Saudi Arabia’s 105-mile long Line city has been cut a little short – by 103.5 miles | Rowan Moore

tristan , 1 month ago

It was always planned to be built in small stages.... Why would anyone think they would start a 105 mile project all at once?? That's insane

This is like looking at a 50 story building after just the first few floors are built and saying "well is fallen short by 47 floors, guess it's a big flop"

BrikoX OP Mod , 1 month ago

The project is being scaled back, not paused until existing sections can be completed.

tristan , 1 month ago

Yes but you seem to be mixing up 2 parts of their statements ... The one you linked is paywalled so I'm not sure if it's what's saying it, but if you look at their original statement, the scale back and the 2.4km were two seperate parts

They expect 2.4km to be completed by 2030

They scaled back the total excepted population from 1.5m to 300k

That means the total excepted length should still be much longer than 2.4km because I believe it's still expected to connect to the airport which is over 10km from the current stage

BrikoX OP Mod , 1 month ago

Developers are already firing workers, the "scaled back" wording is just a nice way of saying they fucked up and now have to find a way to graciously abandon the project. There are parts of the Neom project that are viable, but the Line was always a pipe dream that's not based in reality.

And even if they try to force a plan to expand it past 2.4km, with the project scope being reduced 5 times it actually creates existential issues, not just lowers the amount of people that it can house. By the project's own description, for it to work it needs to have everything integrated proportionally and when you scale it down 5 times, half the life sustaining systems won't be able to operate.

Mesophar , 1 month ago

It was billed as a futuristic, glass-walled city, but was only ever realised in the digital sphere – where it should remain