Option 4: They accelerate the build process by using cheap labor and cheap materials and once the project is finished the problems start arriving one by one until it is abandoned.
This will be a psychological test for the inhabitants to see how long it will take for people to go mad while they're in a perpetual state of lockdown in the middle of the desert.
The biggest problem with projects this size is that anything you don't get exactly right is multiplied by the scale. If they get anything even a little wrong the whole mess is gonna be huge. First thought is how much sand is gonna blow up against whichever side the prevailing wind comes from.
@@grantharriman284 I was thinking of the animals not having a way through but that is nothing compared to a giant dune building up the side and spilling in
This is gonna go two ways. Either they realize a literal Cyberpunk 2077 style megacity is impossible to construct and it becomes abandoned after 8% completion, OR, they come to their senses and make a way smaller sensible version which is just a very long appartement building with a metro line running through it. It's very clear that the people who have to plan this straight up lied to the investors about its feasibility/time to build.
this city will not be built but if it is built it will be empty for the most part it will look like star trek but as abandoned as detroit and as hot as the desert around it
A building that requires an infinite amount of construction is every politician’s dream. Politicians will be making billions under the table with this.
Carbon neutral? What about the billions of tons of concrete and steel needed to complete the construction? Let alone all the logistics involved. Pure madness
Why are people so negative about this project. And why can't this not be achieved? Something seems impossible just because we never did it before. This applies to so many concepts and ideas, but some of those impossible ideas have been realized, and they are not longer impossible. We humans are capable of much more than we think we are. Kudos to Saudi Arabia for taking this bold initiative. Best of luck to them!!!
depends. The great wall of china replica was the same thing (Yeah the great wall of china today is a replica.). Heck even the Chinese didn't mind it even if it costed billions in our time today. Heck the suburbs of America is the same thing as the old Soviet housings called commie blocks (A more efficient version of suburbs and much more economically doable and efficient.) just without the whole putting hundreds of people in large apartments fit for 4-5 people. The line probably will be possible. In a few years after technology advances they would be doable. Heck the line will Probably one of the greatest human built city in our lifetime. If technological progress will expand exponentially it will be a world marvel.
@@mam0lechinookclan607 even if it succeeds, all it would take is two missile strikes at each end and now the entire population is trapped in the desert. The line would make for an incredible national weak spot from a military strategy perspective
Also your entire population in a structure where resistance to government is essentially impossible. No way to travel freely, doors that are controlled by authority and can be cut off with no way around, no way to move around without being identified, whole section that can be contained at will. A line is a perfect type of structure where you can place small force at any two points to easily contain "problematic" neighbourhood.
It works both ways. Guerilla forces could use the same principle to cut off sections of the line from government influence. Doors can be blasted or cut open and security cams painted over or smashed.
I’m no architect or urban planner, but to me it seems like when it comes to public works like this, the grander and prettier the idea, the more removed from what is physically possible (and how humans actually live) and the greater the likelihood of failure.
the first six words summed up your POV really. "I’m no architect or urban planner, and therefore my views have nothing to be based on, but imma spout it anyway"
@@djjc9782 they’re based on my being interested in these kinds of things and having lived long enough to see numerous plans like it fail. I’m not a professional, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spot trends in my environment and in human behavior.
@@djjc9782 Ok, but there is this inside joke among civil engineers that goes along the lines of: "Architects are there to design buildings and civil engineers are there to tell them why those designs won't work." Basically, architects and civil engineers have to find a compromise between art and what's actually possible/feasable. Neom looks like an architect's project without really consulting a civil engineer.
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 this. It pretty much all boils down to the ego of the architect being almost inevitably crushed by the people who actually know what they're talking about. This scenario seems to fall squarely in that category, let alone how humans would handle the structure itself if it was somehow miraculously constructed. Ambition is a fine thing to have, but to say it must be tempered by those who know the devil in those details is the understatement of the year..
Have you ever lived on one, know anybody that have lived on one, or have any evidence/record whatsoever of people living in a city like this? I'm gonna get ahead of you, and say: yeah, that's what I thought. You're welcome to speculation, theorizing, or simply raising discussion questions of what it would be like to live in a place like this. But when you phrase it like a statement "it's like living in a city but even worse", you just sound ignorant because you literally have no idea of what you're actually saying (you have nothing to backup your claim)
@@Michael_the_believer Because you already know the rich people will live at the top where space and resources will be plenty. The poor people like maids and servants will probably be doomed to live at the bottom where they won’t get much sun and live in squalor. Living inside of the line is it going to be like the hunger games
I’m an expat living in Saudi for over 35 years. My family and I love it here and we love the people. Historically Saudi has always been ahead of its own requirements in terms of construction and development of cities over decades. The Line will succeed over time. But there is one aspect in our view that may be overlooked. Why would people come to The Line ? 1- this will certainly be the most exciting place to be. But living here would need a certain sense of comfort to last over time. 2- Saudi is probably the only region with the REAL Arab life and feel. This potential may be underestimated and overlooked. All said we wish The Line all best.
This whole thing is sort of like that feeling you get when you see someone making a bad decision, but you know you can't do anything about it because it's their life to live, and you feel bad for that person because you know what's likely going to happen.
For me, this is more of seeing a person make a bad decision, knowing they won't back down, and then deciding to sit back with some popcorn to enjoy the reck
This will most likely end up being left incomplete. The scale and magnitude alone are astronomical. There are several factors that I doubt the architects or anyone else in the design process thought of ranging from health issues to environmental/weather. We'll see just how 'beneficial' this project ends up being and pray it doesn't cause any significant detrimental changes
That's what Im afraid of unfortunately, its sad to see wasted projects. Best case scenario is that a smaller scaled project could be implemented based on what was incomplete.
Nooo, you get it all wrong, it worked perfectly in cgi phase, how different real life could be? You are just incels jealous of the east trying to make clean and rEnEWabLe things to save da planet.
Yeah, it seems incredibly naive to immediately jump into building the entire thing. That's true of any complex project, especially one where psychology will be a huge factor. It will take a few years of people living there before they know what aspects of the design actually make sense. Hopefully they start with building a scaled down version and spend a decade solving whatever problems arise before building it at the proposed massive scale. But, I'm willing to bet the egos behind this concept will assume their genius ideas are already perfect and could never fail, ironically ensuring it never had a chance of success.
I'm curious about the global supply of the raw materials needed for this project and how it will effect the costs of said materials should the project actually come to fruition.
There won’t be enough materials and with prices of materials currently it will be a wast of effort. The energy akin to transport this much steel, sand, cement, etc. will be astronomical. And what about all the tractors, cranes, bulldozers that need to be transported to the edges of nowhere. This is not the same as getting your construction materials downtown to build a big project. The sheer effort to transport all this material resources and workers is going to have GIANT carbon footprint and cost way more than they planned.
@@mackdeen7021 i think that a promising part of this would be the feasibility of moving his resources because it is right next to the ocean in several spots throughout the construction and there most likely will be a train line running down the entire project to further deliver resources. it will still be a massive undertaking, but insanely large structures have been built with worse conditions.
let them waste all money they earn from 2020. With renewables rise. they will soon die, if didn't have money saved to invest in being power house for whole world using solar power.
This project is a fantastic example of how humanity should think bigger. All of the possible issues and hurdles not withstanding, we are short sighted as a species. If this project takes 100years, the benefit only realized by people two or three generations after us, it will be a monument to this leader's care for his country. My two cents.
I think they’ll construct like 5-10km of it (still a LOT), with a big chunk of it being a very watered down version of the plan (like a lake, or huge field or suchlike), and only maybe a km or two, really being close to the initial blueprint. I don’t care how much oil moneys they have, this project isn’t viable.
Yeah, I mean 170km can’t be realistic, that’s insane. I mean even LA which is one of the widest cities on earth is maybe like half as wide generously. Now of course this is just a line, however it’s also 500 meters tall and 200 meters wide, supposed to contain as much as any huge multi-million people city. Yeah there’s no way this will be done even by 2040
@@Icetea-2000 Great wall of china was built over 2500 years with insane amount of deaths. It is almost 125 times longer than neom too and logistics and technology back then was much slower. As long as you pour in enough money, this project could be easily completed within 2 decades.
I think the biggest challenge of this build would be, carrying my sofa through the city to get to my place 5 minutes deep into this thing. There's no freaking grip on that sofa I tell you.
I had an idea for a game called "The Line," you played as a delivery worker in a city shaped like a line trying to get specific goods to specific sections of the city. The reason why the game was interesting is because a line is a horrible logistics nightmare for a city, probably the worst possible shape! There weren't any cars in my idea either. It's crazy, my desertbus-like idea is a reality! I hope this can be built so I can work as a postman there and play my game IRL.
Actually its the opposite this if it works could eliminate cars from city's, imagine not having to drive across town to get groceries instead everything is within a 5 min walk , its actually genius and a perfect layout for a city Now id never live there because I fucking can't stand city life period I stay in the country but I can see the potential here and I dont like it much but I gotta say its a fucking smart city plan I hope it works
@@Cold_Cactus You don't need a line-shaped city to eliminate cars. And you certainly don't need a line-shaped city to have places to buy groceries from within 5 minutes of walking. This entire thing is literally just an utopian idea that is about 100 years too early. Honestly gives the same vibes as Elon's Boring Company just reinventing trains and subways.
