British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 796

CHAPTER XVIII.

Provision for Arab immigrants as above Deduct provision for police, etc.

Net provision required for Arab immigrants say, 4,500 room units.

5,660

4,476

(3). Building construction 1936-1945.

33. Arab urban areas. The figure for Arab building construction during the years 1936-1945 have been calculated in the same manner as Jewish construction for the same period (vide A (3)) - except that the value of Arab buildings in certain urban areas was converted to room units by dividing by 90 instead of 150. This figure provides for an allowance of 12% to cover the construction of shops, offices and local service industries. In the case of Haifa, a further allowance of 15 % has been made to provide for the construction of workshops and factories. In this connection it must be remembered that the term Arab includes the whole population other than Jewish. The data in respect of room units constructed in 1944 and 1945 were obtained directly from the records of the Department of the Controller of Heavy Industries; during this period it has been estimated that 35% of house construction executed in the urban areas of Palestine was on behalf of the Arab community. Detailed information relating to Arab construction will be found in table 3, the total number of room units constructed being 35,r171, say 36,000.

34. Arab rural areas. There are no data available as to the amount of building construction in Arab rural areas; it is therefore necessary to estimate the amount of construction which has taken place indirectly from the information compiled in the "Survey of Social and Economic Conditions in Arab villages, 1944" (Bulletin of Current Statistics, Vol. X., Sept. 1945) (vide paragraphs 50-52 below). The following table 5 has been compiled from the data given in table 45, on page 565 of that survey.

Table 5.

NUMBER of ROOMS comprising THE DWELLING

No. of persona 858 1,019 529 246 124
No. of dwellings 198 167 72 27 15
No. of rooms 193 334 216 108 75
No. of persona per room 4.42 3.05 2.45 2.28 1.65
No. of rooms required to
reduce the density to
2 persons per room 288 176 49 15 - I 2 I 3 I >I J 5 16 or m~re . 8

8

6

2

Total deficiency in room units - 484.

796