The Line – due to be just 200 metres wide – will make Neom world’s most liveable city ‘by far’, officials claim
The promotional material is striking: two mirror-encased skyscrapers stretching more than 100 miles across a swathe of desert and mountain terrain, providing a future home for 9 million people. Is it the ultimate in high-density living, or a grandiose science fiction fantasy?
In short, economists, architects and analysts are not quite sure. So extravagant is Saudi Arabia’s plan to create an urban utopia that even those working on the project, known as the Line, do not yet know if its scale and scope can ever be realised.
Sceptics and supporters alike were this week given more insight into the extraordinary ambition of the development – the centrepiece of the futuristic Neom site near the Gulf of Aqaba – when the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, outlined central aspects of what he intends to be one of the most ambitious urban developments built in modern times.
