Saudi Arabia Pushes Ahead With Its Sci-fi City Vision (cnbc.com) 87
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you've been seeing mysterious Bladerunner-type ads popping up on your phone recently for Neom in Saudi Arabia and wondered what on earth you're looking at it's not surprising -- this futuristic desert development is eye-popping in its ambition. With a mammoth budget of $500 billion, Neom is a key element of Saudi's Vision 2030 plan originally launched back in 2016 as part of the kingdom's mission to diversify away from its oil-dependent economy. Excavation work started this month along the entire length of the project. The development has received its fair share of skepticism around feasibility, with a raft of articles in publications ranging from The Guardian to the Financial Times including commentary from architects who conclude the project is a pipe dream. Other critics note its carbon emissions among broader concerns.
Located on a coastal strip in Tabuk in the northwest of the country, there are three areas of Neom that have been officially announced -- primarily The Line, a linear city with Utopian vistas straight out of a Hollywood movie. Composed of two parallel skyscrapers that cut right through the desert for 170 kilometers from the coast to the mountains, The Line will be 200 meters wide and soar to a height of 500 meters (higher than most of the world's towers) -- and for an added surreal touch, will be encased on all sides with gigantic mirrors. The project is based on a new concept of "zero gravity urbanism," which is the idea of layering city functions vertically, while enabling inhabitants to move seamlessly in three directions (up, down, and across). When completed it could accommodate up to 9 million residents.
Cynicism toward the project is something Neom leaders acknowledge but strongly rebuff. "I want to be clear about this -- Neom is a complex, bold, and highly ambitious undertaking and is most certainly not an easy one to deliver," Antoni Vives, chief urban planning officer at Neom, told CNBC. "But we are making strong progress, and it's exciting to see the vision come to life." While construction of this "Oz of the Middle East" is only at the beginning stages, there's already a push to lure top international talent across industries such as tourism, technology, and entertainment to come and live and work. And there seems to be plenty of cash on the table to attract talent, with some reports suggesting Neom is paying top executives as much as $1.1 million a year.
Located on a coastal strip in Tabuk in the northwest of the country, there are three areas of Neom that have been officially announced -- primarily The Line, a linear city with Utopian vistas straight out of a Hollywood movie. Composed of two parallel skyscrapers that cut right through the desert for 170 kilometers from the coast to the mountains, The Line will be 200 meters wide and soar to a height of 500 meters (higher than most of the world's towers) -- and for an added surreal touch, will be encased on all sides with gigantic mirrors. The project is based on a new concept of "zero gravity urbanism," which is the idea of layering city functions vertically, while enabling inhabitants to move seamlessly in three directions (up, down, and across). When completed it could accommodate up to 9 million residents.
Cynicism toward the project is something Neom leaders acknowledge but strongly rebuff. "I want to be clear about this -- Neom is a complex, bold, and highly ambitious undertaking and is most certainly not an easy one to deliver," Antoni Vives, chief urban planning officer at Neom, told CNBC. "But we are making strong progress, and it's exciting to see the vision come to life." While construction of this "Oz of the Middle East" is only at the beginning stages, there's already a push to lure top international talent across industries such as tourism, technology, and entertainment to come and live and work. And there seems to be plenty of cash on the table to attract talent, with some reports suggesting Neom is paying top executives as much as $1.1 million a year.
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Sound's more like Fritz Lang's Metropolis (and all the subsequent films that copied it).
Re:Dystopian Nightmare (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like the Saudis want to do the same thing on a bigger scale & make it high-rise because... it's phallic or something?
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If they ever run out of money it will wind up like Petra, but with mirrors. All the Saudis who can will go and live in their Kensington mansion so it won't really matter to them.
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Mrs. Youngone did a short term nursing contract in Saudi in the late 1980's. Once the contract finished she left and said there is not enough money in the world to get her to go back to working for those arseholes.
I don't think things have changed much since.