Exactly! Anyone who has ever gone to a very large so how level shopping mall will be familiar with the joy of realising the shop you actually need to get to is on the opposite end.
@@Cold_Cactus they say "5 min walk" but how achievable is this actually? If you think about it you can put a lot more stuff close to each other if you make something 2D rather than 1D like the line. Idk if I'm missing something but from a proximity point of view it really doesn't make sense
You're not mistaken, the Saudi prince plays video games and he loves that game in particular. It's doubtless that he has a fantasy that wants to shape it in real life.
Weather it is or isn't completed doesn't make it good. Imagine them thinking how ingenious they are and yet all they managed to come up with is a line permanently separating ecosystems for all the ground dwelling fauna. I could have come up with something better age 4. And white-walls in a plant surrounded environment, bad choice.
Hopefully, the builders will do a video diary of the process for the next few years. Something ongoing and published on RUclips would be especially interesting to watch. Should make for incredible footage...☺
That's what they have in mind for us all. Lockdowns we're just a test run. The elite will be free to roam the world, but we'll be stuck in these metal junkyards.
@@shakti666 lmao they didnt even build the first 1cm of glass and this random dude saying no one is allowed to leave like he owns this project or will live enough to see it finished
I see three options of my own here: Option 1: It gets abandoned partway through construction and becomes the middle east's most popular urban exploration site Option 2: A significant amount of construction is completely obliterated by any number of natural or human (intentional or accidental) disasters and the whole thing goes up in smoke, potentially literally Option 3, the most unlikely: The project is completed as intended and very quickly becomes a grim, dystopian nightmare on the level of Deus Ex or Blade Runner
I'm curious if they tested this build on how it would react to the elements, if were talking realistically here, it would probably take decades to make progress on this one due to the scale of the project
Knowing how this particular Saudi price operates, it doesn't matter. This is meant to be a distraction for the masses. They have separatist elements, never ending war with Yemen, and israel breathing down on its neck. He's trying to use this as both as unifying factor and reputation booster. The journey is the goal, the "goal" isn't the goal
Well I'm happy that this country is actually bringing some new ideas. Even if this project failed then atleast they tried to accomplish something futuristic.
what abandoned remains? you realise they are litteraly trying to make a massive fucking mirror. that shit is going to be nuked down for increasing the temperature on earth... no litteraly this shit is going to burn and destroy anything that lives outside the walls. any animal that lives out there will be burned like you burn ants with a magnifying glass.
I think it'll be constructed at a much smaller scale (with many parts toned down compared to the amazing renders). Then people will try to compare it's original ideas and what was actually constructed
Imagine living in a mall.. the first few days will be exciting, the first week one of the best weeks of your life, and the first month enough to drive you insane.
I think with the vertical planning - the residential part will be on the upper levels so it won't feel like being in a mall. Health and safety would worry me greatly though - a major fire would surely rip right through these mirrored walled structures in no time with very little chance of escape for residents.
Yes exactly, malls are great but nothing is better than actually staying outside in the wide open and relaxing. This line that they're planning to make is going to be a dystopian nightmare
There are a lot of things about this that make me think it's the dumbest idea since pre-sliced fruit, but i'm more interested in the psychological effects that living in a straight line would cause to be honest.
I find it interesting the concept of "turning it into the first car-free city". Its not that hard of a thing to make when you're building a city from scratch, it doesn't require that much of creativity since there's other ways of going around that already exists. I want to see people get creative about solving this problem with cities that already exists.
This is just propaganda & impractical. And even if they built a narrow stretch of line, who in the right state of mind would want to go live in an isolated building located in desert
Because it is. I'd imagine there'd be a heavy class difference, richer people live close to the sky, poorer people live in the shadows near the ground.
Right - no one wants to live there and couldn't afford to even if they did. It's conceptually foolish and an ugly, claustrophobic place to live, ignoring many practical realities in favor of a flashy, stupid gimmick that plays poorly in real life.
If anyone can pull it off it’s honestly these guys. They have built some of the most amazing structures in the last two decades and everyone said they wouldn’t back then.
we've had the internet, fuelled machines and technology for decades already. it's about time someone atleast TRIED building something on the scale of a world wonder.
@@Erime thank goodness there will be be no crime, wear and tear, and all sorts of other city issues....but now in a closed environment?? Bullets flying around in this place. Eek. Or some kind Titanic issue ensues....like disease spreading in a closed and isolated place. Fire! Everybody out!!!! Let's get 1 million people out in 2 minutes. Eek. Locking folks in China in their apartments didn't work...when a fire broke. Many people died as they were locked inside?!? What are the exiting strategies? Is it easy to come in and out and visit the rest of the world? Mom...what does the real world look like? I don't know my son...I've never left here. Emergencies? The list is long. Neat idea though. Alienated and isolated communities don't always work. Social constructs will be interesting to study once people live there for generations. Hm. Weather? Nothing like some horrible weather conditions dipping into that box like structure. How will that enter the villages?
Did I miss the part that showed where and how sewage plants would treat the waste water from such a linear population? Massive seaside plants would be my guess, located near the desalination infrastructure of course!
I think building in sections is great, not just in terms of time, money etc.. but also to get feedback from people. This way, problems with the design or living ng situation can be understood, and countermeasures taken when building the next section of the line
I am surprised, confused, excited, and skeptical all at the same time. I figured this would stay a concept for a long time and then eventually fade out with all the problems they come across in the design stage. I was very surprised to see they started construction on this. They do have a tendency to abandon big projects but they have also completed some amazing feats as well. Nothing compares to this but I’m excited to see where this goes
@@Gabriel-jg5wh yeah. Theyd actually have to finish it and convince people to move in. Come on man. Its made of glass.....in the dessert. Think for a second please for the love of god.
Option 3! What is exciting is the possibility of it creating a different climate behind the line structure, which could make the inland desert side into a tropical landscape!
When I attended architecture school in 1974, Arocsanti was a big dream to reimagine urban living. This will also fail simply because it is limiting the human experience to its walls.
@Ari lol yes you can predict the future - if there is one thing persistent in human nature than it is that "history repeats itself" - and in that sense, the world is full of "ideal dream cities of the future in 50 years" that ALL failed because it was one idiot who imagined it in his fever dream of every monkey thinks his way. It is utterly easy to learn from the past about the failures of the future, but no one cares about the past anymore because you cant make money of it - yet you can easily predict the stupidity of mankind.
That’s a bit short sighted which is sorta the point. By that logic, nobody could/would live on an island because it’s boundaries are limiting “growth”. No. Respectfully, this is a long term vision from a country that has a leader who is enamored with future building. Like it or not, some of the most ground breaking advancements environmental and urban blending is in the Middle East. Built in sections, this project will be reality in some form.
@@blackout42084 with all due respect there are no THRIVING, growing, island cities where the human experience is limited to "a 5 minute walk". People abandon those isolated cities and villages for a broader world on a regular basis. Just the fact that on an island you have swimming, surfing, paragliding, sailing, snorkling, a view of sunsets, the sea, other islands, forrested hills, grassy hills, and so on. And you are trying to compare That to the existence between to walls where lengthwise existence is reduced to 5 minutes left and right. 2 minutes front to back, and 4 minutes from top to bottom, with no view of the horizon, or sunsets, or anything else but your rectangle. The top where the rich would live will be bright and sunny, and the bottom where the poor will live will be shadowy with little access to direct sunlight. Yep, it will be a reality that people outright reject.
@@matthewjozwik6831 no the point of my comment is he says he doesn't think it will start but also says he thinks it will be a scaled down version of this render which means he does believe they'll start
@Stephen lee the video literally states how bigger it is compared to the gorges dam. 40,000 workers taking 17 years to build that? Get that CCP shill bullshit out of here
I really don’t get it: - Building high is costly, why would you build so high in the desert if you can use the surface? - What’s the advantage of it being 170 km long, why not have several, parallel lines of 20 Km length, for instance. This would make it much easier to get from point A to point B - The line also limits what can be built inside. A football stadium might not fit, for instance - Between the two buildings there won’t be much natural light - Who’s supposed to live there? Saudi Arabia only has 36 million inhabitants and comparable projects, such as Dubai, only managed to attract about 3 million people To me it looks like the plan of a 9 year old with a genetical disorder, playing Sim City for the first time in his life
Then if people seem to go, they get more funding, they can expand it some. More people seem interested, more funding obtained, expand it more. Still seems unlikely they’ll finish it but would be cool
@@achoch They are not getting paid. Imagine working in that unbearable heat every day and not getting paid. And you can't leave the country because the company has taken your passport.
@@achoch They promise you good pay and then once you’re in country, they take your passport and pay basically nothing. You’re not allowed to leave since you don’t have your passport so you have to work.
