Urban Society of Amman - Report of the Amman Household Survey 2008

Arab world is essentially an urban society, whose typical examples are the primate capital cities in the Arab countries. In case of Amman, the capital of Jordan, it grew rapidly with the economic development in recent decades, and currently has 40% of national population. Its spatial expansion took place without urban planning, and is associated with many social and economic problems. However, the singularity of Amman is in its development in relation to migration. Since the independence of Jordan in 1946, Amman has accommodated the refugees and migrants that flowed into whenever wars and conflicts occurred in the Middle East. As such, Jordan is one of the most important buffer states in the Middle Eastern politics. There are few empirical studies based on statistical data on Amman urban society, and detailed studies that focus attentions on its spatial transformation are rare. Our paper aims at providing the basic information concerning the socioeconomic situations in Amman based on the data derived from the Amman Household Survey 2008, in view of the future research on the urban development of Amman. Originality of our paper lies in setting 'district' (liwa') as a base of analysis. By doing so, we categorize the 'districts' from socioeconomic point of view, and clarifies the socioeconomic characteristics of 'districts' which reflect the close relationship between social structuring and migration from inside and outside Jordan.