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No, GP is correct. Not only will this not change Saudi society at all, but they will build this thing off the backs of literal slave labor. Immigrant labor scams are commonplace in the Middle East, including "fun and friendly" places like Dubai. Migrant laborers will move to a country based on promises of pay that they can send back home, only to see their paychecks delayed or withheld. Yet if they want to quit, they must both pay their way out of their contracts (maybe "indentured servitude" is the better
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To be fair, it's not just the Saudi's that are blinkered about good urban planning. Just look at all the places in the world where people pay the most to visit or live. Almost all the time, if they're not near a natural beauty spot, it's some place with crazy high density living where people are stacked on top of each other. Places like Paris, London, Rome, NYC, Barcelona, almost all the old villages in Europe. These are the places people want to visit, wonder the streets on foot, and then sit out on a terr
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The Saudis I've met that come to the UK are very keen to visit Milton Keynes, a city founded in Buckinghamshire in the late 1960s. It's supposed to be a utopian, modern city. Instead, it's a lifeless, soulless low-rise town with a shopping mall & a cinema for its centre, broken up with endless main roads all connected with roundabouts. Milton Keynes most famous feature is that it has concrete cows by some of its roads. It's economy is 90% service jobs (retail & warehousing), extreme inequality, & a serious homeless problem. It's a dystopian nightmare.
Sounds like the Saudis want to do the same thing on a bigger scale & make it high-rise because... it's phallic or something?
Milton Keynes... So Roundabouts in the desert?
It should be noted that Milton Keynes is right next to Bletchley, site of the British Code and Cipher museum at Bletchley Park which is worth a visit. Next door to that is the criminally overlooked British Museum of Computing which is also well worth a visit. Apart from that I'd also recommend getting the hell out of Milton Keynes.
Fun fact: Milton Keynes has over 130 roundabouts, giving you ample opportunity to turn around.
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Maybe the conceptual design was developed in SimCity2k?
Oscar Wilde was wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
It wasn't just the US that went from barbarism to decadence without taking the detour through civilization, others are trying to do that, too.
Re:Oscar Wilde was wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Oil reserves" were always counted in terms of "what we could pull out of the ground at the current price of oil". In other words, there's plenty of "reserves" elsewhere, but at $100/barrel, it's not feasible or economic to do so.
Make that $500/barrel and you'll suddenly see a LOT of deposits pop up all over the globe.
Re: Oscar Wilde was wrong (Score:2)
Conversely, if renewables continue to advance and we get even mildly serious about cutting carbon emissions, oil prices will fall low enough that Saudi won't be able to sell their oil for what it costs to extract.
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Middle East oil will be the last to dry up, because at the rate of extracting it, it has the longest yet to go in terms of reserves. We are talking 17-30 decades (200+ years or so, depending on if they change the extraction rate, which is unlikely).
The big issue is, what happens when dependence of oil is reduced to the point where we can start picking and choosing our suppliers? I'll happen at some point, probably within my lifetime. Countries that have been good allies like Colombia, Malaysia, et al. will be lining up to supply us, countries that have been playing silly buggers with the world economy (read: OPEC) will find themselves very unpopular.
If the House of Saud cant remain wealthy enough to own a large, powerful military, popular uprising
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Carbon Emissions? (Score:5, Interesting)
> Other critics note its carbon emissions among broader concerns.
I was ready to shit on the people criticizing this project over carbon emissions, as the entire project is free of cars, roads, and powered by wind and solar. There might be emissions during construction, sure, but if fully-realized, it's a massive improvement over the status quo (from an emissions perspective).
So I went to try and find some of these critics. And as far as I can tell, there are none. No one is criticizing this project over carbon emissions.
I'm definitely skeptical of the project overall, but this throwaway line about carbon emission critics seems to be made up.
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I suspect the carbon emissions might refer to the emissions needed to construct a 200m x 500m x 170,000m building.
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Whatever carbon emissions that would produce is almost certainly less that it would be from building the same amount of housing, business and retail space in a more traditional format, if only because there will be fewer walls.