@@slowlywakingup bro what do you mean they are not getting paid my dad was in Qatar and he told me they be living more than a perfect life they get money from country, they are rich, everyone there has nice cars (he showed me so many pictures), a lot of modern buildings
What could go wrong: - Ideal structure for an authoritarian regime to control people; - Environmental impact: a barrier for migratory animals... a huge massacre of birds crashing against the mirror on a scale never seen before; - Displacement of communities, persecution, imprisonment and death penalty for those who refuse to leave; - High maintenance, slavery work; - Easy target for terrorist attacks; - Like a big shopping center, a playground for millionaires, with cold strangers who don't give a f.. to each other. Don't expect the same spirit of a beautiful village in the mountains, a place with history, culture, a welcoming community... It may be as boring as hell! Three days there and you want to get out, as people do in Qatar when there is no World Cup. The happiest people in the world with the longest life expectancy live in the Greek island of Ikaria: community, family farming, nature... no animals exploited and slaughtered at an industrial scale. We keep looking at futuristic miracles, but it seems that the secret to live in harmony with the world has always been in the simplest things.
Something else that "could" go wrong if it was ever completed: Water comes from desalination. This sounds like a magic wand for the unenlightened (I used to be there myself) but desalination on a large scale has a huge problem: Once clean water has been extracted, you're left with brackish water, a highly saline liquid which you pump into the sea. Where that exits the pipe, there will be no life whatsoever = a ruined eco system. If you desalinate water on the scale required for this gigastructure, the marine eco system will collapse in the whole area around there and likely have a big knock-on effect on the sea around there.
@@VickylanceMedia Yes, the news say environmentalists are concerned because millions of migratory birds cross the area every year. "The Line" will be a barrier for those animals.
6:36 In Indonesia, cars are the symbol of richness. If you don't have a car, that means you're POOR. In fact, many rich families here have cars MORE THAN ONE. One for daddy, one for mommy, each children has their own cars as well.
@@noahc8997re you new? I can reel of a list as long as my arm the number of “super projects” commenced by the arabs out of vanity that either flopped or not completed. Dubai square mall Dubai creek tower Dubai creek Nakheel tower World islands Palm jebel ali Palm dierra The crescent Falcon city of wonders Universal studios of dubai land Dubai land in general… Kingdom tower Jeddah tower Masdar city of wonders Dubais eco city Dubai world mall I could go on but i think i made my point. The arab nations are driven by vanity. They want to show the world they can build the biggest, best and most expensive structures in the world in the hopes of attracting the billionaires to come spend their money in their playground. But like all magpies… they are easily distracted by something shinier and prettier and will forsake their existing project for the new shinier one.
I live In Saudi Arabia and neom signs is everywhere in my city. It seems our government is serious about this project so I don't think this scenario would happened.
@@hornerfarah2282 ive seen powerful signs for a hospital being completed the back of me… they promised it be finished this year and its still a long way off. On top of the construction company going bankrupt.
This concept reminds me of Daybreak, where each segment of the 5 minute walks are probably going to develop a class dynamic. There will be a distinction of people across each segment I think.
you mean, one segment will be occupied, all others will be vacant like most major city projects happen in those area. it's just a money sink at this point
At some point there would be a class of people with cars and they would sort of have a North Korean type of system with a huge disparity between the haves and have nots
How well will it deal with extreme weather such as sandstorms? how much of a wind tunnel effect will they be dealing with between the walls? How well have they planned the logistics both in construction and when it comes to living supplies for residents when it's completed?
I doubt there would be much wind given the structure that they're going with inside the walls. It's not gonna be hollow in the middle, there's supposed to be structures placed offset from each other, and other trees and things
Whether it's possible or not I'm curious what the physical implications would be of building a huge flat surface across the open desert like that. Would it have some sort of butterfly effect on winds, that effects the jet streams and therefore changes the climate around it, or even have lasting effects on surrounding climates? That would be an interesting subject to see covered.
Good point, but also an interesting one. A project this size and scale would certainly change the winds, and create new rainfall zones. Could these be beneficial?
@@thecleeze6359 As someone who lives in a semi desert area? No. It will most likely act like mountains and create a break in the normal rainfall. Also if they do the glass idea BOI. THE AREA AROUND IT WILL BE A DEATH RAY
@@elvingearmasterirma7241 Yeah i wonder what they are planning on doing for reflection. there are some buildings they didn't' take that into account and are actual frying pans in the streets below. Imagine you're not allowed to leave the city because it will cook you like a death ray if you step out when the suns on that side of the structure lmao! Some real scorched earth style shit lol
@@Algorythmfpv My guess is nothing. They're building it in a damn straight line. In the middle of a desert. Nothing about this project screams careful forethought
The sheer amount of glass needed renders the entire project totally impossible beyond a hint of a doubt. We're already seeing supply issues in the glass manufacturing industry. The Wall will be an economical and ecological disaster beyond measure. "Carbon neutral" concrete and glass are two of the most CO2 intensive materials in current use.
@@Xlcola Not all sand is the same. Desert sand has the wrong minerals. It is mostly Gypsum which can’t be made into glass. You need sand high in silica which is mostly found on beaches.
A logistics nightmare. Anyone who has ever played a colony or factory game knows that, if you build your base really long and skinny, getting the resource transportation to wherever it needs to go is utter madness.
The question that remains is how does this structure interact with the ambient weather conditions? 1. During the rare rainfall events, how will the surface flows reach the sea? Are they installing subsurface piping to bypass the city? Could the piping be expanded to include a subsurface reservoir or an infiltration gallery? 2. What will the reflected light do to the adjacent landscape and animals? 3. Will there be migration corridors for animals to pass to/from the sea? 4. What kind of glass will withstand sand storms? Will it be a special glass that does not dull under sandblasting? Or do they have a plan to restore the glass after a sand storm event? What are the logistics of someone doing the repairs, like would it need to be done at night? Can the repairs withstand the temperature changes between night/day? 5. The design imagery is focused on the interior. Are the outside walls transparent so one can look outside, or must there be significant insulation so the view must be to the interior? These questions are posed to be sure the project is a success, that the walls will function as a canyon creating a lush valley at the floor.
None of those things will have been thought of If anyone actually put thought into the designing of this structure they would’ve known it was completely impractical
The best cities i have ever lived in have had low level vertical living (4 stories) and about 85% of everything I need on a daily basis within a 5 minute walk. All ground level tenancies were retail, offices or services. everything above was residential. being only 4 stories everything was walk up, no elevators were necessary. The sense of community and friendship was fantastic.
I don’t see the issue with a city built vertically, as long as there’s enough space to have open “planes” like parks & etc… I fail to see how this is any worst than big cities we have. nowadays But I myself don’t crave big cities in general. I like owning a car and having a house with a yard. Not a fan of apartments or having someone living above my head. The Line solves the traffic / no parking spot issue along with many other big city problems. It’d be a good place for the people who are looking for this type of life style.
@@Soliye. Adam Something made a video about it and explains it better than I ever could, but some big issues are the lack of sunlight, general claustropobia, navigating it is pretty much a nightmare, disease, railways have a ton of potential logistical issues (i.e. what if a train goes down, what if a rail breaks in the middle which is an issue cause it's only one direction), and more. Also you can solve the car issue by, you know, using/investing in public transport like this is doing...
There's maybe a 0.001% chance of it actually working out. Even if it's built. It's not designed to be inhabited by humans. Maybe the worlds biggest ant colony?
To me the most unrealistic aspect of this project is that half of it cuts through mountains, some of which are 4x as high as the proposed structure. It begins at sea level, so unless the structure “climbs” over the terrain, they would be forced to tunnel through kilometers of terrain. Either way they will be dealing with 90km of difficult, remote terrain that had to be blasted and removed. That alone is completely insane. I would say it’s more likely they are planning on building/selling/populating it in phases, starting with the most expensive, desirable, and easiest to build segments near the coast, so that they can bankroll the project and give it momentum, and if they never make it to the mountains, then the line just remains shorter…but the fact that they already have a camp in the mountains so far away from the coast tells me that’s not the case, and they are probably already working on surveying/site planning and site preparation. Another thing that has to be mentioned is that this is a seismically active area, actually the most seismically active area in Saudi Arabia. The seismicity is associated with the opening of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba and translation along the Dead Sea fault, which lies under the Gulf of Aqaba, just west of the western end of this proposed structure. Additionally, and most people don’t know this, but the western mountains of Saudi Arabia are covered in recent, active monogenetic basaltic volcanic fields, and there actually happens to be one of these, Harrat Uwayrid, fairly close to the eastern end of the line. It has erupted historically. I don’t know that it actually intersects the line in its current incarnation, but these volcanic fields are expansive, young, and quite frankly, new volcanic fields can spring up along the western margin of the Arabian Shield (the name for the block of Precambrian basement rock that rifted to form the Red Sea, on top of which the line is built, and on top of which all of these volcanic fields have erupted) at literally any time in this early period of rifting. It may not be for 100s or 1000s of years…but if one is thinking about the “future of humanity”, volcanism and seismicity are important considerations, not to mention sea level rise associated with global warming, given that this structure is close to the coast for half of its proposed length. Geology is clear-disasters will occur in our future, but our concept of time and memory is usually too short to realize it. As for the construction and architecture itself, I think a lot of the problems pointed out in this video are mitigated by the design, because a lot of the construction can be done in parallel, and it can be extensively modularized, both in terms of construction method and in terms of structure/finishes/infrastructure, given its extremely repetitive cross section. It’s really just a question of capital and labor. They have plenty of the former from gouging the world for years with fossil fuels, and the later can be cheaply imported and set to work in a massive parallel operation. Access to the site will be trivial and as it is built things will scale jump and become even faster. And they don’t have to build the whole thing at once, it can be built in stages. Wind is fairly high in this portion of Saudi Arabia, as well as solar gain-they will have no trouble powering the site and creating renewable energy and zero carbon water. As for dust storms, I don’t think they are common in this part of the country. It’s definitely a very interesting project, but in my mind the biggest issue is going to be dealing with the land itself. In the video it shows them clearing and grading the land, but they will have to excavate quite deep as well to put in all of the infrastructure and underground system, as well as to provide sufficient pilings for a 500m tall building. No evidence of that as of yet. Edit: have to add, for being a “green project” the shape of this city basically creates a 500m high 170km long wall for any migrating animals. Then again, it is the desert and the construction will kill off anything that does manage to live there. Guaranteed, with the 500m tall mirror finish hanging wall façade, 100s of birds are going to be killed per day from flying into. Bird holocaust. Not to mention the windmills. (I am a former architect turned geospatial analyst and app developer, with a massive interest in earth sciences)
I read all of this. Sound like the people funding this have zero interest in Natural occurrences or the effect it may bring on the back end. This is for pure design ONLY.
