Bloomberg is reporting on a tip they received recently about NEOM’s The Line centerpiece as it advances on the first phase of construction in Saudi Arabia’s northwest highlands.
Last week, the outlet published details citing an anonymous source who said The Line segment is now expected to extend to only 2.4 kilometers and house 300,000 residents by the end of the decade. The figures cited are a drastic reduction from the 1.5 million-person, 170-kilometer goals that have been included in promotional materials since the launch of the project. The unnamed source spoke out of anonymity citing fears for “discussing non-public information.”
The report also claims unnamed contractors have been dismissed as a result of the missed objectives. Other satellite developments are however progressing on target. NEOM’s budget for 2024 has still yet to be approved after the Saudi Public Investment Fund saw its largest drop since 2020.
The news will service NEOM’s many naysayers, who claim The Line, in particular, is an unbuildable dream project more likely to be realized as an elevated arcade with sporadic pockets of greenery than anything currently planned or promoted. Atkins has been under contract as a strategic Delivery Partner for The Line since last February.
Other projects have already been confirmed to be delayed past 2030. NEOM’s first human settlement, Sindalah, is still on track to begin housing its first residents by the end of this year.
9 Comments
oops!
even 2.4 kms of that crap would be ugly
what, they run out of slaves to dig the hole? Perhaps they just need the workforce elsewhere... or need to wait for the current poor foreign kids to be of sufficient age to join the slave camps. Who knows, and who cares. It's a cess pool anyways.
Inequalities in the world dictate that there are more than enough "slaves" to do shit. The reason for this scaling back (which I had actually heard about months ago from engineers working on the site) is cuz they are realizing that no one wants to move so far into the desert from their main cities.
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Maybe call it The Dash?
It looks like Tanzania’s Lead tree planting solution for earth smiles or an ancient establishment, proudly organizing minerals. Is that an energy pond or early solar collector?
I never learned where this thing was supposed to go:
"The Line is designed to be divided into 140 modules—each 200 meters wide, 800 meters long, and 500 meters high. Each module could house up to 80,000 people. The first five modules will be each be designed by a different architecture studio. Yes, the size is almost beyond imagining, but not for the visionary architects working on it. Listening to these seasoned design specialists reveals dramatically different and exciting dreams for the future."
Pix and favorable text from:
https://ncusar.org/blog/2023/09/neom-the-line/
At the rate they're moving, it will take over 400 yrs to build. Which sounds about right. And my guess is it will cost somewhere along the lines of 6 trillion to build. This thing is never going to happen. It's a pie in the sky idea...and I think the architects and construction teams know it will never be completed, but they might as well as soak The Kingdom for as long as they're willing to throw cash at it.
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