Introduction (Overview)
Over the last several decades, the urban centres of many of the world’s largest cities have faced the problem of decline that facilitated economic and social changes (Lupton & Power 2004). This tendency was evident throughout the world in many large cities and is mainly connected to the slowdown in the population growth trends due to which the predicted level of the domination of the large cities was not realised fully. This phenomenon is associated with the increasing shortage of economic opportunities in the area. This paper provides a review of literature in reference to the issues of city centre decline, revitalisation, and people’s perceptions focusing on the city centre of Riyadh. The aspects mentioned above are explored by means of the comparison of the tendencies in Riyadh to those in the other large cities of the world. Structurally, this paper will be divided into three parts as follows:
- City centre decline
- City centre revitalisation
- People’s perceptions
City Centre Decline
According to their functions and roles, city centres can be divided into market towns, industrial towns, suburban centres, metropolitan cities, and resort and historic towns (Department of the Environment &URBED 1994). Starting from the middle of the 20th century, some of the large cities of Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Australia went into the city centre decline (Moses & Gale 2001). The concept of the city centre decline can be defined as the process of gradual decay and deterioration of the urban environments (such as buildings, streets, and public facilities) eventually resulting in negative economic outcomes (such as outmigration, loss of human and business capital of the area, and the increasing rates of unemployment) (Moses & Gale 2001). Moreover, the researchers argue that some of the main causes of city centre decline are:
- The population’s desire to live in a safer and quieter place
- The attractiveness of suburban areas and life
Naturally, the urban citizens are willing to avoid living in the city centres known for high crime rates, air pollution, decaying school buildings, and the shifting ethnic dynamics (Moses & Gale 2001). Besides, the businesses of the city view the central areas as unattractive as well due to their failure to provide enough clients, suitable offices and building in required quantity in comparison with the other commercial districts (Milder 2005). The city centres are required to develop their unique features of attraction to regain the attention of business owners and potential shoppers (Milder 2005).
Due to the progressive nature of city centre decline observed in the large urban areas of the United States, the neighbourhoods primarily populated by the representatives of middle class eventually moved away turning the centre into the prevalently impoverished and low-income areas with the disadvantaged population. Over time, the owners of the apartments and houses in the city centre reduced their effort spent on the support of the living areas in response to the diminished tax income. In turn, the city agencies cut the maintenance and public services. As a result, the areas overcrowded with low-income population started to experience clashes between the newcomers and the local residents that forced more households to seek for accommodations elsewhere. As the stores noticed the loss of customers, their owners moved the businesses to more profitable districts creating the shopping centres in the suburban areas (Moses & Gale 2001).
The tendency of rising suburbanisation and the changes in demographics of the city centres that dominated in the end of the 20th century was observed throughout the world in the largest cities of the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Argentina, the USA, and Canada (Moses & Gale 2001). The urban deterioration has several impacts as demonstrated in the table below:
Riyadh City Centre Decline
As reported by ADA (1999), the city centre of Riyadh has experienced some of the features of its urban decline including the shift of its demographic profile. Due to the decay, the population of the centre of Riyadh has undergone a rapid decline from 1,440,000 in 1997 to 817,312 in 2011 as shown in Table1 (in comparison to the population of the entire city). Moreover, the level of income in the area has dropped as well and currently can be classified as low (see fig. 1). For several decades, the problem was overlooked because the local leaders prioritised the expansion of more profitable and prestigious districts of Riyadh. However, over time this tendency shifted and the local authorities began to focus on the problems of the city centre. The redevelopment of the city centre that has turned into an ongoing process is anticipated to bring the population density up.