@@GA3S_ I heard an interesting theory on another channel about this: basically, the Saudi Crown Prince, who is a total crook, with horrible human rights record, who has a team of thugs who carry out heinous, unnatural extrajudicial killings at his word, who is the one behind this project and promoting it (you can see him in the video), is using the project purely as a means of rehabilitating his and Saudi Arabia’s image. Apparently they are claiming that this “perfect city” will have its own separate judicial code, lessened restrictions on their conservative Islamic theocratic law, etc. Basically the idea is, the goal of the project might not be to actually get a city built and populated, but rather what’s actually more important is just convincing the world that Saudi Arabia is a place where such a thing **could** happen, that it is a good place to invest in for businesses around the world, and that it’s more progressive than they thought. Kind of an architectural project as performative politics. This is actually more common than most people know in architectural history, and it’s a tool especially employed by authoritarian regimes wishing to rehabilitate their image or celebrate their grandiosity. Both the 3rd Reich and Mussolini’s Italy had huge public architectural projects that went uncompleted and functioned much in the same way (though they also did complete some of them). Another big reason for this architectural marketing ploy is that Saudi Arabia’s oil won’t prop it up forever, and it needs to pivot to a different kind of economy, and the Saudis are starting to bank hard on international finance and investment, advanced research, and renewable energy. The theory is that this project is kind of the flagship of this new Saudi future economy, and in this contemporary world that consumes media and virtual reality as content and message, they may not even have to build the entire city to accomplish their goals.
And with everything being so closely packed together, repairs are going to be a nightmare. If you live in Los Angeles or New York City etc how much traffic is generated by road work or sewer repairs and things like that. How will people get any sunlight at the lower levels?
Rural communities have tons of line-villages: everyone builds their farmhouse along the main road, with their fields basically in their backyard. It does not scale well: everyone wants to live close to the town square.
@@hicknopunk well you‘re also not totally stupid , those who will buy into this concept are the exact people that will tolerate nothing but the closest place to town center Each and every one of them
You have to respect the absolute audacity that this is even being considered, will most probably get not even a quarter of the way completed before I feel it will be either drastically shortened or just abandoned
A quarter? Dubai had zero master plan no one can go anywhere without a car. It's a boondoggle. Soon as the economy if world collapses this will be abandoned. Why a straight line why not circular? Coz they are engineers who don't think about anything except paper drawings. Sand is not amenable to heavy buildings which will shift or crack under weight.
Humans invented cars,plans,phones,went through space,yes this is really hard and it'll probably take a long time but it's not impossible,stop wearing people down just because of your stupid opinion.
Option 3 feels much more likely to me, they have a ton of resources and it does seem theoretically possible, but I think it’s definitely either not going to meet the insane scale they proposed or not meet it for many many years
not to mention the amount of brine a desalination plant would generate to supply fresh water to a structure that size. The desalination plants in california are already creating ecological dead zones
I think this will end up like other mega projects that just halt one day and never resume. But I do hope this succeeds even if it’s marginally smaller than the renders because it does look kinda sick and would definitely make for an interesting mega projects documentary.
Also any lessons learned from building NEOM can go into building Agropolis. i.e., a huge tower the size of a city, but many many stories high, with farms inside *and* outside, on the roof and around the walls, capable of housing an entire country's worth of people and also feeding them, using much less land space and while not carbon zero, cycles the carbon dioxide back into the vegetation the inhabitants consume.
I hope it fails so badly that they don't even make a dent in their budget before they divert the rest towards building up existing neighbourhoods and investing in public transportation in their cities. Thats never going to happen, they would need to care about their citizens first.
Or maybe instead of making another luxurious, inaffordable superstructure for the wealthy they should focus on improving the state of already existing cities, investing in public transit and the like
I'd be interested in an estimate of raw materials needed for the project. Must be unimaginable amounts of steel and concrete. Are the amounts needed even available? I don't see this ever getting anywhere near complete.
That was my concern, most of the steel/iron will come from Australia. Failing that, expect mining operations in Africa & South America to kick into high-gear. I read an estimate; "a carbon footprint of about 1.8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent in the glass, steel, and concrete". Think of the surveillance capabilities of a purpose built city.
I don't have any idea how the fuck they will be able to feed that much amount of houses and buildings only using solar and wind, having to move energy is gonna be a nightmare
I would never ever want to put a foot in there. This is a prison that would limit people’s freedom to an insurmountable extent! I hope it never becomes a reality.
Well yeah, these is a reason you dont build cities in a line. Deliberately building the one thing all other cities continiously strive to avoid, "bottlenecks". Its like asking for congestion. One accident, one technical fault and your whole city is locked down.
If you use Sentinel Hub Playground or EO Browser, you can actually see that, as of today, the construction does actually span about 153km, give or take a bit for mountainous terrain and areas where it hasn't yet started. It's quite impressive how easily you can spot it from the satellite imagery!
5:00 your calculator math only makes sense in theory. There are way more people working on this, and also, you mentioned it yourself, they will certainly work in parallel
I wonder how the desert will work on those buildings. Sand and wind are some of the roughest combinations when it comes to wearing stuff down. I assume a sandstorm would essentially sandblast all the windows, making them blurry as heck.
Ok, just hear me out. Instead of constructing a 170km long line, we'll bend the two ends of each wall in a circle to meet each other, that way less space is taken up. We can remove one of the walls and repurpose it for building structures inside said circle. We could also just remove the last wall. By doing this, any disasters that might occur on the line damaging a section will not render the sections of the line inaccessible to each other. A circle design also improves efficiency as utilities won't have to travel 170 kilometers to reach the end, but rather a much smaller diameter of 6.6 kilometers to reach either side. We can also account for the growth of population, so instead of being confined to your population by the walls, the city can expand and therefore support more people. So there you go. Fixed your line. Thank me later Neom!
You’re essentially describing a hub and spoke design, which many cities are based on. Of course the difference is that the city center is literally in the center, and then the spokes extend out from there, which are then connected by concentric circles (highways), where most of the suburban population lives. Check out the Dallas metropolitan area for a great example.
@@davidswanson5669 I think (but might be wrong) that Sussus Amogus is purposefully describing turning it into a more traditional city, as a funny critique of the idea =P.
Perimeter = Pi times diameter (or 2 times radius). If we talk about a true circle the diameter would be 54,112km(P=170km), not 6,6km(P=20,73km). But thats still way better than 170km from end to end.
I'll be keeping an eye on this over the years. Very interested to see how they fair, and if it fails miserably, we should still be able to take a lot away from the attempt if nothing else. Gonna be fucking impressive even if they only get some of it done
@@yaboyrams9500 doubt it. A city is not sustainable purely of tourism, especially an unnecessarily expensive one like this one. There best hope is to occupy it with a bunch of rich people(which seems to be the plan). Realistically i dont see any way this will ever be profitable
They'll keep the construction until their oil resources are depleted. Most rich people in arab got rich by trading oil until then they still have unlimited money.
@@bitasaurapart from it being a glass structure in the middle of a desert and it being completely removed from society by being in a desert… and that to get from end to end will probably take a longer commute than its worth. And it looks ugly as hell.
@@bitasaur location, looks, being crammed like sardines with other people, the cost to be there is going to be ridiculous, supply problems will arise because 1 dust storm is going to decimate solar panels, I could go on and on but don't feel like typing an essay...
Even simple heat management on this scale would be a challenge. Heat transfer is tied to surface area, and they have eliminated fully half of the available surface area by connecting thousands of towers in a line, and then half again by putting a second line next to it.
Not quite following. Yes heat management will be an issue, but by eliminating sides, you reduce the amount of heat that will transfer into the building from outside, which is a good thing at least in my perspective. However cooling these buildings will require insane amounts of energy and there is no way solar and wind farms are going to be sufficient to do it.
@@monkymind4316 They'll use the energy from the powerful desert sun to run their air conditioning so to keep out the heat from the powerful desert sun. Sand will absolutely scratch the life out of solar panels and jam up wind farms like no one's business. I predict that not only will this be abandoned mid construction, but it will also be less habitable than desert surrounding it.
