When it comes to the future world, many people first think of the scenes of Hollywood

movies: buildings full of technological sense, dazzling technology, and very different
lifestyles.

In the Middle East, such a scene may be staged. In recent years, in order to get rid of
dependence on the oil industry, Middle Eastern countries represented by the United Arab
Emirates have sought diversified development and carried out various infrastructure upgrades.
Cities of the future have sprung up like rain, with luxurious super-seven-star hotels, huge
shopping centers, and avant-garde and gorgeous art museums competing to land.

Saudi Arabia, known as the “most typical Islamic country in the world”, has also joined this
infrastructure army. In 2017, the young Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman
announced to the world that a new city called NEOM will be built.

NEOM is located on the northwest coast of Saudi Arabia, facing Egypt and straddling the Red
Sea. It covers an area of 26,500 square kilometres, including residential areas, port areas,
commercial enterprise areas and scientific research institution areas.

The first phase of the SaudiNe 500 billion Neom New City project has been completed, and
the results of the second phase will be announced at the end of this year. The first phase of the
project includes economic concepts, financing and development roadmaps, and the second
phase will reveal detailed plans for the 16 economic sectors of Neom New City. The project is
built on the Red Sea coast in north-western Saudi Arabia and covers an area of 26,500 square
kilometres. Neom is the Latin-Arabic Neo-Mustaqbal abbreviation for the "New Future". It
aims to build a highly automated city that uses clean energy sources such as solar and wind
energy by focusing on advanced industries and technologies.
Recently, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia announced the plan for the future city to create a
sci-fi "linear city" in NEOM CITY in northern Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea COAST. The
plan depicts a people-oriented technology city blueprint that will create a new urban life
experience for people.

The overall length of the "line" project is about 170 kilometers, while the width is only 200
meters, covering an area of 34 square kilometers. In simple terms, it is to create a city that can
accommodate 9 million people to live and live in two high walls with ultra-long mirrors.

Although this sounds like the background of a science fiction novel, this is the idea put
forward by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia for his NEOM Desert Super City project,
redefining the concept of urban development and what future cities should look like. It is
reported that the project may cost nearly 1 trillion U.S. dollars.

The first zero gravity vertical city

The "Line" project extends from the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to mountain resorts and
desert terrain. It spans three different regions: coastal deserts, mountains, and upper valleys.
Each region has a different ecological environment, and each region can develop different
projects according to environmental conditions.

The height of the building is more than 500 meters, and it has a mirror facade. The
surrounding scenery is reflected through the glass surface, which can produce a visual effect
of combining reality, and reality which is intended to fade into nature.
This “linear city” covering an area of only 34 square kilometres will accommodate about 9
million residents, which is unprecedented compared with other cities of similar capacity. This
means that the infrastructure footprint is reduced and the energy efficiency level of urban
operations is higher than ever before.

"The line" provides a new method of calculating numbers. The concept of vertically stratified
distribution of urban functions, allowing people to travel seamlessly in three-dimensional
space (upward, downward, or horizontal), is called zero-gravity urbanism. This project
represents a ground breaking model of sustainable development and the concept of living in
harmony with nature.

Unlike simple high-rise buildings, this design concept layered parks and pedestrian areas,
schools, residences, and workplaces. The ground floor is a complete pedestrian area, without
any roads or cars, and green nature can be seen everywhere; the second floor is a service area
such as shops and other commercial spaces. The third floor is located at the lowest level of
the city. It is the backbone structure of this linear city and belongs to the area of transportation
of goods and personnel activities.

People can reach all public facilities in 5 minutes effortlessly. Schools, residences, offices,
parks, shopping malls, stadiums, community farms... all no longer need to occupy pieces of
land, but can be reached by shuttling up and down.

In addition, a high-speed railway will be built to shorten the travel distance between any two
places to 20 minutes.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the project was designed by Morphosis Architects,
founded by American architect Tom Mayne (Tom Mayne), who has won the Pritzker
Architecture Award, and a team of outstanding talents in the fields of architecture and
engineering construction participated.

"Linear city” redefines future life?

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said, “This project will solve the current
challenges of human urban life and demonstrate a brand new way of life. Subverting the
traditional horizontal urban layout with vertically layered communities, the project will create
a model for nature conservation and improving urban livability.”

The project plan will retain more than 95% of the original natural landscape, and residents
can plunge into the arms of the surrounding nature at any time. The urban environment is
carefully designed to achieve the best balance of sunlight, shade and natural ventilation.
Moreover, the green and open spaces all over the city will provide a more comfortable
experience for people who live, work and travel here.

It is reported that the city will provide food to residents by vertical farming. Automatic
harvesting and packing", residents pay to order three meals a day. They can shuttle between
the two buildings through corridors, and there is a stadium 300 meters above the ground.
There will be an arch between the two buildings, a pier under the arch for mooring yachts,
and a high-speed railway will be built underground.

In addition, through the full use of artificial intelligence and other technologies, the
interaction between people and the city is truly realized. There will be no cars and roads in the
new city, while achieving zero carbon emissions, and co-ordinating all urban services in a
sustainable manner. People do not have to pay for car insurance, fuel, and parking, and can
have more disposable income.

The new city will incubate and accelerate renewable energy solutions through the world's
largest hydrogen production plant. The goal is to go beyond "zero carbon" and enter the
circular economy, and promote change with future thinking.

Linear urban design methods may solve the challenges faced by mankind in today's urban life
and will illuminate another way of life. In the future, it will provide 380,000 new jobs and is
expected to contribute 180 billion Saudi riyals to Saudi Arabia's gross national product by
2030.
The Saudi crown prince requested that the project be completed by the end of 2030, and he
hopes that the building can be as classic as the Egyptian pyramids. However, a preliminary
impact assessment in January last year showed that “the line" must be built in stages and may
take up to 50 years to be completed. Is such an advanced idea really in line with the social
reality of the country? As far as smart cities are concerned, is the ambition to create a green
city in the desert sustainable? No matter what the “science fiction" is, I have to say that the
Saudi crown prince's idea is really worth looking forward to.

