| Summary: | Mecca City in Saudi Arabia as the only one Hajj and Umrah organizer city in the
world is showing very rapid growth. Dominant thing that affects this growth is the increasing
number of hajj pilgrims and umra every year. Between 2001 and 2010 there was an increase
from 11.9 million to 2.7 million pilgrims, with 1.8 million of them came from outside Saudi
Arabia. Have duty to host this external function, Mecca has a tendency to change the face of
space around the shrines notably increasing settlement construction and infrastructure for
service pilgrims. On the other hand, the implementation or service of the internal functions to
the citizens have to be provided.
In this thesis, the researcher uses content analysis methods that rely on text from
various sources as the main reference data. Content analysis attempts to understand the data
not as a collection of physical events, but as a symbolic phenomena to uncover the meaning
in a text that sometimes gain an understanding of the message is represented. The
observation unit in this research came from books, papers, journals, presentations, videos,
and other resources obtained through the internet site.
Implications of hajj and umrah activities made Mecca City developed into three (3)
phases. These are nucleus phase (before 1955), the rapid growth phase (1955 to 1986) and
medium growth phase (1955-2011). In the third phase, it could be seen that the main
development priorities are to serve the hajj pilgrims and umrah in the city center (around the
Grand Mosque) then affected the native to move to periphery. This conditions created new
residential areas such as Syarai 'in the east, Batha Quraish in the south, and Umm al-Jud in
the west.
Saudi Arabian government priorities external functions that cause some problems
in the implementation of internal functions: (1) the high price of land in the city center, (2)
infrastructure services and public services around the city, (3) flood, (4 ) traffic jam during
the hajj season and Ramadhan, (5) lack of recreation parks and green space, and (6)
environmental issues after hajj season. Implementation of internal functions like Housing
Elements, Road Element, Recreation Elements, and Utilities Elements have some
improvement but has not been going well, especially in the city center . Implementation of
four elements above look good in the 2nd ring and 3rd ring (away from downtown) where the
concentration of settlements are located. However, it should be noted that Economic
Elements is the only internal function element that gets a positive impact from activities of
hajj and umrah better than other elements.
Saudi Arabia's government strategy to integrate these two functions are carried out
by maximum organizing external functions that these facilities can be used by city residents.
Facilities built to organize hajj and umrah, then used by city residents outside the pilgrimage
season.
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