Yeah... Except the other side is in the desert sun whilst usual buildings will have other buildings covering them. Generally it's just way to big and totally unnecessary too. If this was an intelligent solution to anything it might have worked but it's just some kind of heat stroke feather dream.
@@einfachnurleo7099 I think that's why they have mirrors on the side? The reflection would avoid the heat of the dessert but I cant imagine standing outside the wall being reflected all the sunlight, it could be one of the most dangerous spots in the world to just stand around
they’ve thought about this. trust me. they have all the money in the world to hire the greatest engineers and scientists to plan this out. they dont need opinions of amateurs on youtube.
@@llIlIlllII if i look out of my window, there is a forest, 300m away....i can drive thru it with my bicycle for another 3km...before i hit the high speed railroad....
I love watching rich Saudi assholes waste money for no apparent reason, but they are just going to use slave labour to do it, and end up leaving most of them there when this thing fails miserably. Wonder if it's just a homelessness solution for Dubai
I have heard of closed down shopping malls being turned into condos/apartments with coffee shops and small businesses downstairs and housing up stairs. So I would say it's not a terrible idea and also not out of the question, but the scale of the project is obviously too large. Probably a much smaller/modular version could be a realistic idea.
Those work well in already built cities that have established industry etc. this is going to be a new city in middle of nowhere. You are going to be stuck with the things close to you on this straight line. Hope you don’t find a job on the other side of the line. The whole point of living in a self sustained community is that you DONT have to commute. This shape of this feature will require everyone to commute to be able to enjoy all aspects of the structure. That in in itself defeats its purpose.
@@Hlebuw3k our cities if you think about it it was all forest and jungles back in the time. It’s just a normal cycle, eventually it will be populated like it or not
What do you think? Will the Line ever be completed? 🏗️
I kinda hope so, it would be cool
yes
Will probably be build but will be abandoned in a couple of years.
I think it could be possible but this isn't needed. They could spend that money somewhere else better used.
Probably build a section of it which would sell at super high price at starting then after a year or two it would be abandoned
This is gonna be one of the coolest abandoned structures
This will be the hottest tourist attraction - just not in the way the saudi govt think it will turn out
lolol
urban explorers in 20 year from now are gonna have a blast'
I admire your optimism!🤙🏼
Urbex heaven
Absolutely no chance this won’t fail miserably
someone tells him that if he digs a trench it will be easier than these buildings
These guys have unlimited cash flow. I think they'll get it up but filling it and it becoming prosperous is another question, but it will be built.
The corruption problems alone could sink this project
Yeah, I predict a line of palm trees, a few goats/camels and a desalination plant.
@Ahmet Emre Dapu - cmon, G, you know what I mean.
Option 4: They accelerate the build process by using cheap labor and cheap materials and once the project is finished the problems start arriving one by one until it is abandoned.
it’s exactly how dubai was built, borderline slave labor.
nah these people are rich as hell, so rich they are digging trenches across their country
@@JT-wo7nx if they are so rich, why do they abandon their projects due to lack of funding?
@@connor3959 They are so rich they don’t have time to work themselves, use those underpaid workers!
@@connor3959 cause u don’t stay rich by spending ur money
This will be a psychological test for the inhabitants to see how long it will take for people to go mad while they're in a perpetual state of lockdown in the middle of the desert.
Yea a true prison for the mentally insane 😂
Mecca was barren dessert thousand years ago. But now place for million of people. Ishmaelites are used to live in the dessert.
The biggest problem with projects this size is that anything you don't get exactly right is multiplied by the scale. If they get anything even a little wrong the whole mess is gonna be huge. First thought is how much sand is gonna blow up against whichever side the prevailing wind comes from.
I wonder if anyone involved thought of that yet
The sand thing I mean.
@@nsh1980 Probably yes, but got told to sit down and shup up when they tried to tell someone higher up the chain.
@@grantharriman284 I was thinking of the animals not having a way through but that is nothing compared to a giant dune building up the side and spilling in
@@grantharriman284 sorry money speaks over information, greedy people make dumb decisions to get comfortable, that oil money ain’t gonna spend itself
This is gonna go two ways. Either they realize a literal Cyberpunk 2077 style megacity is impossible to construct and it becomes abandoned after 8% completion, OR, they come to their senses and make a way smaller sensible version which is just a very long appartement building with a metro line running through it. It's very clear that the people who have to plan this straight up lied to the investors about its feasibility/time to build.
Bruh even a Cyberpunk styled city is more realistic than this. 😂
this city will not be built but if it is built it will be empty for the most part it will look like star trek but as abandoned as detroit and as hot as the desert around it
it simply impossible even if they just build 1 story building with metro line under it
@Falos PT definitely agree, even if they build it, who whould want to live there, it's more look like a prison for me 😆
A building that requires an infinite amount of construction is every politician’s dream.
Politicians will be making billions under the table with this.
Carbon neutral? What about the billions of tons of concrete and steel needed to complete the construction? Let alone all the logistics involved. Pure madness
Yea, also the infrastructure- railways, roads...
Can u name a city with 9m people that is carbon neutral?? By carbon neutral they meant no carbon emmisions after being built
bro where is your mine😃
Also due to the glass exterior of the building which will reflect sunlight back, it would affect the ecosystem
@@vincent4258 the making does count, always has when talking about emissions/carbon footprint
Why are people so negative about this project. And why can't this not be achieved? Something seems impossible just because we never did it before. This applies to so many concepts and ideas, but some of those impossible ideas have been realized, and they are not longer impossible. We humans are capable of much more than we think we are. Kudos to Saudi Arabia for taking this bold initiative. Best of luck to them!!!
Amazing! Can’t wait for the “Why this massive building project failed” video in about 5 years.
You mean every 5 years
depends. The great wall of china replica was the same thing (Yeah the great wall of china today is a replica.). Heck even the Chinese didn't mind it even if it costed billions in our time today. Heck the suburbs of America is the same thing as the old Soviet housings called commie blocks (A more efficient version of suburbs and much more economically doable and efficient.) just without the whole putting hundreds of people in large apartments fit for 4-5 people. The line probably will be possible. In a few years after technology advances they would be doable. Heck the line will Probably one of the greatest human built city in our lifetime. If technological progress will expand exponentially it will be a world marvel.
This will fail so massively, the state of Saudi Arabia itself is at danger.
@@mam0lechinookclan607 even if it succeeds, all it would take is two missile strikes at each end and now the entire population is trapped in the desert. The line would make for an incredible national weak spot from a military strategy perspective
55 years you mean?
" Every architecture's dream is an engineers nightmare. "
yeah an engineer's nightmare i feel u
And a tradesperson's night terror.
100 percent true
Actually it's more of a nightmare for many reasons.
"An" engineers dream. When the next word starts with a vowel or sounds like a vowel "a" becomes "an"
Also your entire population in a structure where resistance to government is essentially impossible. No way to travel freely, doors that are controlled by authority and can be cut off with no way around, no way to move around without being identified, whole section that can be contained at will. A line is a perfect type of structure where you can place small force at any two points to easily contain "problematic" neighbourhood.
An authoritarian's dream.
Hmmmm maybe that's why they doing this....
I can already see a cyberpunk style game around this concept being made, its perfect.
Interesting
It works both ways. Guerilla forces could use the same principle to cut off sections of the line from government influence. Doors can be blasted or cut open and security cams painted over or smashed.
RIP to all the birds flying into those mirrors
In the middle of a desert?
I’m no architect or urban planner, but to me it seems like when it comes to public works like this, the grander and prettier the idea, the more removed from what is physically possible (and how humans actually live) and the greater the likelihood of failure.
Who asked for this? This is really the worst plan that have a high chance of failure.
the first six words summed up your POV really.
"I’m no architect or urban planner, and therefore my views have nothing to be based on, but imma spout it anyway"
@@djjc9782 they’re based on my being interested in these kinds of things and having lived long enough to see numerous plans like it fail. I’m not a professional, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spot trends in my environment and in human behavior.
@@djjc9782 Ok, but there is this inside joke among civil engineers that goes along the lines of: "Architects are there to design buildings and civil engineers are there to tell them why those designs won't work." Basically, architects and civil engineers have to find a compromise between art and what's actually possible/feasable. Neom looks like an architect's project without really consulting a civil engineer.
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 this. It pretty much all boils down to the ego of the architect being almost inevitably crushed by the people who actually know what they're talking about. This scenario seems to fall squarely in that category, let alone how humans would handle the structure itself if it was somehow miraculously constructed. Ambition is a fine thing to have, but to say it must be tempered by those who know the devil in those details is the understatement of the year..
On one hand, I love to see giant stuff get built. On the other hand, living in a building like that is like living in a city but even worse.
Have you ever lived on one, know anybody that have lived on one, or have any evidence/record whatsoever of people living in a city like this?
I'm gonna get ahead of you, and say: yeah, that's what I thought.
You're welcome to speculation, theorizing, or simply raising discussion questions of what it would be like to live in a place like this. But when you phrase it like a statement "it's like living in a city but even worse", you just sound ignorant because you literally have no idea of what you're actually saying (you have nothing to backup your claim)
@@marcoa.7235ah yes, because this very specific thing based on condensing a city into a line doesn’t exist, the argument is null.
