Urban cohesion vis-à-vis organic spatialization of “Third places” in Saudi Arabia: The need for an alternative planning praxis

Many medium-sized middle-eastern cities like Khobar in Saudi Arabia have become a popular destination for predominantly low-to semi-skilled expatriate workers from several South and South East Asian countries. The social spatialization of these working class people has been manifested in compartmentalized public spaces as specific ethnic oriented “third places”, such as Filipino markets, Bangladeshi bazaar, and Pakistani neighborhood. Yet, there is no research scholarship available on the nature and type of such third places and their importance and influences on plan making process in the middle-eastern context. Certain (re-)defining themes, notably expressing and celebrating everyday culture, feeling of home being away from home, sense of places, and center places for socialization and integration emerge to brand these places as we explored empirical evidence with grounded theory centered socio-cultural lenses. Additionally, exploring spatio-temporal permeability of these third places using Space Syntax accessibility model helped us to draw critical insights about how such lessons and practices can challenge the contemporary city planning and design practices. Critical planning interventions like collaborative governance of third places as proposed here can be adopted in making cities like Khobar cohesive.