Re:Carbon Emissions? (Score:4, Insightful)
While that's true, it only counts if you find nine million people who want to live there.
Gulf-state mega projects have some history of building it and nobody coming. Designed cities built from scratch, even conventional ones, also have a tendency that way.
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While that's true, it only counts if you find nine million people who want to live there.
Gulf-state mega projects have some history of building it and nobody coming. Designed cities built from scratch, even conventional ones, also have a tendency that way.
See: China's "Ghost Cities" [wikipedia.org]
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Example: why would I want to go anywhere near Saudi Arabia if I enjoy the freedoms present in a representative democracy, complete with equal rights between men and women?
Might be an interesting idea, except for the patch of geography it's being built on. Fuck Saudi Arabia.
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Lots of people do. You can make a shitload of money and you're treated pretty well if you're a foreigner from the right place.
Lots of people go to the US because they think they'll get rich too.
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This project lacks imagination.
Sand, lots of sand, what can we do with it?
First build a local factory for churning out solar panels.
Use this factory to generate energy to create building blocks from sand and to power electric vehicles to build this project
Why the building blocks from sand? To reduce emissions from concrete.
Also, wasn't there a sand crisis for concrete? This local sand might not be usable in concrete, but it might be usable in other ways.
Some oil might be needed to power more difficult
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Re: Carbon Emissions? (Score:2)
News story (Score:5, Insightful)
Authoritarian Dictator Plans Wildly-Stupid Vanity Project. Film at 11.
This kind of nonsense started with the Pyramids and continues to this day.
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Your comment regarding the Pyramids is quite astute.
I don't have any mod points right now...
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Government says I can't just move into some house and show up to the store to grab whatever groceries I want without paying...
Unless you're in California, of course.
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Re: News story (Score:2)
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Re:News story (Score:4, Interesting)
It is like the space program. Even welding the fuel tanks required great innovation,
The may fail. The final product may be much different than what was I imagined. It likely will be. But the money is there. And it will likely result in a bunch new knowledge.
On the other hand, there are two fundamentals that thousands of years of innovation have not solved. Getting food and other good in efficiently, and getting waste out. The complexity grows exponential with size. There will be a great carbon buildup due to importation of product.
Then there are the workers. Will they live there or be driven in? Will the residents, who are going to require servants, be able to pay the wages.
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I'm trying to wrap my head around the sheer volume of concrete that's going to be used, and the carbon emissions from that alone.
And they don't use their own sand for concrete, it's not quite right in some way. They import sand from Australia and other countries, so there's another carbon debt.
But if solar and wind manage to supply a significant percentage of the energy needs, that debt should be paid off fairly quickly.
I'd like to see the projected energy supply and consumption data.
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Re:News story (Score:4, Informative)
On the other hand, there are two fundamentals that thousands of years of innovation have not solved. Getting food and other good in efficiently, and getting waste out. The complexity grows exponential with size. There will be a great carbon buildup due to importation of product.
One other, very important matter in this case is water. As someone else mentioned, the sheer amount of concrete needed will be immense. That requires tons (literally) of water. Then, to move the waste out, you will need tons more for the sewage system. Add in for drinking, bathing, fountains, and whatever else the Saudi come up with and supplying water for this amount of people, in a desert, will be an engineering nightmare.
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He owned a camera and a camel, and every soldier in the British 8th Army paid him to sit on the camel in front of the pyramids for a photo.
I have one of my Grandfather. He said he had to wait about an hour but did not want to miss out.
Here's an idea... (Score:2)
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... I have literally never turned on the A/C in my beach house
Was this just an opportunity to brag that you have a beach house??!! j/k ;)
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When governments use Crypto industry tactics (Score:1)
This idea is bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Certainly they wouldnt be trying to scam people, Saudi would never be party to a rugpull! Oh look! Investment Opportunities!
https://www.neom.com/en-us/inv... [neom.com]
It's all a waste... (Score:5, Insightful)
170km long, 9 million residents, and not a single place to buy a proper pint. What a waste.