Yay!!!!!!!
Prison maybe?
no cars is like the only good thing here
this line is going to be either one of the largest abandoned projects ever or a dystopian nightmare to live in
I cant wait until all the bug eaters & vegans move there. Klass Shwabb & co can have it.
I thought of it as being utopian, I would love to know why u think it would be dystopian 🙏
@@Michael_the_believer Because you already know the rich people will live at the top where space and resources will be plenty. The poor people like maids and servants will probably be doomed to live at the bottom where they won’t get much sun and live in squalor. Living inside of the line is it going to be like the hunger games
it sounds like the biggest prison ever made.....
@@Michael_the_believer kowloon 2.0
I’m an expat living in Saudi for over 35 years. My family and I love it here and we love the people.
Historically Saudi has always been ahead of its own requirements in terms of construction and development of cities over decades.
The Line will succeed over time.
But there is one aspect in our view that may be overlooked.
Why would people come to The Line ?
1- this will certainly be the most exciting place to be. But living here would need a certain sense of comfort to last over time.
2- Saudi is probably the only region with the REAL Arab life and feel. This potential may be underestimated and overlooked.
All said we wish The Line all best.
finally rational dude
This whole thing is sort of like that feeling you get when you see someone making a bad decision, but you know you can't do anything about it because it's their life to live, and you feel bad for that person because you know what's likely going to happen.
For me, this is more of seeing a person make a bad decision, knowing they won't back down, and then deciding to sit back with some popcorn to enjoy the reck
but that person is infinitely more rich than you are
They’re rich and they don’t give a fuck
Yeah but also you wanne see how it turns out😂
5his is more like me seeing someone make a bad decision, but npt stopping them since the outcome will be interesting.
This will most likely end up being left incomplete. The scale and magnitude alone are astronomical. There are several factors that I doubt the architects or anyone else in the design process thought of ranging from health issues to environmental/weather. We'll see just how 'beneficial' this project ends up being and pray it doesn't cause any significant detrimental changes
That's what Im afraid of unfortunately, its sad to see wasted projects. Best case scenario is that a smaller scaled project could be implemented based on what was incomplete.
Nooo, you get it all wrong, it worked perfectly in cgi phase, how different real life could be? You are just incels jealous of the east trying to make clean and rEnEWabLe things to save da planet.
no one in history has built anything that long and straight, it literally cannot work cause of the planet...
Yeah, it seems incredibly naive to immediately jump into building the entire thing. That's true of any complex project, especially one where psychology will be a huge factor.
It will take a few years of people living there before they know what aspects of the design actually make sense. Hopefully they start with building a scaled down version and spend a decade solving whatever problems arise before building it at the proposed massive scale.
But, I'm willing to bet the egos behind this concept will assume their genius ideas are already perfect and could never fail, ironically ensuring it never had a chance of success.
People pretending like they all professionals in the comments lol😂
I'm curious about the global supply of the raw materials needed for this project and how it will effect the costs of said materials should the project actually come to fruition.
There won’t be enough materials and with prices of materials currently it will be a wast of effort. The energy akin to transport this much steel, sand, cement, etc. will be astronomical. And what about all the tractors, cranes, bulldozers that need to be transported to the edges of nowhere. This is not the same as getting your construction materials downtown to build a big project. The sheer effort to transport all this material resources and workers is going to have GIANT carbon footprint and cost way more than they planned.
@@mackdeen7021 i think that a promising part of this would be the feasibility of moving his resources because it is right next to the ocean in several spots throughout the construction and there most likely will be a train line running down the entire project to further deliver resources. it will still be a massive undertaking, but insanely large structures have been built with worse conditions.
let them waste all money they earn from 2020.
With renewables rise. they will soon die, if didn't have money saved to invest in being power house for whole world using solar power.
There’s more then enough ressources
Heres a free tip find out which materials they are using buy it up and sell it to them fine saudi sheiks at a nice price.
This project is a fantastic example of how humanity should think bigger. All of the possible issues and hurdles not withstanding, we are short sighted as a species. If this project takes 100years, the benefit only realized by people two or three generations after us, it will be a monument to this leader's care for his country. My two cents.
the benefit will be an abandoned monument to a dead man's ego, like the pyramids but uglier, for future generations to hopefully learn from
Looking like a build out of a 5000 days hardcore series in Minecraft.
5000 days is crazy
Building from spawn to the farlands project
100 days*
@@elmota8011 SB737, check him out, he’s great.
I think they’ll construct like 5-10km of it (still a LOT), with a big chunk of it being a very watered down version of the plan (like a lake, or huge field or suchlike), and only maybe a km or two, really being close to the initial blueprint. I don’t care how much oil moneys they have, this project isn’t viable.
Yeah, I mean 170km can’t be realistic, that’s insane. I mean even LA which is one of the widest cities on earth is maybe like half as wide generously. Now of course this is just a line, however it’s also 500 meters tall and 200 meters wide, supposed to contain as much as any huge multi-million people city.
Yeah there’s no way this will be done even by 2040
It's going to be scaled way down and then abandoned in a few years just like everything else
Nah bro if the people behind this live long enough they will complete it. Money can get you into space. Nothing is impossible.
You'd be surprised to see the wonders of money, exploited labor and machinery working together to achieve this project.
@@Icetea-2000 Great wall of china was built over 2500 years with insane amount of deaths. It is almost 125 times longer than neom too and logistics and technology back then was much slower. As long as you pour in enough money, this project could be easily completed within 2 decades.
I think the biggest challenge of this build would be, carrying my sofa through the city to get to my place 5 minutes deep into this thing. There's no freaking grip on that sofa I tell you.
Youll own nothing and be happy.
You WILL live in the line with 9 million other people.
I can help you but I'm not strong and without grip it'll be hard 😔
Sofas will be made from 3d printed polymer composite components available from the lobby in the line maybe
Damn straight 😂 I have moved sofas around for some people and the same thing always comes to mind ! I wish this had handles lol😂
Tbh it's genius pure genius. The beauty and simplicity of the design is very advanced as far as concepts go
Nothing changes the fact it's a country ran by horrible people.
Moving into a kennel to be completely dependent on your overlords. Yup, sounds pure genius
"Advanced design" -------------------------------------------------------------------
I had an idea for a game called "The Line," you played as a delivery worker in a city shaped like a line trying to get specific goods to specific sections of the city. The reason why the game was interesting is because a line is a horrible logistics nightmare for a city, probably the worst possible shape! There weren't any cars in my idea either. It's crazy, my desertbus-like idea is a reality! I hope this can be built so I can work as a postman there and play my game IRL.
Actually its the opposite this if it works could eliminate cars from city's, imagine not having to drive across town to get groceries instead everything is within a 5 min walk , its actually genius and a perfect layout for a city
Now id never live there because I fucking can't stand city life period I stay in the country but I can see the potential here and I dont like it much but I gotta say its a fucking smart city plan I hope it works
@@Cold_Cactus You don't need a line-shaped city to eliminate cars. And you certainly don't need a line-shaped city to have places to buy groceries from within 5 minutes of walking. This entire thing is literally just an utopian idea that is about 100 years too early. Honestly gives the same vibes as Elon's Boring Company just reinventing trains and subways.
Exactly! Anyone who has ever gone to a very large so how level shopping mall will be familiar with the joy of realising the shop you actually need to get to is on the opposite end.
@@Cold_Cactus they say "5 min walk" but how achievable is this actually? If you think about it you can put a lot more stuff close to each other if you make something 2D rather than 1D like the line. Idk if I'm missing something but from a proximity point of view it really doesn't make sense
You're not mistaken, the Saudi prince plays video games and he loves that game in particular. It's doubtless that he has a fantasy that wants to shape it in real life.
Imagine the next generations get to see a really long strip of metal that was supposed to be a giant city but was abandoned
we no longer need to imagine
10000 years from now on an episode of Ancient Aliens…
that sounds a lot like the lorax Thneedville 💀💀
Weather it is or isn't completed doesn't make it good.
Imagine them thinking how ingenious they are and yet all they managed to come up with is a line permanently separating ecosystems for all the ground dwelling fauna.
I could have come up with something better age 4.
And white-walls in a plant surrounded environment, bad choice.
This project is going to be the equivalent of Cyberpunk 2077's launch.
They started a even bigger failure than the last three they did!
THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA IT IS A FAIL!
Tbh I really wanna experience a cyberpunk era
I cant wait for the people T-posing
@@ZenitsuKunn that would be so horrible, views would be sick tho
More like the launch of Half-Life 3
Hopefully, the builders will do a video diary of the process for the next few years. Something ongoing and published on RUclips would be especially interesting to watch. Should make for incredible footage...☺
Imagine being born in the line and never leaving
There will be a whole generation of those people. No one will be allowed to leave because that defeats the purpose of net zero.
That's what they have in mind for us all. Lockdowns we're just a test run.
The elite will be free to roam the world, but we'll be stuck in these metal junkyards.
