Unearthing low-density multifamily housing as effective housing options in Saudi Arabia: Research prospective by systematic literature review

The housing sector in Saudi Arabia is flourishing with growing urbanization and increasing population.Housing has been a longstanding goal of the Kingdom to meet the needs.Fast concentration in urban areas has led to a situation where the demand for housing needs innovation.Kingdom's Vision-2030 is taking new measures to ensure affordable and acceptable housing for all.Nevertheless, it's concerns that implementing long-term strategies and initiatives to offer substantial amounts of sustainable housing needs identifying new housing typologies and preferences holds critical importance that should consider consumers' socio-cultural and economic perspectives.Consumers already have a very strong bias toward low-density single-family 'villa' housing, which creates sprawls and sustainability issues.One promising approach to unlock sustainability is the shift from single-family development to walkable low-density multifamily (LDMF) neighborhoods.Since very little research is done on lowdensity & LDMF development, this research investigates LDMF housing and typologies that would stand somewhere between single-family development and high-density multifamily development depending on the local density context.This may provide an opportunity for the Kingdom to mitigate the adverse effects of single-family zoning on supply and affordability issues.This systematic literature review examines the possible positive consequences of LDMF housing development in Saudi Arabia.