Problems building the crazy city in Saudi Arabia

Analyse

How do we want, how can we live in the future if our earth is becoming increasingly difficult to live in due to the climate crisis? Saudi Arabia’s rulers claim to have an answer to this question.

Neom is a model city whose central element will be The Line. It’s the craziest city the world has ever seen. Positively, because many aspects sound unique, new, climate-neutral and courageous. Negatively, because the mega-city of the future has many dark sides. Added: There are currently indications that the project will be a failure as construction has stalled.

Watson analyzed the plans for you.

The facts about Neom and The Line

The Line is intended to consist of a single building: 200 meters wide, 170 kilometers (!) long and 500 meters high.

The building is being built on an area of ​​34 square kilometers and will accommodate nine million people. For comparison: Munich is the most densely populated German city and is almost ten times larger – with 1.5 million inhabitants.

The enormous population density in Neom results from the height of the building. There are currently only eleven tall buildings in the world that are larger.

The city is being built in the northwest of Saudi Arabia and begins on the Gulf of Aqaba, leading through the desert to the country’s mountains.

The red line on this map shows the future location of The Line.Bild: getty images/ PeterHermesFurian

The first people are expected to live in The Line in 2030, with complete completion scheduled for 2045. Officially, Saudi Arabia wants to invest 500 billion euros in Neom, 40 percent of which will go to The Line.

How Neom promotes itself

“The Line is a civilizational revolution that puts people at the center and offers an unprecedented urban living experience.” This is how the project defines itself on its homepage.

“We cannot ignore the life and environmental crises facing our world’s cities, and Neom is a leader in providing new and creative solutions,” writes Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Chairman of Neom’s Board of Directors.

The official The Line trailer begins with the words: “For too long, humanity has lived in dysfunctional and polluted cities that ignore nature.”

You can see the video here:

What the city should look like in detail

The plans for Neom look like a science fiction film come true. In The Line there are no roads and no cars, but e-flying taxis, drone food deliveries and a sophisticated infrastructure designed to make every essential facility reachable within a five-minute walk. That sounds crazy, but it’s theoretically possible. Finally, local recreation areas, hospitals or schools can also be accommodated in a 500 meter high building.

The facade of The Line will consist of a mirrored facade.image: neom

An underground high-speed transit train is planned to connect the two ends. All technical infrastructure is also installed underground.

What is behind Saudi Arabia’s plans?

Bin Salman has proclaimed “Vision 2030” for his country. Their goal is to diversify revenue sources because billions in oil won’t last forever. That’s why the oil money is now being used to reposition the country.

The crown prince wants to radically transform his country. Neom is one of the core projects for this project. It’s not “just” about building a seemingly perfect city, but about polishing up the country’s image.

How useful is a 170 kilometer long building?

“There is a reason why humanity has 50,000 cities, and they are all more or less round,” Rafael Prieto-Curiel from the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna told the Austrian news agency APA. He adds: “A linear form is the least efficient form.”

The scientists’ core finding is that it would have been better to build The Circle instead of The Line. Then the radius of the circular city would only be 3.3 kilometers long with an identical total area.

Prieto-Curiel concludes: “It is reasonable to suspect that other considerations (…) may have played a role, such as branding or the creation of engaging videos on social media.”

Sustainable! Sustainable?

Neom markets itself as a central solution in the fight against the climate crisis. Life in the city should be 100 percent climate neutral: solar power, new technologies, no cars, no roads. It all sounds pretty sexy.

A view from above of The Line model. Do you see the stadium on the roof of the building?Bild: imago images / abacabapress

However: “Neom has nothing to do with sustainability at all”says Amandus Samsøe Sattler, President of the German Society for Sustainable Building, in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. The promise of climate neutrality does not contain the crucial point: construction. In the SZ text, architecture professor Philip Oldfield estimates the emissions for the construction of The Line to be at least 1.8 billion tons of CO₂. That’s more than twice what Germany emits per year.

And then there are human rights

Around 20,000 Bedouins live in the area where Neon is created, some for centuries. There is no more room for them. Forced evictions were reported years ago. Tribal members who refused to leave their homes were sometimes arrested.

Abdulrahim al-Huwaiti was one of the most vocal critics. He was shot by special forces, the video of which went around the world in 2020. The Saudi version is: The emergency services acted in self-defense.

That’s not surprising. The human rights situation in Saudi Arabia is catastrophic. For women, for homosexuals, for people of other faiths, for critics. Torture is permissible and death sentences are carried out.

This is in stark contrast to the society that Saudi Arabia portrays for Neom – cosmopolitan, ultra-modern and progressive.

Remarkably: Saudi Arabia’s laws are suspended in Neom. An information brochure obtained by Watson states: “The zone will be independent of the regulatory framework of the Kingdom government.” This means, for example: women do not have to veil themselves, alcohol is allowed.

The schedule is shaky: will the project be a failure?

The Line is growing more slowly than announced: “Bloomberg” reported in mid-April, citing anonymous sources, that the plans are too ambitious. By 2030, only 300,000 people should be able to live here and not 1.5 million. In the coming years you will only be able to finish 2.4 kilometers. Companies involved are already laying off employees.

Not only The Line is being built in Neom, but also a new holiday area called Trojena.image: neom

This report is grist to the mill of critics who now fear that the entire project will implode. There are problems. And yes, it could be a failure. But: Saudi Arabia does not comment on the reports. The project has not yet been officially downsized.

Neom is coming: a conclusion

Friedrich von Borries, architect and professor of design theory at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, summarized the criticism of Neom in “Zeit”. He writes: “For a long time now, the Western world of architecture has not given any positive answers to the really big questions of the future and no longer has any innovative suggestions for solutions.” The opposite is the case with The Line.

There is no denying that a model for the city of the future is emerging in Saudi Arabia. Whether in the original version or a reduced one.

The Line still seems like another huge marketing coup by Saudi Arabia. The accusations of greenwashing cannot be dismissed and the human rights violations cannot be ignored.

One question remains unaffected: Is Saudi Arabia building a city from which the world can draw conclusions about the future shaped by the climate crisis?