@hا no need to imagine that some book says there is ? ah yeah mate my mate of my mate tole me
then it will become real life attack on titan
@@shakti666 lmao they didnt even build the first 1cm of glass and this random dude saying no one is allowed to leave like he owns this project or will live enough to see it finished
I see three options of my own here:
Option 1: It gets abandoned partway through construction and becomes the middle east's most popular urban exploration site
Option 2: A significant amount of construction is completely obliterated by any number of natural or human (intentional or accidental) disasters and the whole thing goes up in smoke, potentially literally
Option 3, the most unlikely: The project is completed as intended and very quickly becomes a grim, dystopian nightmare on the level of Deus Ex or Blade Runner
Why would it become any more grim and dystopian than any other Saudi city?
@@wisemankugelmemicus1701 living in KSA is far, far better than living in the USA
Real life Night City :P
@@tinyrodent2821 I mean sure, if you’re a Saudi. If you’re a woman, foreigner, non-Muslim, or literally anyone else you can get fucked
@@tinyrodent2821 How often are people publically beheaded in the USA?
I'm curious if they tested this build on how it would react to the elements, if were talking realistically here, it would probably take decades to make progress on this one due to the scale of the project
Knowing how this particular Saudi price operates, it doesn't matter. This is meant to be a distraction for the masses. They have separatist elements, never ending war with Yemen, and israel breathing down on its neck. He's trying to use this as both as unifying factor and reputation booster. The journey is the goal, the "goal" isn't the goal
They tested it in creative
@@cykomiko6924 lmfao
It’s too big, too ambitious, too expensive, and isn’t realistic. They need to get with the time.
@@iwatchwithnoads7480 SA is now on good terms with Israel, as of recently
Well I'm happy that this country is actually bringing some new ideas. Even if this project failed then atleast they tried to accomplish something futuristic.
Futuristic? I‘d call it idiotic
I can’t wait to fly here in 10 years time and explore the abandoned remains it’s gonna be awesome
Abandoned malls Saudi edition
someone tells him that if he digs a trench it will be easier than these buildings
what abandoned remains? you realise they are litteraly trying to make a massive fucking mirror. that shit is going to be nuked down for increasing the temperature on earth... no litteraly this shit is going to burn and destroy anything that lives outside the walls. any animal that lives out there will be burned like you burn ants with a magnifying glass.
will u be alive by then ? remember this World is temporary a test for afterlife by Allah (the God). real life begins after this.
@@bitstack1305 you're insane bro
Being able to turn around and clearly see the sky everywhere is underrated.
have you tried not living in a city
pretty easy when you're in the desert i think
Get in your pod, pleb, and eat your bug paste!
Yeah imagine if NEOM closed up 😭 let the hunger games begin
@@masonsummers7902 have you tried learning to read?
I feel like The Line would be what you imagine when you think of a dystopian world or movie.
Cause it is
Like "Snowpiercer" only this would be a line instead of a train.
It pretty much is.
It’s got blade runner vibes for sure
Cause it is, it’s fantasy. The line isn’t realistic and will never be completed.
I really appreciate the way you imagine it broken down into sections. You are a prophet.
I think it'll be constructed at a much smaller scale (with many parts toned down compared to the amazing renders). Then people will try to compare it's original ideas and what was actually constructed
like battlefield 2042's trailer compared to the gameplay itself.
@@memes4life118 maybe, it's to early tho.
@@memes4life118 Execpt this time the trailer made no sense and would not work off the jump
and that would be a falour already
Yes, you can already tell by the trench footprint.
Imagine living in a mall.. the first few days will be exciting, the first week one of the best weeks of your life, and the first month enough to drive you insane.
It's just not real life. Everything looks the same
My wife lives in a mall... I think she was insane before she got there.
nothing wrong with bazaars crowded & full of life & all merchandise on display it's modern architecture that's formless and practical and alienating
I think with the vertical planning - the residential part will be on the upper levels so it won't feel like being in a mall.
Health and safety would worry me greatly though - a major fire would surely rip right through these mirrored walled structures in no time with very little chance of escape for residents.
Yes exactly, malls are great but nothing is better than actually staying outside in the wide open and relaxing. This line that they're planning to make is going to be a dystopian nightmare
There are a lot of things about this that make me think it's the dumbest idea since pre-sliced fruit, but i'm more interested in the psychological effects that living in a straight line would cause to be honest.
Yeah, at least in Dubai there is architectual variety and people want to go there! Have you tried getting to NEOM? Hilarious.
cant wait to eat bugs
Or living behind a wall whichever side you look. In a theocratic absolutist state. That's like a setup for anti-utopia.
Hey hey, I agree but leave the fruit out of it you monster
Bad experiment seeing as how most of the test subjects will already be crazy before moving in.
I find it interesting the concept of "turning it into the first car-free city". Its not that hard of a thing to make when you're building a city from scratch, it doesn't require that much of creativity since there's other ways of going around that already exists. I want to see people get creative about solving this problem with cities that already exists.
Car free cities already existed in Switzerland for decades.
It's called the alps
@@Mr-pn2eh we have an island in michigan that is horse/bike only
There's car free cities in Nigeria now.
This is just propaganda & impractical. And even if they built a narrow stretch of line, who in the right state of mind would want to go live in an isolated building located in desert
this is like a real-life Black Mirror episode
black mirror stopped because real life was just too dystopian that they ran out of ideas that are not in the real world yet (just kidding, unless...?)
U.S.A. is a real life black mirror
Why does everybody view this as dystopian? I understand saying this will never be completed, but calling it dystopian even if it was possible? Why?
Because it is. I'd imagine there'd be a heavy class difference, richer people live close to the sky, poorer people live in the shadows near the ground.
@@creativecipher aren't we already have that in most of city nowdays ? Rich people live in hillsides poor people live in the slump 🤔
As much as I wish the project would turn out exactly how it's planned to, I feel like this is just going to be like Dubai's World Islands
Right - no one wants to live there and couldn't afford to even if they did. It's conceptually foolish and an ugly, claustrophobic place to live, ignoring many practical realities in favor of a flashy, stupid gimmick that plays poorly in real life.
Yep
Or the Jeddah tower
Or the Three Gorges Dam once it finally collapses and kills a few dozen million people.
Read a hive world 40k novel and tell me you want this project completed again.
I am glad it will never be made, this shit would be dystopian as shit.
The rendering looks crazy, but I suppose that it's about 100-200 years too early for such a project
Maybe 50 years
I think it's about 2000 years too late for such a dumb fucking project
We gotta fail several times in order to succeed.
@@springerworks002 But why so obvious with such a dumb concept.
yeah but in 100 years they wont have the oil money they have now
If anyone can pull it off it’s honestly these guys. They have built some of the most amazing structures in the last two decades and everyone said they wouldn’t back then.
❤
I was in Saudi last week and met one of the workers at Neom. Even the workers don’t believe it will actually be completed.
we've had the internet, fuelled machines and technology for decades already.
it's about time someone atleast TRIED building something on the scale of a world wonder.
@@fredriks5090 like the palm islands right?
@@dustin3596 the palm islands are just a dumb idea, not even that crazy, just taking sand from the sea floor and piling it up
@@fredriks5090 we have.....
the burj khalifa is a wonder of the world
@@Alucard-gt1zf lol a wonder of the world? it's just a really tall building that's not connected to a sewer
Well I’ve heard of drawing a line in the sand but this is taking that to an unheard of level..
Very true. I wonder if life there would be so straightforward 🤔.
Certainly, living in the basement would be my bottom line.
@@Erime thank goodness there will be be no crime, wear and tear, and all sorts of other city issues....but now in a closed environment?? Bullets flying around in this place. Eek.
Or some kind Titanic issue ensues....like disease spreading in a closed and isolated place.
Fire! Everybody out!!!! Let's get 1 million people out in 2 minutes. Eek. Locking folks in China in their apartments didn't work...when a fire broke. Many people died as they were locked inside?!? What are the exiting strategies?
Is it easy to come in and out and visit the rest of the world?
Mom...what does the real world look like? I don't know my son...I've never left here.
Emergencies? The list is long.
Neat idea though.
Alienated and isolated communities don't always work.
Social constructs will be interesting to study once people live there for generations. Hm.
Weather? Nothing like some horrible weather conditions dipping into that box like structure. How will that enter the villages?
yea
yea
yea
Did I miss the part that showed where and how sewage plants would treat the waste water from such a linear population? Massive seaside plants would be my guess, located near the desalination infrastructure of course!
Yeah you missed it because it’s a 10 minute video not a 10 hour one
They could always use the poop truck caravan strategy of the UAE’s Burj Khalifa
@@qvindicator that thing happened once in 2008, it has been fixed ever since
Well, there is thing called waste water treatment plant, which recycles waste matter into pure solids and drinkable liquids
@@qvindicator where do the poop trucks go to afterwards tho?
I think building in sections is great, not just in terms of time, money etc.. but also to get feedback from people. This way, problems with the design or living ng situation can be understood, and countermeasures taken when building the next section of the line
yeah, and who knows, maybe the line can be extended even beyond 170KM, or be branched or split as it keeps up building
Exactly what i was thinking ....Why build that much line, when you don't even know if it's gonna work out!
I'm waiting for the video titles
" abandoned mega project in the desert "
Or 'Construction complete but here's why we still hate it''
Why are white people SO jealous?