Poorly designed (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two types of city designs. Circular or River based. River based follow a river. Rivers add transportation, fresh water, luxury views, and recreational activities. Every other city slowly becomes a circle - it minimizes transportation time.
While Neom has some good ideas, making it a 110 mile long, 660 ft wide line is incredibly stupid. The only advantage - 'good views for ground level' is horrendously over-valued. The increased transportation time from one to the other far outweighs the minimal advantage. Trying to compensate with high speed rail in the city is foolish, still at least an hour to get from end to end.
Worst of all, a similar effect could have been achieved by making a central park with a circle around it. 110 mile circumference would still have a 35 mile diameter. Or better yet, make it 2,000 ft wide (about 3x the 660 listed) with a 34 mile long circumference, surrounding a 10.8 mile circular park in the center.
Poorly designed city is doomed to failure.
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Re:Poorly designed (Score:4, Interesting)
[cities are] Circular or River based.
The Line (or is it The Mirror Line?) is based around a train.
Train tracks are better when they are long and straight.
I suppose you could call it an electronic river...
The theory is that everything is an elevator ride, a train trip, and another elevator ride away. The reality may end up different, but that's the theory.
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Worst of all, a similar effect could have been achieved by making a central park with a circle around it. 110 mile circumference would still have a 35 mile diameter. Or better yet, make it 2,000 ft wide (about 3x the 660 listed) with a 34 mile long circumference, surrounding a 10.8 mile circular park in the center.
I love this - basically a Dyson Sphere / Ringworld approach to urban design. Though in the USA we'd probably need something at the level of a charter/constitutional amendment to ensure the park center doesn't get progressively overrun by business and real estate "special" districts and easements within 40 years.
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Hmmm, wouldn't that act as a curved reflector, and focus the sunlight on some unfortunate spot? Maybe they could put one of those molten salt reactors there.
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Counterpoint--linear development *does* occur along transit routes between cities, between cities and ports, etc.
Checks end-points of Neom line: A planned city port on one end, and on the other end: nothing. So your point stands in this case; but they could hammer some sense into The Line by extending the rails, provided there's some point in crossing that vast desert, ie, something to get to on the other side; but I have a feeling there isn't.
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OK, I should have looked at the map before posting. Of course there is something if you go far enough across the desert. If the line takes a bend or angles a bit towards the south, it's almost a straight shot south of a huge nature preserve towards Riyadh, then on towards other emirates on the Persian Gulf.
If you first build a port city, then a high speed rail line towards Riyadh and points east makes sense. You could simply subdivide the land and impost deed restrictions requiring developers to meet Lin
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You could easily imagine that if they ever built the thing, there would be certain points along the line that become more desirable than others. Perhaps there is some area of natural beauty, or a better school, or just that wealthy people congregate in one area and displace other income groups.
Once this happens it can become self-reinforcing quite quickly and you could end up with some areas that are highly desirable and then others that are substantially cheaper. At that point the land on the peripheral of
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There are two types of city designs. Circular or River based. River based follow a river. Rivers add transportation, fresh water, luxury views, and recreational activities. Every other city slowly becomes a circle - it minimizes transportation time.
While Neom has some good ideas, making it a 110 mile long, 660 ft wide line is incredibly stupid. The only advantage - 'good views for ground level' is horrendously over-valued. The increased transportation time from one to the other far outweighs the minimal advantage. Trying to compensate with high speed rail in the city is foolish, still at least an hour to get from end to end.
Worst of all, a similar effect could have been achieved by making a central park with a circle around it. 110 mile circumference would still have a 35 mile diameter. Or better yet, make it 2,000 ft wide (about 3x the 660 listed) with a 34 mile long circumference, surrounding a 10.8 mile circular park in the center.
Poorly designed city is doomed to failure.
Isn't Neom just the river design without the river? If I recall correctly the "river" in question will be a central transport system.
