'The Line', which was basically a very long and relatively narrow city which could be seen from space was Mohammed bin Salman's way of making Saudi Arabia look modern and important in this bizarre late-modern age we find ourselves in....
The idea is for a 160KM mirrored city 500 metres high stretching across Saudi Arabia, powered entirely by renewables.
All of The Line's unique features, like the mirrored walls, no cars, stacked buildings, and super-dense layout, were supposed to show off Saudi Arabia's tech goals and its plans for a future without oil.
However, trying to build this dream city quickly uncovered big problems. Architects had trouble with basic stuff like gravity, getting rid of trash, fresh air, and how people would move around in a structure that ignored normal city rules. Simple questions — like where would sewers go, how would buildings handle wind, or how would people get out in an emergency — became huge headaches...
It turns out that this is more of a corridor of claustrophobia rather than a solar utopia....
Building The Line was super expensive. An internal guess in 2022 put the cost at $4.5 trillion. That's way more than any other big building project in modern times, and is equivalent to more than the annual GPD of all but the wealthiest few countries...
NB the original cost was nearer $1.5 BN, three times less, this is basically HS2 times 100!
The trouble with these big, show-off projects is they can't handle changes. If you make them smaller, they lose their symbolic meaning. But if you keep going full-scale, you more than likely run out of money.
That's what is happening with The Line, as investors have become more cautious with the increasing amounts of global economic uncertainty.
The Line also shows a bigger political problem: there's no one to say no. When one person has all the power, there aren't many ways to challenge huge, unrealistic ideas early enough to stop a disaster.
Architects and planners did bring up concerns, but all the decisions came directly from the crown prince. Design choices were all about how things looked — mirrored surfaces, exact sizes, extreme height — instead of what actually worked.
Today, people still say The Line is a strategic priority, but not really. Building has slowed down, the goals are smaller, and things are taking longer than planned. What's left is a half-built reminder of trying to do too much.
The Line was sold as the future of city living. Really, it's just the oldest city mistake: thinking that being big and new can make up for being practical.
