The line. What’s up with it?
It has been 3 years since Saudi Arabia, “The Line”. What is it and will it happen?
In case y’all somehow haven't heard about “The Line” or “ذا لاين” in Arabic, let’s jump into a quick explanation about what it is. According to NEOM.com, The Line can be defined as;
A cognitive city stretching across 170 kilometers, from the epic mountains of NEOM across inspirational desert valleys to the beautiful Red Sea. A mirrored architectural masterpiece towering 500 meters above sea level, but a land-saving 200 meters wide.
In this post you will see the words The Line and NEOM used a lot, sometimes even interchangeably, however, they are not the same, The Line is one of the many projects that are covered under NEOM, while NEOM according to Saudi 2030 is;
a visionary project that is set to transform the Red Sea coast of northwest Saudi Arabia into a futuristic city unlike any other… NEOM is home to THE LINE, Oxagon, Trojena, and Sindalah.
you can read more about The Line on the official Saudi 2030 website
Before we dive into the story I need to mention, I am not an urban developer nor architect, the opinions presented in this story are solely from the perspective of a person with a passion for urban development, engineering, architecture, and most importantly technology.
I know it sounds utopian, a city that is also a building that stretches for over 170 kilometers (105 miles). Not only that, the project is expected to house around 9 million people and employ over 460,000 others. All of this while preserving 95% of the land for nature, running on 100% renewable energy, and having no cars, no roads, and no emissions.
When the project was announced on January 10th, 2021, the expected costs for developing such an engineering, architectural, and technological marvel were set to be around 100–200 billion USD, but some reports have the costs upwards of 1 trillion USD, although the economics and finances of the line are very intriguing and I could sit here and write about the finances of The Line and the PIF for days, I want to focus on a different side of The Line. I want to talk about why I think The Line will happen and what it means for the rest of the World.
After browsing the NEOM.com website, it is clear the intentions of the project, The Line is not just a mega housing project, is the most ambitious tourism accelerator in history, with projects like Sindalah, Trojena, and the many luxurious projects on the Gulf of Aqaba such as Leyja or one of my favorites, Aquellum.
The NEOM leadership group is truly an amazing and skilled group of people, and that is why I believe the project will happen, when you mix, incredibly hard-working and smart people, with the right amount of cash and research and development, great things are bound to happen, and this is the case. It is no secret the PIF has tremendous amounts of money and if there’s a public fund that has the ability, money, and power to pull a megaproject this size is the PIF. The only downside of this project is the deadline. 2030 seems like a very optimistic dateline for something this size, again, I do see NEOM becoming a reality but not in 2030, or at least not in its totality.
Now, how does the completion of The Line impact the rest of the World? Especially, the United States.
Saudi Arabia and the United States have a longstanding commercial and security relationship, being Saudi Arabia, United States' largest foreign military sales (FMS) customer, according to the Department of State website.
Although the US and Saudi relationship can be tense at times I believe the completion of The Line and subsequently, the completion of NEOM will serve as a great source of inspiration and data for the United States to hopefully pursue and complete a megaproject similar in size or concept to NEOM in the future. Especially when you think about the amount of amazing technological breakthroughs that a megaproject like this will yield, and how the very challenging hurdles that will inevitably surface in a megaproject like this will result in technological findings that will be far greater than the project itself and how they will impact so many external fields.
I am very excited to see what technological advances come from this and how they can help us advance and improve in other fields such as medicine, software, and hardware development, and who knows what else.
With that being said, I hope this starts a friendly and productive sort of race to see which nation can develop the best human-oriented urban living experience in the World.
As always,
Signing out,
JD.
