditional smart growth oriented neighborhood development pattern. Three successive 5 km ring buffers surrounding the city core were then executed using ArcMap analysis tools provided by ESRI programs.The study is undertaken under the contention that the farther from the urban core the more sprawl-oriented the neighborhood will be. A continuum ranging from smart growth to sprawled neighborhoods was set to examine a whole gamut of variables such as land use intensity, mixed use diversity, pedestrian accessibility and street network patterns. The results seem to indicate that Riyadh cannot afford the pursuit of such current unsustainable pattern of neighborhood development. Adopting a smart growth approach is therefore recommended to make a brake to such unsustainable patterns. A sound approach to developing newer residential neighborhood design would be to build upon the locally established patterns of design as revealed by the traditional core at the inner city.