Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has revealed plans for a a new megapolis that will change the way people live in the Middle Eastern Kingdom. Set to feature two skyscrapers, the city will extend along the vast swathe of desert and mountain terrain, according to the latest updates on the project by the Kingdom’s ruler.
The parallel structures of mirror-encased skyscrapers extending over 170 kilometres (more than 100 miles), known collectively as The Line, form the heart of the Red Sea megacity NEOM, a plank of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s bid to diversify the Gulf state’s oil-dependent economy, according to Indian media outlet News 18.
Envisioned first in 2017, NEOM has stunned people over its proposals for flying taxis and maids that won’t be humans, but robots. These out of the-world suggestions have made architects and financial experts question the project’s feasibility.
On Monday night, the prince held a presentation that described a utopian vision of a ‘car free’ city that would by-far be the most ‘liveable’ city on the planet. Experts have pointed out the ever-changing plans for the city and questioned whether the utopian dream of ‘The Line’ would ever be a reality.
Media outlet News 18 reported that, NEOM was once touted as a regional “Silicon Valley”, a biotech and digital hub spread over 26,500 square kilometres (10,000 square miles). Now it’s a vehicle for reimagining urban life on a footprint of just 34 square kilometres, and addressing what Prince Mohammed describes as “liveability and environmental crises”.
“The concept has morphed so much from its early conception that it’s sometimes hard to determine its direction: scaling down, scaling up, or making an aggressive turn sideways,” said Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington to News 18.
