The scaling back of Saudi Arabia’s colossal Line project from a 170 km long linear city to only 2.4 km is a clear warning to the viability of other urban mega-projects in a warming world.
The project was always dumb. The way you do it, is to have one large project in the new city center to grab headlines and create a symbol for the city. The rest should be cheaper lower end buildings. NEOM is just the expensive mega projects, without the normal construction.The simple truth is that Saudi Arabia has just such a project with the King Abdullah Economic City, with what is planned to be the tallest building in the world. The issue is that Saudi Arabia just can not be a playground for the super rich. There are just not enough of them to make it work.
The project was always dumb. The way you do it, is to have one large project in the new city center to grab headlines and create a symbol for the city. The rest should be cheaper lower end buildings. NEOM is just the expensive mega projects, without the normal construction.The simple truth is that Saudi Arabia has just such a project with the King Abdullah Economic City, with what is planned to be the tallest building in the world. The issue is that Saudi Arabia just can not be a playground for the super rich. There are just not enough of them to make it work.