Strategic Spatial Planning Consideration in the Kingdom Vision 2030 and National Physical Planning Plan: Utilizing Content Analysis Methodology for Evaluation and Comparison

Urban and regional planning over the time pass through a lot of changes in the 20th century and have been impacted by economic, social and environmental problems. However, old traditional planning approaches were replaced by sustainable approaches to avoid the limitations and improve the results. One of these new approaches known as strategic spatial planning which defined as a long term perspective with clear methodology and strategic vison for critical and important issues in all aspects of economic, social and environment as well as involve stakeholders in this vision through focusing on spatial aspects to achieve sustainable development. The aim of this study is to analyze the content of vision 2030 for Saudi Arabia based on the perspective of spatial strategic planning and compare it with the content of urban national strategy through using same base line. The purpose of this comparison is to explore the achievement of spatial development considerations in the 2030 vision. The literatures review helps to identify the key aspects of strategic spatial planning (economic, social, environmental), as well as identify important considerations associated with each one of them. However, eight considerations were associated with the economical aspect and seven considerations were associated with the social aspect. While, there are five considerations associated with the environmental aspect. By applying content analyses approach; the quantitative analysis of repetitions of the spatial considerations was high in the urban strategy rather than vision 2030 in the overview context. Moreover, there is homogeneity for spatial considerations in the urban strategy with more clarity than vision 2030. Based on the repetitions of spatial considerations in 2030 vision; the vision is focusing more on the economical aspect, social aspect then environmental aspect