Saudi Arabia Asks Consultants To Reassess Feasibility of 'The Line' Megaproject (middleeasteye.net) 28
Saudi Arabia has asked consultants to reassess the feasibility of The Line, its ambitious 170km linear city project and centerpiece of the Neom initiative, as rising costs and falling oil prices force the kingdom to scale back its megaprojects. Middle East Eye reports: In April, The Financial Times reported that the CEO of Neom had launched a "comprehensive review" of the kingdom's megaproject. Neom, along with luxury Red Sea hotels and a ski resort, is the flagship project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan to transform the kingdom's economy and reduce its dependence on oil revenue. Bloomberg reported in 2024 that Saudi Arabia was cutting back plans for The Line. Instead of 1.5 million people living there by 2030, Saudi officials were said to anticipate fewer than 300,000 residents. Meanwhile, only 2.4km of the city is expected to be completed by 2030.
In April, Goldman Sachs painted a bleak picture for Saudi Arabia's projects in a note to clients, projecting "pretty significant" budget deficits and more scaling back of megaprojects. Neom has already faced internal challenges. Nadhmi al-Nasr, who managed Neom's construction from 2018 to 2024, departed from his post in November. Nasr earned a chilling reputation managing Neom. He bragged that he put everyone to work "like a slave," adding, "When they drop down dead, I celebrate. That's how I do my projects." Two other foreign executives also left Neom at the end of 2024, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In April, Goldman Sachs painted a bleak picture for Saudi Arabia's projects in a note to clients, projecting "pretty significant" budget deficits and more scaling back of megaprojects. Neom has already faced internal challenges. Nadhmi al-Nasr, who managed Neom's construction from 2018 to 2024, departed from his post in November. Nasr earned a chilling reputation managing Neom. He bragged that he put everyone to work "like a slave," adding, "When they drop down dead, I celebrate. That's how I do my projects." Two other foreign executives also left Neom at the end of 2024, according to The Wall Street Journal.
"Feasibility" is pulling a lot of weight here (Score:2)
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It's not about Star Wars CGI.
Famous rulers build giant monuments to their own ego. The Egyptian pharaohs did it. The Chinese emperors did it. The Mayas and Aztecs did it.
If a ruler has to abandon a vanity project "because it's not financially feasible" then they're just a second rate ruler, easily forgotten when the next one takes over. That's the real story.
How stupid are the Saudis? (Score:2)
Very, very, very stupid. This whole idea is batshit insane.
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Well, tons of money, a fucked up religion that does not allow them to do anything with it and an education system that is not good either (apparently, nobody wants to learn). So yes, batshit insane covers it nicely.
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Well, tons of money, a fucked up religion that does not allow them to do anything with it and an education system that is not good either (apparently, nobody wants to learn). So yes, batshit insane covers it nicely.
You are talking about America or Saudi Arabia?
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And every religion is fucked up. You're believing something because somebody told you not evidence. That's the definition of faith as it is described in the bible. Not sure about the Quran but equally likely.
And the Quran can be reinterpreted however the hell you want because of how weird the Arab writing is. I don't know the details but because of the way punctuation and tense work
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There are countless hadiths that expand the Muslim confusion to insane levels. The whole 77 virgins thing is in some hadiths and not others. They contradict each other. The Jews have one set of texts. Each version of the Christian Bible varies some. The Muslims are the wild west.
Yeah also don't forget they want to turn America (Score:2, Informative)
Into Saudi Arabia. Basically they want to turn America Into Saudi Arabia. A handful of kings and queens, a very tiny number of people serving them and a vast vast sea of extraordinarily poor people kept down by a combination of brutal violence and religion. All of it maintained in perpetuality by technology that didn't exist the last time we threw off the yoke of slavery.
Here is what techno-feudalism is. You have a very small group of what are effectively kings and queens that own everything and they don't
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I'm not so sure you should be quite so confident about that.
There's a lot of curation, and if you look at the history of that curation you can see a whole lot of barely glossed over stuff... in some cases you will see the same story repeated with names changed, and the one with the names changed is the one you are almost certainly familiar with.
For example, a simple question is... who killed Goliath the Philistine? Was it King David when he was just a little shepherd boy, or was it some other much older leg
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Why should we care for that about some fancy "Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script" living an otherwise normal life in London with his wife and 5 children when we have our own very popular and famous rsilvergun available right here on Slashdot as a excellent resource for the task?
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Irving Finkel is good. But Bart Ehrman is better, he covers a very wide range of topics. He used to be bible-thumping evangelical, was even trained as one. But along the way, he learned to look at the bible in its context, which modern day Christian almost never do. The meaning of the words has been changed drastically over time. And he's good for pointing out contradictions. He no longer even believes in God, knowing what a human-constructed concept God actually is.
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Well we have the Torah and the Talmud. Take meat and milk. Every sect has it's own interpretation as to how much and how long. The Chinese Jews believe the prophet takes precedence over the scholars and tracked cows, their milk and calves to make sure they literally never did the wrong boiling.
I personally like too reflect on the silliness of it while eating a bacon and cheese bagel.
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Don't forget stupid. Batshit insane doesn't cover it.
LOL! (Score:2)
I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
"Dear MBS... no, the line is not feasible. You'd have to be a fever-dreaming megalomaniac to even imagine one-hundredth of that ridiculous vanity project could ever be built. The ego of such a tyrant would be unmatched... unmatched, that is, except by his stupidity. Wait... what are you doing with that saw? Put it down! MBS! Hey!... AAAAAAAAAA!
Goldman Sachs regrets to inform the public of the disappearance of its consultant to The Line. No
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I mean they could build some of it, if they had come out and said ti was 5km long that would still be a huge project and very impressive but it's at least riding that line of pushing the limits.
Saying its going to be 170km is just, you're just being a goof at that point, like, why not say it's a thousand km, just start building a space elevator at that point, you can solve the problems as you go.
No fucking shit (Score:3)
I get claustrophobia just looking at at it. 200 meters is way too thin. It needs to be at least 500 meters wide. The high speed train idea is good, just make it a bunch of towns on a maglev line. 100 km long, with no place more than 10 mins from condo door to hospital, fire service, movie theater, and shopping.
Re:No fucking shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's another small tweak: Fold the line back on itself to form a grid!
That way, you can ditch the whole train thing and just walk to all of your destinations. Plus, you get an urban plan that has been proven workable since the days of ancient Mesopotamia.
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I get claustrophobia just looking at at it. 200 meters is way too thin.
In many given city positions you are in you have far less than 200m sideways visibility. That goes double for American "grid" style cities. Additionally the sides are glass giving you a view of the desert. No one would experience claustrophobia inside it, including you.
same calculation as usal (Score:2)
1. X million pure planning & construction costs ..
2. X million for additional planning & additional construction costs
3. X for errors in planning & additional construction costs
4. X for fraud
5. 10 * X for professional fraud
6. X for certifications & safety
7. 10 * X for corrections in planning & construction to fit certification needs
8. 100 * X for more professional fraud
9. 75 * X for adapting to new laws due to changes in 20 years later than expected completion
= 200 * X of the pure costs
The Saudi Arabian Dream... (Score:2)
A city nobody wants, a bonesaw in every garage.
How do I get a job as one of the consultants? (Score:1)
Lol the "Line" was never feasible (Score:2)
Same goes for some of Saudi Arabia's other mega projects - ski slopes, mega resorts, giant cube buildings ffs. While not as ou