Don't get me wrong, I agree it's daft to the highest order, but not really unconventional.
Is the legal system in Neom (Score:3)
Asking for a friend.
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It will be an empty hell. And a ruin within twenty years.
Re: Is the legal system in Neom (Score:2)
The legal system is that if you do anything that annoys the ruling class, that is illegal. Conversely, if the ruling class does anything they want to you, that is legal. It is called monarchy.
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It might actually happen... (Score:2)
It could work. I don't know construction costs in Saudi Arabia, but if $500B is for hard construction costs specifically for The Line the budget seems adequate. Of course, all the other soft costs to make it actually work would be another $1T, and then you have their "other projects." Some real construction innovations are also required, but that pretty much goes without saying.
The biggest challenge is for a sufficient critical mass of the materials to actually be manufactured in/at the project. You need
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I mentioned elsewhere that SA can't use its own sand for cement/concrete, it has to be imported.
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Picking nits, but cement doesn't use sand to manufacture. I do wonder though if (deep) excavated sand would be coarse enough for concrete. Surface "dust" is completely useless for anything structural, but it can act as a filler.
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Ok, now I am curious; why don't the coarse grains work for concrete? Are they still too fine?
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200 meters wide (Score:2)
200 meter width is stupidly thin. It is asking to become a ghetto/slum. And how easily can they contain fires?
Re: 200 meters wide (Score:2)
You gas money at work (Score:3)
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That's just 1 Elon Musk per annum
The one silver lining (Score:3)
It will absorb 500 million dollars that they could have used for spreading terror and funding radicalism.
The more relevant dystopian fiction reference is: (Score:2)
A Hologram for the King
by Dave Eggers
https://www.goodreads.com/book... [goodreads.com]
Seriously, parts of the /. summary almost sound like they were taken directly from the novel.
Here's a good video on why this is a horror show: (Score:4, Informative)
TL;DW: It's a giant corridor. Getting from one end to the other will be a logistical nightmare. It's a pointless project meant to keep workers busy because idle hands are the devils plaything and all that rot.
1.1 mil for a top exec? (Score:2)
A thriving capitalism with a large, motivated population, deep pockets and mountains of natural resources might be able to pull this off. All due respect to Saudi Arabia, but they are none of these things. You might think that their oil wealth makes them rich, but their wealth per Capita is slightly above Estonia.
It already looks dystopian! (map and photos) (Score:3)
Neom City would appear to be where some peop
Photos from Neom base camp:
https://foursquare.com/v/neom-... [foursquare.com]
The have Dunkin' (seriously):
https://foursquare.com/v/dunki... [foursquare.com]
Here's the base camp, they went with a square rather than a Line:
https://www.google.com/maps/pl... [google.com]
There's an airport and some wealthy housing and a golf course south of this.
In the middle of the desert.
NEOM Is The Parody Of The Future (Score:1)
NEOM Is The Parody Of The Future by Adam Something
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Compared to Norway and Australia (Score:3)
Norway has massive fossil fuel wealth, which they are ploughing into a sovereign wealth fund for their citizens.
Saudi Arabia has massive fossil fuel wealth, which they are using to build a vanity project in the desert.
Australia sells a massive amounts of coal and gas, but doesn't keep much of the money, it all goes to the foreign companies who dig it up from under the citizens' feet and sell it. Vanity projects aren't even an option, let alone sensible investment in infrastructure.
Ads (Score:2)
No, I havenâ(TM)t see these. In fact I donâ(TM)t see many ads at all on my phone. What do I have to do to see them?
⦠ah come to /. for all the Slashvertisments!
First thought was of When Gravity Fails (Score:2)
Second thought was that the Saudis would never allow all that sex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Oz of Saudi Arabia?! (Score:1)
Dystopia Personified (Score:2)
Yeah, great...so in this high-tech city of the future, you can still get your head chopped off by some feudal princelet if you're caught doing anything that might offend his primitive superstitions.