City Centre Revitalisation
The revitalisation of city centres is a complicated and lengthy process that includes multiple participants, complex financial schemes. It serves to respond the factors that led to the urban decay and improve the physical environments, economic, and social patterns in the area in order to attract new visitors and residents (Moses & Gale 2001). There are eight main dimensions that should be taken into consideration during the process of the city centre revitalisation:
- Political dimensions
- Environmental dimensions;
- Social dimensions;
- Design dimensions;
- Historical/cultural dimensions;
- Economic dimensions;
- Behavioural dimensions;
- Physical dimensions (Moses & Gale 2001)
The process of suburbanisation has diminished the importance of the city centres as the areas of culture, business, and religion (Moses & Gale 2001). However, according to the Historic Preservation Strategy, the historical objects and values present on the territories of the decaying city centres can be used as tools assisting to improve the economic development of the areas emphasising and preserving their unique features in the process of modernisation of the environments (Moses & Gale 2001). As pointed out by Yung and Chan (2015), the evaluation of the role of historical sites and cultural valuables is to be especially thorough during the revitalisation of the city centre.
Besides, Wagner et al. (2013) point out that the city centre revitalisation targets versatile aspects and should not only be focused on the business and infrastructure development but also take into consideration the Human Capital Investment approach aiming at the improvement of skills and knowledge of the population. The major social disadvantage of the revitalisation is the necessary displacement of the city centre residents who are mainly represented by the low-income families, racial minorities because the housing prices are likely to increase because of the active investment (Moses & Gale 2001).
Riyadh City Centre Redevelopment Plans
Undergoing the rapid economic development due to the growth of oil-based income, Riyadh became much larger and more prosperous. However, it could not escape the impact of the urban deterioration in the city centre. Since 1980, the authorities of Riyadh began to focus on the revitalisation of the area. The first development occurred a few years later and lasted till 1998 involving three main phases (the first two there dominated by the public investment, whereas the third phase focused on the private sector development (Alskait 1999). In 2013, the High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh adopted the Riyadh Downtown Development Program and Plan in order to make Riyadh City Centre a national historical, administrative and cultural centre. One of the key objectives of the Plan is to tackle the major issues affecting the City Centre in order to make the area attractive to visitors, residents, and businesses. The involvement of local community in the revitalisation of the historic city centre is becoming increasingly important and influential (Yung & Chan 2015). Although the Development Authority aims to attract the residents and visitors back to the Central area, there has been no “clear” public consultation and participation in the design process of the Master Plan to obtain their needs. The Development Authority, however, depends on the small group of representatives in addition to municipal council members rather than provides the opportunities to the public to share their views. In other words, the main task is to make sure whether or not the parties involved in the development planning are the representatives of the individuals directly affected by the project (Nicholas et al. 2009). Therefore, the question of participation and involvement becomes one of the central issues of the revitalisation management in Riyadh (Al-Hathloul 2004). Hence, the Redevelopment Plan tends to be the government driven idea since there has been no big call of public consultation.
People’s Perceptions
The body of literature shedding the light on the problem of the public perceptions as to the city centre decay and revitalisation practices is rather insufficient. Telford (2001) points out that the people’s perceptions of the urban areas are highly important as they make a strong impact on such aspects of the city centre development as employment and occupancy, economic development and investment, physical environments, design, and planning. Moreover, the residents of the area are the ones who create the character of the place and contribute to the formation of its most recognisable features (Hidalgo 2006). The prevalent activities in the territories of the city centre form the public attitudes to the area as well and result in the changes in population density (Milder 1987).
Overall, the researchers note that there are not generally accepted evaluation standards for the assessment of the people’s perceptions of the city centre; however, it could have been an extremely valuable method contributing to the revitalisation and planning practices, especially at the early stages of urban decay (Hanak et al. 2015; Omar et al. 2013; The Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) 2014; Pampalon et al. 2007).This assessment is considered by Reading Downtown Improvement District Authority (2013) as one of the key elements providing information that will guide authorities in developing actions for improvement. Therefore, this assessment would be useful to find areas where residents, shoppers and visitors would like to see changes. The city centre perception results could provide immense help for the authorities involved in the renovation and modernisation and help to raise the effectiveness of changes and their impact on the population.