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Cities from the Arabian Desert: The Building of Jubail and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia
Cities from the Arabian Desert The Building of Jubail and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia Author:Andrea H. Pampanini During the past thirty years the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has built and managed the largest public works projects in history--the creation of the two industrial cities of Jubail, on the Gulf, and Yanbu, on the Red Sea, home to huge petroleum-based industries which claim almost ten percent of the world market. Beginning with the discovery of oil i... more »n the 1930's and the economic development initiatives of King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud and his successors, this book emphasizes the Saudi's determination to marshal their oil wealth productively. It examines the evolution of Saudi capacity to plan and design very large projects, the establishment of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, an independent super-agency with the power to cut through red tape and make multi-billion dollar moves on its own, and the roles of entities such as Aramco and SABIC. The factories and refineries are up and running, now almost entirely managed by the Saudis themselves. Saudi Arabia, underdeveloped and pastoral until a few decades ago, has achieved in less than 35 years what required the better part of a century in Europe and America. This is the second edition of the book, originally published in 1997. This version has been updated to reflect developments at Jubail and Yanbu since the mid 1990's, and describes further infrastructure and industrial expansions planned through the end of the Ninth National Development Plan (2014).« less