The growing importance of oil revenue for Saudi Arabia, particularly since the 1970s, has led to rapid urbanization and has given the government means to offer social services such as free education. These changes have furthers its citizens’ sense of a national identity and their diminished traditional ways of living. Since 1950, the rural population has decreased from over 80 percent (about half nomadic) to less than 20 percent. Cities have also modernized physically. However below the physical surface, Saudis hold attitudes and values that are neither like the norm elsewhere nor easily discerned.