It’s fair to say that a lot of us were a bit dubious when Saudi Arabia first announced its plan to build a super-city named Neom in the middle of the desert, but in the same breath, it does sound just crazy enough to work.
However, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is – and that seems to be the case with the centrepiece of the $1.5 trillion project, which is the brainchild of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
He wanted to revolutionise the way of life in Saudi by creating a mega state-of-the-art city that could house a whopping nine million people while running on ‘100 percent renewable energy’ and ‘preserving 95 percent of land for nature’.
After revealing the bold plans in 2017, the Crown Prince explained that he wanted to end his nation’s dependency on its oil wealth while prioritising ‘health and wellbeing over transportation and infrastructure’.
Officials say there will be ‘no roads, cars or emissions’ in Neom, as residents will instead enjoy a refreshing lifestyle in ‘walkable communities’ which will supposedly have everything they need on their doorsteps.
The Line was initially set to be bigger than four countries: Vatican City, Monaco, Nauru and Tuvalu (Neom)
But if you don’t fancy strolling through the mega-city, which is said to have the ‘ideal climate all year round’, locals could take advantage of the high-speed rail, which has an end-to-end transit of just 20 minutes.
The idea is that all of these residents will live inside ‘The Line’ – which is basically a huge mirrored skyscraper laid on its side, measuring 105 miles long as well as 200 metres wide.
According to the Neom website, the man-made city will stretch ‘from the epic mountains of Neom across inspirational desert valleys to the beautiful Red Sea’, so there is plenty of room for the millions of people they want to live there.
But it seems that house hunters with their heart set on having a pad in The Line as soon as possible might be fighting for a place, seen as though Saudi are reportedly drastically scaling back their ambitious project.
Aerial photos show the sheer vastness of the desert site (Giles Pendleton FRICS / LinkedIn)
Neom bigwigs are said to be backpedaling on the ambitious claims they have made over the last few years, despite initially announcing that they hoped 1.5 million people would have moved into The Line by 2030, according to Bloomberg.
The publication, which spoke with people familiar with the project, claimed that officials have really lowered their expectations and now think just 300,000 residents to be living inside the futuristic complex in six years’ time.
Delays in construction plans mean that developers reckon only 1.5 miles of The Line, which is being built in stages, will be completed by this point.
According to Bloomberg, at least one contractor is said to have started dismissing a portion of its employees working on the site.
It seems as though Neom’s main attraction won’t be anywhere near complete by 2030 (Neom)
The Crown Prince had previously warned the world not to underestimate Saudi’s capabilities in a Discovery Channel documentary which took a look at the progress which had been made in July last year.
The ruler of the desert kingdom said: “They say a lot of projects in Saudi Arabia can’t be done, they’re too ambitious.
“They can keep saying that and we can keep proving them wrong.”
Architect Thom Mayne added: “It’s actually a complicated project, but the big idea is incredibly simple.”
Complicated indeed.
Work is still continuing on other parts of Neom even if progress on The Line might have stalled, but this year’s budget for the project is currently still waiting for approval by the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
This hold-up has also caused speculation that the government might be concerned about the practicality of The Line.