Doubts and concerns

In the trailer, the designer promises that "online" is a carbon-neutral "circle" without cars, it
will have its own temperate climate, and artificial intelligence will "make life easier. "A lush
sky garden hangs from the 500-meter-high glass wall in the city. Supernatural scenes occupy
the pixelated glass blocks of the building. The outer wall is engraved with circuit board
patterns. There is a deep canyon on the wall with terraces, swimming pools and picnic
couples, all of which float on the high-speed railway line.

The designer of "Line" is the famous Pritzker Architecture Award winner Tom Mayne
Architects, with the participation of at least 9 design companies in the United States and
Canada.

After New Future City announced its sci-fi movie-like renderings, the building was
questioned like a sea of mountains.

The first thing that is questioned is its cost-the project is too huge, and people doubt whether
it can be realized in the end, and can Saudi Arabia really spend a trillion dollars to build this
city? Although we all know that Saudi Arabia, which is rich in oil, has money, the ups and
downs of international oil prices will also directly affect national income. It takes 50 years to
"do".If oil prices fall, such urban construction plans will inevitably be hit.

Although it is said that it wants to be an “environmentally friendly” city, it is impossible to

say that it is environmentally friendly to build a 170-kilometer mirror wall along the coastline.
Giant buildings will change the flow of groundwater in the desert and restrict the activities of
birds and animals. After experiencing the Covid 19 epidemic, would people be willing to live
in such a dense and huge building?

Crown Prince Salman, who invested in this project, declared that this will be what the “city of
the future” will look like:” Zero cars, zero lanes, and zero carbon emissions."

But is such a city the ultimate answer to high-density life, or is it a grand science fiction
dream? The answer is far from being revealed.

The future has come?

This ambitious project was originally proposed in 2021 and is regarded as the core of its
Saudi “New Future City” plan.

Now it seems that the future vertical city is moving from ideal to reality.

Recently, a consortium composed of China Construction Corporation, Spain's FCC Company

and Saudi SAJCO Company and the Future New City Company (NEOM Company), which is
wholly owned by the Saudi sovereign fund PIF, came to "carry out" the pilot project-the
general contracting contract for the construction of the Saudi Transportation Tunnel project.
In the news reproduced by the China Chamber of Commerce for Foreign Contracted Projects,
it shows that the contract amount is about US22.47 billion.，

The project includes two parallel high-speed passenger railway tunnels and heavy-duty freight
railway tunnels, with a single-line length of 15.75 kilometres. The main work content
includes the excavation of the guide hole and the main tunnel (drilling and explosion method),
initial support, waterproofing, secondary lining, and the construction of the partition wall.

This is the largest transportation and public infrastructure project in Saudi Arabia. The pilot
project of "Online" is a necessary part and an important milestone to ensure that NEOM
continues to meet its development plan.

In other words, the project is not just a Utopian fantasy, it has recently started construction.

The world's super-built factory

Saudi Arabia has always had no shortage of crazy architectural plans, and it has also been
famous for many of the world's few design buildings. After Saudi Arabia launched the
“Vision 2030” plan in 2016, the country has become the world's largest construction site.

According to the ”Vision 2030" plan, Saudi Arabia will invest a total of 4.13 trillion riyals
(about 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars) in infrastructure and real estate projects.

In addition to the upcoming construction of the New Future City "line", another eye-catching
super-large project is the US220 billion Diriyah Gate project, which will provide 20,000
housing units for Riyadh when completed in 2027 and create a city-scale historic district. It is
estimated that approximately US22.3 billion has been spent on the construction of the Diriyah
Gate project.

In addition, there is a planned 2.8 million square meter world-class office development
project, and the US1147 billion international airport will also open soon. In order to provide
residents with a world-class urban environment, Saudi Arabia has also spent US5500 million
to build the Riyadh Sports Avenue, US223 billion to build a “green Riyadh”, and planted 7.5
million trees in the Saudi capital to transform it into a green and vibrant metropolis.

Saudi Arabia also plans to spend US113.8 billion to provide 19,000 hospital beds, of which
US88.6 billion will be invested in Riyadh Province. In addition, more than 80 new
educational institutions are under construction, with a total cost of US882 billion.

Of course, among so many super projects, there are also examples of “unfinished”.

In 2008, the company of Saudi prince and billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal announced that it
would build the world's tallest building, the “Jeddah Tower” (formerly known as the
“Kingdom Tower”), in the port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The building was originally
planned to be about 1600 meters high, but because the local geology could not withstand
heavy buildings, and building high-rise buildings in the desert was also a problem, it was
reduced to 1008 meters in subsequent modifications. When completed, it will surpass Dubai's
828-meter-high Burj Khalifa and become the tallest building in the world.

However, the project that was originally expected to be completed in 2018 has been delayed.
According to the UAE's "El Pais", the project was shelved after one-third of the construction
work was completed in 2018. The reason may be related to the engineering contractor, and
there is still no news on when the project will restart.

Conclusion

It is undeniable that "the line" is one of the most interesting and exciting infrastructure
projects the world has seen in a long time. Its gorgeous appearance and bold and avant-garde
imagination make it less like a building, but more like an overly idealized "utopia”.

The inclusion of the inner "line" project on the agenda will write an end to the linear urban
fantasy that has undergone many constructions and belongs to the margin of human
architecture.

It's just that it's unclear whether this ending is good or bad at the moment.

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