Since oil was struck at Dammam’s Oil Well No. 7 in 1938, the Dammam Metropolitan Area (henceforth referred to as ‘DMA) has undergone rapid urban expansion, in part due to the influx of foreign national oil workers. With their lifestyles differing from the local population, the ur
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Since oil was struck at Dammam’s Oil Well No. 7 in 1938, the Dammam Metropolitan Area (henceforth referred to as ‘DMA) has undergone rapid urban expansion, in part due to the influx of foreign national oil workers. With their lifestyles differing from the local population, the urban sphere has developed to cater to their diverse demands. There is limited literature on the relationship between the history the foreign national populations’ urban experiences in the DMA and its petroleumscape. The petroleumscape, as defined by Carola Hein, is the physical, represented and lived palimpsest of petroleum’s physical and financial flows into the (urban) landscape guided by corporate and public actors. In the DMA, the petroleumscape’s main actor - ARAMCO – was the first to define spatial distributions of ethnic and socioeconomic groups in Saudi’s Eastern Province. Other actors such as the Saudi government and other petrochemical companies followed suit, resulting in ethnically segregated urban zones and architectural typologies. A failure to understand the historical relationships between petroleum, ethnicity and nationality could be an obstacle to current Saudi city-planning strategies, particularly frameworks such as Vision 2030, which anticipate an economy slowly shifting away from oil and ‘inclusive’ cities. This paper investigates how the development of the DMA’s petroleumscape resulted in urban spaces for foreign national populations (henceforth referred to as ‘FN populations’) and affected their urban liveability in terms of their housing, work, education and leisure environments. A study of this intricate historical relationship could provide a background for future urban planning policies in the DMA and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The analysis of historic documents, aerial imagery, photographs and geographical information systems can locate oil-related infrastructure throughout history. Coupled with personal accounts and statistics, segregation and integration of FNs in urban space is explored. An online questionnaire conducted for this research provides quantitative and qualitative data on the quality of life for FNs. Secondary sources, such as books, articles and magazines which investigate housing and employment conditions in Middle Eastern oil and port cities are used to analyse and deduce findings from primary sources. A cross analysis of sources and findings identifies and maps out urban interventions that improve liveability arising from Dammam’s petroleumscape. The historical upward trajectory of Dammam’s petroleum industry has improved liveability for FN residents since the discovery of oil in 1938. Consequently, through the creation of urban spaces, such as gated communities, cultural enclaves and commercial districts funded by petrodollars, liveability for FN populations has improved in tandem with the rise of petroleum. However, a generalisation of all FN groups cannot be made as their urban liveability has historically depended, and continues to depend, on their position on the racial and socioeconomic ladder. Saudi’s waning reliance on oil revenue will affect liveability in the DMA for Saudis and foreign nationals alike, possibly even altering urban distributions of various FN groups. The objective is to present the correlations and causations in the history of the DMA’s urban development and its FN population and to illustrate how and why this affects liveability for FNs so that the objectives of local planning authorities can better manage the demands of a historically diverse population, in line with the Vision 2030 framework and local urban planning schemes.
