What are they building in Saudi Arabia? The Line NEOM: Vision 2030

A YouTube video depicting a sci-fi like city

First and foremost, weather it sounds over ambitious and ridiculous but the Arabs are renowned building remarkable buildings turning deserts into desirable places to live. Turning a wilderness into a living wild. Thanks to their oil wealth however it is important to diversify the sources of income similar to what Dubai has done, turning a desert into a vibrant livable place which attracts not only the tourist but also some foreign investment.

⁃ Saudi Arabia unveiled designs for its ambitious urban project. The concept of new futuristic cities is not new at all. Initially launched in 2017

⁃ it plans to build this linear glass walled city, a hydrocarbon-free economic zone

⁃ It’s not the first time it has been proposed to build something like this, in 1956 AMerican Architects Miles Graves and Peter Enzyman came up with a similar idea, to create a linear city between Boston and Washington. However turning these ideas to reality will be a remarkable achievement for Saudi Arabia and the kingdom.

– Back in the day there were some radical Architects like Le Corbusier. Whose Radiant City concept was criticized for lack of human scale and lack of connection to the surroundings. The criticisms seems harsh however it’s better to coin a rubbish idea, it could spark the development of better concepts.

Criticisms

⁃ First and foremost how is the city going to manage some polluting activities like waste management in order to maintain the zero carbon environment.

Economic Challenges

⁃ this is an over ambitious project, before the COVID-19 pandemic the overall costs was projected to be $500 billion, the project might not even be finished by 2050 as a result the costs will astronomically go up. That said the entire project is predicted to cost 1 trillion.

⁃ It’s not the first time it has been proposed to build something like this, in 1956 AMerican Architects Miles Graves and Peter Enzyman came up with a similar idea, to create a linear city between Boston and Washington. However turning these ideas to reality will be a remarkable achievement for Saudi Arabia and the kingdom.

Technological challenges

⁃ Technology is susceptible to changes and evolution over time.

⁃ The biggest technical problem that Saudi Arabia could face is said to be the reliance on foreign skilled workers.

⁃