Two lines of mirror-clad skyscrapers will stretch from the mountains to the Red Sea – if Neom, The Line, is ever finished (Picture: NEOM/AFP via Getty Images)
Saudi Arabia’s £1.2 trillion plan to revolutionise the way we lived with the vast line city of Neom just got an awful lot less ambitious.
The Line was supposed to transform the desert sands into a solar-powered city of 9,000,000 people across a 105-mile stretch of mirror-clad skyscrapers from the mountains to the Red Sea.
Some 1,500,000 of these inhabitants were supposed to be settled by 2030.
It would dwarf even New York City and, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hoped, rival the pyramids of Egypt as an icon of timeless grandiosity.
Giles Pendleton, COO for The Line, shared images of The Line from above just two months ago to draw a line in the sand with ‘naysayers’ who doubt the plans will ever become reality.
But it’s expected to be just a crumb of those dreams by then, with 300,000 inhabitants in a city 1.4 miles long, Bloomberg reported.
That would still make it the most densely populated place on earth, seven times more cramped than Singapore or Hong Kong.
Such a scale-back has rattled those constructing an AI oasis for the uber-rich.
The Line will be a 500-metre tall mirror cutting through the desert when it’s finished (Picture: NEOM/AFP via Getty Images)
At least one investor has started to dismiss people working on the site, according to a document seen by Bloomberg.
It all spells trouble for Saudi Arabia’s plans to diversify its oil-dependent economy with a spending spree on infrastructure projects.
These include an eight-sided port and industrial city floating on the Red Sea right at the edge of Neom.
Another is the luxury tourist island of Sindalah, which is due to open this year.
The Line is a vanity project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
But the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund is yet to approve this year’s budget for Neom and its tech revolution.
Announced in 2021, the vision for Neom – also known as The Line – is a city full of green spaces, free of cars and with all your daily needs within a five-minute walk.
More than 100,000,000 cubic metres of sand have already been moved as contractors excavate a 75-mile canyon in the desert.
Through the middle will run a tree-lined canal between the towering lines of skyscrapers.
Trucks haul sand as construction starts on The Line at Neom (Picture: Giles Pendleton)
There’ll be a marina for its residents’ superyachts, a members-only beach club, a luxury golf resort, and a sports stadium 1,000ft above ground.
As if that wasn’t enough pampered living, there’ll even be a network of robots and AI to make their lives even easier.
Despite claims the hanging glass apartments will ‘offer points of connection between humans and nature’, critics have accused Neom of posing a threat to both people and animals.
Tribes have been cleared to make way for its construction.
Security forces have been accused of shooting dead a resident.
And bird experts warn it will be a ‘death trap’ for millions of birds migrating between Europe and Africa each year.
‘Birds flying into tall windows is a serious problem, and this is a building that is 500m high going across Saudi Arabia, with windmills on top,’ professor William Sutherland, director of research in Cambridge University’s zoology department, told The Times.
‘It’s also kind of like a mirror so you don’t really see it. So unless they do something about it, there’s a serious risk that there could be lots of damage to migratory birds.’
That’s if the futuristic plans ever become more than just a line in the sand.
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