The Line: Saudi Arabia Plans to Build a Mirrored City in the Desert

Saudi Arabia reveals ambitious plan for a carbon-zero city

The Line: Saudi Arabia Plans to Build a Huge City in the Desert Neom — The Line. Image credit: Neom.com

It is a well-known fact that Saudi Arabia has a lot of money, and its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has a lot of ambition. To leave his mark on the world, he is planning to develop a huge city in the desert named Neom, which will be called The Line. Read on to know how this city will be different from the rest.

The Line will have every futuristic technology one can imagine. It will have vertical farms, cloud seeding, robot cage fights, and even a fake moon. The plans of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince have been criticized strongly. Problems like overspending to oppressive treatment of the local tribes have been highlighted.

The Line will be a vertical city that is 170 kms in length, about 500 meters tall, and will be covered in mirrors. Though it looks like a wall, The Line will comprise two huge parallel buildings that will be connected via walkways. They will also be divided into neighbourhoods that will offer all amenities of the city life within a five-minute walking distance.

Other details of the ambitious project by Saudi Arabia include vegetables that will be “autonomously harvested and bundled” from community farms and “a high-speed train that will run under the mirrored buildings.” The Line will also include a stadium “up to 1,000 feet above the ground,” and there will be a marina for yachts under an arch between the buildings.

A budget of US$ 500 billion has been reserved for The Line. It makes it clear that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is extremely focused on the project and wants to make it a reality. The prince has also mentioned that the city would run 100 per cent on renewable energy. If completed, The Line might have a better fate than The World Island development in Dubai, where only a few islands are now open while the rest are sinking back into the ocean. It is hoped that the sheen will not rub off The Line’s mirrors anytime soon.