AMAZING Saudi Pics

[saudijoe]

Here are some pictures from different parts of Saudi Arabia. I swear the outside world barely gets a glimpse of what this country has to offer.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/111.jpg
General View of Riyadh

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/222.jpg
Faisaliah Tower, Abraj Al-Taawnia, and the King Fahd Library

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/333.jpg
Kingdom Centre

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/444.jpg
Riyadh Water Tower

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/555.jpg
One of the Kingdom's exclusive Gated-Communities (resort style compounds)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/666.jpg
Water-Front Development

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/8.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/9.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/10.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/jwakim/11.jpg

[Anas Anani]

Great! pics

[Bahraini Spirit]

Nice man, it's a lovely country with lots of untapped potential.

[Qatar4Ever]

Love the caves. Wanna visit them one day.

[huit]

good pics... keep 'em coming!

[SkyFan]

Great pictures especially that compound picture.
Where did you get them from?

[Anas Anani]

The nicest pic is the one with the Water-Front Development how the moon was red!

[urbane]

very nice photos.

This has probably been asked before. But why does Riyadh only have a few skyscrapers compared to gulf cities such as Dubai, Abu-Dhabi, Doha, or Manamah ?
And how come the two that are shown on the first pic are so far apart. Is Riyadh purposefully trying to avoid having a cluster of talls ?

By the way.....I love Kingdom Center. Simply beautiful !!! :)

[Saudi Dunes]

Urbane, Riyadh zoning regulations prohibit buildings above 30 floors I believe. But thats not the main reason why there aren't many towers in the city. The point is that Saudi's really don't like to live in buildings, they would prefer to live in villas, and contrary to most other Gulf cities, there are really zero restrictions on how wide a cities diameter can be (they have plenty of land around the cities), so in some cases it makes more economic sense to build three 10 storey buildings than one 30 storey building. Now as for the distance between Kingdom Centre and Faisaliah...they're really not that far from each other, they're on the same street and probably 2 minutes by car from one another, its just in this photo they looks really far appart.

[SkyFan]

The complicated regulations play a major rule on the few high rises in Riyadh comparing to other gulf nations. I know many business men were interested in building towers in Riyadh but they couldn't get the neccessary permits.

Also the people of Saudi are not demanding skyscrapers' apartments. We don't have many middle class expats who would be interested in renting an apartment in a classy skyscraper. Most of the foriegners are poor labor. The Saudis prefer living in villas. Only young Saudis would live in apartments and they prefer small apartment compounds rather over high rise buildings. So, there is no enough demand to skyscrapers.

Finally, as Saudi Dunes said, Riyadh is a city with no horizontal limit. It's expanding in all directions with no restrictions. The diameter of Riyadh now is more than 60 km. More than 90% of the buildings are only 2 stories high. However, there are still many 10-20 storey buildings here and there.

Regarding the distance between the Kingdom Center and Al-Faisliah, there's a 25 story building under construction there that will fill some of that space :p. And I've seen some construction activities of another tower noth of Kindgom Center.

[urbane]

Thanks Saudi Dunes and Skyfan for the explanations! I find it interesting that there isn't much demand for high-rise apartments in Saudi Arabia as opposed to the Gulf. Is it due to a cultural difference between people from the Gulf States and Saudis in regards to their housing preferences ? If so, why are Saudis so different in that respect ?
The fact that Saudi cities have an almost limitless backdrop in which to expand seems to be a logical reason for the lack of many skyscrapers. By the way, since the cities are soo expansive, do most people face long commutes to their workplaces ? Do they commute by car ? Is there substantial mass transit in Riyadh and other cities ?

[Saudi Dunes]

Urbane, there is no structured mass public transport system in ANY of the Gulf States. Riyadh does have a light-rail system on the table, but I really don't know much about it.

[urbane]

Urbane, there is no structured mass public transport system in ANY of the Gulf States.

How come ? It seems that those cities could use it, aren't people stuck in traffic often if everybody commutes and goes everywhere by car ?

[huit]

The traffic in Riyadh is quite fast with only few jams at some locations... it has a very extensive infrastructure with lots of underpasses and fly-overs.

Btw, the diameter of Riyadh is 80 KMs atleast...

[Saudi Dunes]

huit you do have a point, Riyadh, as well as most other Gulf cities have an excellent highway system. urbane, even if they had an efficient public transport system, I highly doubt that any of the locals (nationals) would use it. Although there are traffic jams in Jeddah and Riyadh, they pretty much dissolve in a few minutes, its common to see 6-lane freeways, unlike the West (Europe and America's east coast) where modern roads had to be planned around buildings, in the Gulf, the cities are mostly built around master-planned highway grids that were built to ensure the fast flow of traffic.

[HiJazzey]

You guys haven't driven in Jeddah and Riyadh recently. The traffic in peak hours is horrendous. I've been stuck many times in total gridlock. My uncle once took 3 hours to drive the distance from his house to ours ( a distance of about 10 Km).

[huit]

^ I used to sleep after Fajr and usually woke up around 3:00 - 4:00 PM, so I guess I really don't know much about the peak hours :D

[Saudi Dunes]

I lived in Khobar, so traffic was really lax, not a single traffic jam. But I guess Jeddah might be different seeing that its a million times larger

[Raza]

^ I used to sleep after Fajr and usually woke up around 3:00 - 4:00 PM, so I guess I really don't know much about the peak hours :D


what were you doing so late up at night in saudi? :clown: :booze: :omg: :nono: :stupid: :poke: :pepper: :hug: :fart: :nuts:

[urbane]

hmmm....it seems that if the population in Saudi Cities grows fast than even a massive road infrastructure system which can handle current traffic flow efficiently might not be sufficient to avoid traffic jams in the future. Unless it is constantly expanded, which would mean that they would have to tear down buildings around highways to add more lanes.

[Allan]

fantastic!

[Saudi Dunes]

http://homepage.mac.com/tacomaboy/.Pictures/Photo%20Album%20Pictures/2003-08-16%2018.46.58%20-0700/Image-273AE40ED05311D7.jpg