The 15-minute city, The Line knocks back expectations to 300,000 inhabitants from 1.5 million

Illustrated image of The Line, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia

The Line, a 15-minute mega city being built in Saudi Arabia, is supposed to become the flagship development for Saudi Arabia’s Neom project. News agency Bloomberg reports that officials from The Line have downgraded its expectations annd that the 140 mile-long linear city  of two parallel, 500-metre-high, linear skyscrapers – will only house less than 300,000 people by 2030. This is compared to the 1.5 million announced in earlier press material sent to Green Prophet.

The Line will be built in the Northwestern part of Saudi Arabia, close to Israel’s Eilat and close to Jordan’s city of Amman. Saudi Arabia is aligning its economic goals with the West as it tries to account for a post-oil economy. It is a leading investor in areas of new biofuels and sustainable building.

The Bloomberg article points out one of The Line’s contractors has begun dismissing some of the workers it employs on the site.

The Line, linear city Saudi Arabia

The scaling-back of the project is because Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund run by the Crown Prince hasn’t yet approved Neom’s 2024 budget.

The Line, announced in 2021, would link the Red Sea coastal areas such as Eilat and Dahab and put Saudi Arabia on the travel map.

Construction has begun on the building, with a video released earlier this year showing extensive foundation work taking place on the site. It is being criticized on sustainability and human rights grounds. Bedouins were forcibly evicted in 2022 and one died, with several sentenced to death. Saudi Arabia denies allegations.

Green Prophet reader Robin W Boyd says: “Controlled urban environments have already created dystopian cities due to the fact that there will always be fascist humans who believe themselves to be better than others. Big cities haven’t worked out, bigger cities cannot succeed.”

What do you think? Is The Line the future or something to see as a dystopian past?

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