From the Land of 4,000 Princes

[Recusant]

There is already a Saudi thread but the search function here sometimes disappoints one. So I'll start another and merge them if I find the original.

When I started the previous one I cribbed the title from one of the features on Harry Shearer's Le Show. At the time it was called "News From the Land of 10,000 Princes" but he's since changed it. To more accurately reflect the actual membership of the royal family, I assume. Ever the faithful plagiarist, I've done the same.

So, probably everybody here has heard of "The Line." That was a plan to construct basically a horizontal skyscraper across more than 100 miles of the desert in Saudi Arabia. Yes, we all thought "What a brilliant idea!"

They actually began construction on this folly but apparently in the process they discovered that there were some difficulties. I mean, you can throw trillions of petrobucks into a thing like that but return on investment is a different story, eh?

When I was a youngster I read about Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti project and thought it had some strong points. Concentrate humanity in one large pleasant structure and leave the land for better things than strip malls. Unlikely to actually happen other than the proof of concept version in Arizona, but I could see the logic of it. I suppose this Saudi thing was in that vein so the younger version of me might have found it inspiring. It could be that my distaste for the Saudi regime is coloring my view of it. 

"End of The Line? Saudi Arabia scales back plan for wildly ambitious 100-mile-long megacity in the desert" | The Independent

Ambitious plans for a 100-mile-long megacity in Saudi Arabia – a key part of the kingdom's $2 trillion redevelopment project – have been put on hold so they can be scaled back.

The Line was meant to be one of the Arab country's so-called giga projects, designed to diversify the economy away from oil through real estate as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan.

Now, however, the Riyadh regime appears to have shifted priorities.

"We spent too much," one Saudi official said at a flagship investment forum in the capital last week, per The Times. "We rushed at 100 miles an hour. We are now running deficits. We need to reprioritise."

The Line was envisioned as a futuristic linear city in the desert by the Red Sea, part of Saudi Arabia's Neom city project.

Set to house 9 million people, over a quarter of Saudi Arabia's population, it was envisioned to redefine what cities of the future might look like.

Without roads, cars or emissions, it was set to run on 100 per cent renewable energy with 95 per cent of the land preserved for nature.

The city would tower 500m above sea level, at 200m wide and 170km long, but over the years it has faced massive delays.

According to The Times, the downsized scheme will hold a fraction of the planned population, with 300,000 residents in a city only a few miles long.

[Continues . . .]