All language subtitles for Saudi Arabia’s Line City Explained

You may have seen this, well
just about everywhere. It's

the architectural concept that broke the internet.

Saudi Arabia has just shocked the world.

At first I thought it was a metaverse
project, but it’s a real project.

I’m gonna be reacting to The Line.

The Line is a 170-kilometre long, 500-metre
high linear city that either represents

the cutting edge of architecture or a grim
dystopian future depending on who you ask.

But what exactly is The Line, and what
can it teach us about our cities today?

Back in 2021, Crown Prince of Saudi
Arabia Mohammed bin Salman first

announced plans for a new kind of
sci-fi-like city called The Line.

It’s part of NEOM, the Kingdom’s new
nation-building megadevelopment that

will stretch across 26,000
square kilometres of desert.

The Line has been pitched as a futuristic
eco-city north of the Red Sea with no cars,

no streets and no carbon emissions.

The Saudi government says it will
create housing for more than 9M people.

And leaked documents reportedly show
proposals for everything from robot maids,

an artificial moon, flying cars and just
about everything else from The Jetsons.

Think Dubai, but on steroids.

Well, I mean, it looks like something out

of science fiction is, obviously,
but I believe that's the intention.

It is a huge an impressive PR and
marketing endeavour before anything else.

the intention is not to be impressive.
The intention is to be awesome in the

literal sense. Right. Hey, we are where
innovation happens in the built world now.

The main question is not so much how or when,

but why and why do we need to build such a
city? Why do we need to deploy those kind

of resources for that kind of project? And
why does the city need to look like that?

The entire NEOM development is intended to become

so self-sufficient that it is being
referred to as a "country within a

country" where residents will apparently
be called "Neomians" rather than "Saudis".

It’s no secret Saudi Arabia has been attempting
to rebrand itself on the world stage, looking to

the UAE as a template for a post-oil economy.
And that includes pie-in-the-sky megaprojects.

It has been folded into what is known as Vision

2030, which is the Saudi Arabian Vision
2030 plan, which basically says that by

the end of this decade, Saudi Arabia will
look dramatically different. It won't be a

kingdom reliant on oil anymore. And real
estate is a big component of that plan.

It wasn’t until July of 2022 that we got our first
glimpse at what a linear city could actually look

like, outside of science fiction movies, and
it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

The city would essentially be sandwiched
between two enormous buildings that

rise 500-metres into the sky and then
stretch 170-kilometres into the desert.

This would easily make them the
largest buildings ever constructed.

The buildings would be mirrored, so as to impose

as minimally as possible on
the surrounding environment.

The 200-metre wide gap in between
the skyscrapers is where the city

would lie. Here will be a high-speed rail line
connecting residents end to end in 20 minutes,

eliminating the need for cars or roads.

Homes, public parks, schools and offices
will be layered on top of each other meaning

that every amenity will be accessible
within a five minute walk, while parks

and nature will be accessible from anywhere
in the city within just a two minute walk.

This takes the concept of the
15-minute city and explodes it.

According to NEOM, the entire city will be
powered by renewable energy, while its minimal

physical footprint will ensure that 95% of the
development’s land will be preserved as it is - a

far cry from the urban sprawl of modern cities
that have now reached the size of small nations.

I see it more as a way to reshape the sprawl.
Right. Rather than avoiding the sprawl at all.

Even if you look at the history of recent
capitals built from scratch, the sprawl is

always there that actually starts and forms during
construction when the city is not even built.

So if we look at Brasilia today,

there are approximately and I'm thinking
Brasilia as an example because it has a

very finite and beautiful pilot plan. There are
approximately 3 million people living there,

the majority of which in the sprawl
that formed around the pilot plan.

But there is little actually
known about the city itself,

outside of the trailer and glossy renderings.

We do know initial earthwork began in October
2021 and that the first residents are said to

start moving in by 2030. But aside from that,
this project is mostly defined by its questions.

And there are a lot of questions.

Can you even build something like this?Can you
have a city without cars? Without streets or

roads? What if everything you ever needed
was within a 5 minute walk? Could we live

in a hyper planned city that didn’t disrupt
nature? Is a giant mirror in the middle of an

Arabian desert a good idea? Would a high speed
rail work for shorter distances like this? How

would the city evolve over time?

Some of it is so beyond our
understanding at the moment,

because they are sort of raw
engineering challenges that even

the world's foremost engineers haven't
really figured out what to believe.

they need to figure out how to have a break in
the building to account for the curvature of

the earth. These are not these are not problems
that have been faced by any modern structures

ever. Right. These are and I think this is kind
of the intention with Mohammed bin Salman is he

wanted to make something that was as while had had
as much of a wow factor as the Pyramids of Giza.

While we may not see The Line exactly
as it appears in renderings now. It

is possible we could see a scaled back
version of it sometime in the future.

I don't see the line as presented ever
realised. But I do think there is a

possibility where some of those ideas
are tested in a mini version of it.

The whole concept kind of
breaks do cwn. So in the end,

you're making, you know, you're making
and maybe not a line, you're making a dot.

So, you know, if in the course of developing,
Neom, because there is very real money being

thrown thrown at this project, if in the
course of developing, Neom, we find new

innovations in structural engineering, we
find new innovations in sustainability,

we find a way to apply technology to the
built environment at scale in a way that

we hadn't before. That's fascinating, and
that's great. That's great for the world.

Strangely enough there are many concepts
on display here that aren’t entirely new.

For instance, a linear city has been dreamed up
before, but not as a utopia, instead as a warning.

The Italian architecture collective “Superstudio”
created the “Continuous Movement” in 1969,

a series of collages depicting
vast blocks encircling the world,

cutting through cities, mountains, valleys
- in much the same way the Line does.

These striking artworks were meant as
a criticism against mass urbanisation,

against cold relentless architecture.

From an architectural perspective,

the line as a concept is not new. I think
it has its roots, has very deep roots.

The main difference to me is how this city will

heavily rely on technologies
that are not quite ready yet.

As for other areas of the city, some of
it may not be as far-fetched as you think.

Cities are already making changes to take
cars off the road and prioritise walkability.

There are digital twins of entire cities and
programs that can regulate buildings remotely.

And NEOM isn’t the only vision
of a so-called smart city.

Bjarke Ingels Group made headlines in 2020 when it

introduced the “The Woven City” that
would be built near Japan’s Fujiyama.

It imagines a fully autonomous future
with driverless vehicles and AI systems.

There’s also Egypt’s new smart
city that’s being built near Cairo,

and Telosa, a utopian vision
for a new American city.

None of these projects are perfect and
they’ve all got their fair share of criticism,

but perhaps it is worth rethinking
how our cities are structured.

Right now, our modern metropolises
don’t work for everyone.

1 in every 52 people in London are homeless,
while more than a million UK residents live

in “food deserts”, areas that have
limited access to cheap fresh food.

A report from Groundwork UK found that
there are severe inequalities in access

to parks and green spaces across
the country – with 40% of people

from ethnic minority backgrounds living
in the most green-space deprived areas.

Our cities need to function better. And
having everything you need within a five

minute walk might actually help lessen
some of these equalities – of course,

if everyone has access to it.

What I do like about a bold project such
as the Line is the ability to stir up the

conversation and make us question and
rethink how a city should look like.

The Line is a pretty bold idea. It’s
supposed to be. But maybe we need bold

ideas if we’re going to fix the built environment?

Maybe not everything on the
Saudi Kingdom’s wishlist will

come to fruition. Like an artificial
moon and flying cars, for example.

But more efficiently run cities with
access to nature and amenities might

not be too far from where we should be aiming.