Some people say this is an illusion…
Saudi Arabia's plans to build a city of the future with a long queue have been significantly scaled back.
“The Line” will stretch 105 miles from the Gulf of Aqaba to the city of Tabuk, making it taller than the Empire State Building.
However, this vision no longer seems to be realized.
The concept was first announced in 2017 as part of a wider project called Neom, which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman claimed would benefit “all humanity, not just Saudi Arabia”.
The crown prince claimed Saudi entrepreneurs would use the unique metropolis to create “one of the most exciting architectural developments in the world right now.”
“The city's vertically layered neighborhoods will challenge traditional flat, horizontal cities,” Prince said. “The Line’s design reflects how urban communities will live in the future in an environment free of roads, cars and emissions.”
In addition to its huge commitment to full sustainability, the city plans to provide its 1.5 million residents with flying taxis, robot maids and sky gardens.
All the “daily needs” of city residents can be met within a five-minute walk, and it is said that people can travel 105 miles in just 20 minutes on the “high-speed rail.”
Not everyone is sold, however, largely due to the sheer scale of the matter – and it looks like they're right.
Bloomberg reports that the project has “scaled back its mid-term goals” and that the planned 105-mile-long city is now just 1.5 miles long.
Hopes of reaching 1.5 million people by 2030 have also been reduced, with the Saudi government now planning for fewer than 300,000 people to live there in the next decade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbww
“With little access to the site and only eight years until residents move in, a lot of trust needs to be placed,” an adviser to the Saudi government said when “The Line” was initially announced. “Then there’s the systemic Inertia. It’s hard to eliminate that.”
That was echoed by Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. AFP: “The concept has changed so much from its early days that it is sometimes difficult to determine its direction: scale down, scale up, or turn radically sideways.
“That's the main purpose of building Neom,” he added. “To increase Saudi Arabia’s capabilities and bring more citizens and population to Saudi Arabia. Since we are starting from scratch, why should we imitate ordinary cities?”
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