I am surprised, confused, excited, and skeptical all at the same time. I figured this would stay a concept for a long time and then eventually fade out with all the problems they come across in the design stage. I was very surprised to see they started construction on this. They do have a tendency to abandon big projects but they have also completed some amazing feats as well. Nothing compares to this but I’m excited to see where this goes
I’m just appalled. Do they never learn?
ruclips.net/video/bH-TlC0111Q/видео.html Alaskan Town That Lives In One Building - Isolated From The World 🇺🇸
Even if it is completed as envisioned, it looks like a authoritarian dystopic nightmare. Sounds like luxury prison.
@@____________________________.x they have almost infinite money. They can throw money and see what works.
@@____________________________.x learn on what? This project will come to conclusion
It'll be a great tourist hotspot, especially photographers that like abandoned structures.
Realy would your wife want to go thier if your a Christian. Wearing a permanent face cover.??????
@@wallytunk5848 she wouldn't like it but I'll force her
Gon be far from abandoned 💀
@@Gabriel-jg5wh en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeddah_Tower
@@Gabriel-jg5wh yeah. Theyd actually have to finish it and convince people to move in.
Come on man. Its made of glass.....in the dessert. Think for a second please for the love of god.
Option 3! What is exciting is the possibility of it creating a different climate behind the line structure, which could make the inland desert side into a tropical landscape!
Hello
Tropical Prison 😬
@@debt.1001 I see that you see very clearly! Thank you for being awake to the tenebrous BS!
When I attended architecture school in 1974, Arocsanti was a big dream to reimagine urban living. This will also fail simply because it is limiting the human experience to its walls.
Definetly. That was one single thought I couldn't shake while watching this video. There is no way this is going to be super attractive.
@Ari Well I'm sure you'll be offered a place.
@Ari lol yes you can predict the future - if there is one thing persistent in human nature than it is that "history repeats itself" - and in that sense, the world is full of "ideal dream cities of the future in 50 years" that ALL failed because it was one idiot who imagined it in his fever dream of every monkey thinks his way.
It is utterly easy to learn from the past about the failures of the future, but no one cares about the past anymore because you cant make money of it - yet you can easily predict the stupidity of mankind.
That’s a bit short sighted which is sorta the point. By that logic, nobody could/would live on an island because it’s boundaries are limiting “growth”.
No. Respectfully, this is a long term vision from a country that has a leader who is enamored with future building. Like it or not, some of the most ground breaking advancements environmental and urban blending is in the Middle East. Built in sections, this project will be reality in some form.
@@blackout42084 with all due respect there are no THRIVING, growing, island cities where the human experience is limited to "a 5 minute walk". People abandon those isolated cities and villages for a broader world on a regular basis.
Just the fact that on an island you have swimming, surfing, paragliding, sailing, snorkling, a view of sunsets, the sea, other islands, forrested hills, grassy hills, and so on.
And you are trying to compare That to the existence between to walls where lengthwise existence is reduced to 5 minutes left and right. 2 minutes front to back, and 4 minutes from top to bottom, with no view of the horizon, or sunsets, or anything else but your rectangle.
The top where the rich would live will be bright and sunny, and the bottom where the poor will live will be shadowy with little access to direct sunlight.
Yep, it will be a reality that people outright reject.
I honestly didn't think construction would even start on this project. I think it'll be a much scaled down version
It has to start long enough for all the bribes to be paid. Then they can just cancel and abandon it.
sooo, do u think it wont start or it wont be like it is in the renders?, kinda confused here
@@ridgefrost They didn't think it would start, but now that it has, they expect the final to be much scaled down.
@@matthewjozwik6831 no the point of my comment is he says he doesn't think it will start but also says he thinks it will be a scaled down version of this render which means he does believe they'll start
@Stephen lee the video literally states how bigger it is compared to the gorges dam. 40,000 workers taking 17 years to build that? Get that CCP shill bullshit out of here
This seems like a plan that was imagined after someone already had way too many lines 😳
Super stoned
Love it! 🤣
Guys guys guys, so what if we had a line...like a super big line...like "screw you, desert" big
@@IfImCommentingStopMe this is literally the worst idea ever
@@qkgolfy Nah man, it'll be chill--crazy long skyscraper like u never seen. The future man
I really don’t get it:
- Building high is costly, why would you build so high in the desert if you can use the surface?
- What’s the advantage of it being 170 km long, why not have several, parallel lines of 20 Km length, for instance. This would make it much easier to get from point A to point B
- The line also limits what can be built inside. A football stadium might not fit, for instance
- Between the two buildings there won’t be much natural light
- Who’s supposed to live there? Saudi Arabia only has 36 million inhabitants and comparable projects, such as Dubai, only managed to attract about 3 million people
To me it looks like the plan of a 9 year old with a genetical disorder, playing Sim City for the first time in his life
I actually considered option 3. Like sure they want it to be crazy long but it’s more likely they build a small section of it as proof of concept
Then if people seem to go, they get more funding, they can expand it some. More people seem interested, more funding obtained, expand it more. Still seems unlikely they’ll finish it but would be cool
agree
@@MoreMonarchy seems unlikely neither of us will see it fully built within our lifetime. We’ll that’s if they don’t abandon the project
@user-go7yd8qp4c That's what I was thinking - the heat. How are you gonna cool it?
@@paulsawczyc5019 Maybe they'll use slaves to wave money at it really fast.
As incredible a project this might be, I feel sorry for all the deaths that's gonna take place with the work force.
@@vanceoz4080 I still don’t understand if you came to work is this slavery? What?
@@achoch They are not getting paid. Imagine working in that unbearable heat every day and not getting paid. And you can't leave the country because the company has taken your passport.
@@achoch They promise you good pay and then once you’re in country, they take your passport and pay basically nothing. You’re not allowed to leave since you don’t have your passport so you have to work.
@@slowlywakingup they can contact their embassy my guy its not the 18th century
@@slowlywakingup bro what do you mean they are not getting paid my dad was in Qatar and he told me they be living more than a perfect life they get money from country, they are rich, everyone there has nice cars (he showed me so many pictures), a lot of modern buildings
What could go wrong:
- Ideal structure for an authoritarian regime to control people;
- Environmental impact: a barrier for migratory animals... a huge massacre of birds crashing against the mirror on a scale never seen before;
- Displacement of communities, persecution, imprisonment and death penalty for those who refuse to leave;
- High maintenance, slavery work;
- Easy target for terrorist attacks;
- Like a big shopping center, a playground for millionaires, with cold strangers who don't give a f.. to each other. Don't expect the same spirit of a beautiful village in the mountains, a place with history, culture, a welcoming community... It may be as boring as hell! Three days there and you want to get out, as people do in Qatar when there is no World Cup.
The happiest people in the world with the longest life expectancy live in the Greek island of Ikaria: community, family farming, nature... no animals exploited and slaughtered at an industrial scale. We keep looking at futuristic miracles, but it seems that the secret to live in harmony with the world has always been in the simplest things.
🙏
Mandatory cultural homogeny and unlimited free poultry… the benefits just keep pulling up!
Something else that "could" go wrong if it was ever completed:
Water comes from desalination. This sounds like a magic wand for the unenlightened (I used to be there myself) but desalination on a large scale has a huge problem:
Once clean water has been extracted, you're left with brackish water, a highly saline liquid which you pump into the sea. Where that exits the pipe, there will be no life whatsoever = a ruined eco system.
If you desalinate water on the scale required for this gigastructure, the marine eco system will collapse in the whole area around there and likely have a big knock-on effect on the sea around there.
birds flying in the middle of a dessert?
@@VickylanceMedia Yes, the news say environmentalists are concerned because millions of migratory birds cross the area every year. "The Line" will be a barrier for those animals.
6:36 In Indonesia, cars are the symbol of richness. If you don't have a car, that means you're POOR. In fact, many rich families here have cars MORE THAN ONE. One for daddy, one for mommy, each children has their own cars as well.
very America-centric I'd say, cars is a "necessity" in the US due to the car-culture there.
I'm pretty sure they will halt construction after a year or so
Why?
@@noahc8997re you new? I can reel of a list as long as my arm the number of “super projects” commenced by the arabs out of vanity that either flopped or not completed.
Dubai square mall
Dubai creek tower
Dubai creek
Nakheel tower
World islands
Palm jebel ali
Palm dierra
The crescent
Falcon city of wonders
Universal studios of dubai land
Dubai land in general…
Kingdom tower
Jeddah tower
Masdar city of wonders
Dubais eco city
Dubai world mall
I could go on but i think i made my point. The arab nations are driven by vanity. They want to show the world they can build the biggest, best and most expensive structures in the world in the hopes of attracting the billionaires to come spend their money in their playground.
But like all magpies… they are easily distracted by something shinier and prettier and will forsake their existing project for the new shinier one.
I live In Saudi Arabia and neom signs is everywhere in my city. It seems our government is serious about this project so I don't think this scenario would happened.
@@hornerfarah2282 ive seen powerful signs for a hospital being completed the back of me… they promised it be finished this year and its still a long way off. On top of the construction company going bankrupt.
@@jgprice9990 only time will tell
This concept reminds me of Daybreak, where each segment of the 5 minute walks are probably going to develop a class dynamic. There will be a distinction of people across each segment I think.
you mean, one segment will be occupied, all others will be vacant like most major city projects happen in those area.
it's just a money sink at this point
After Colony
110%
Great point. I never thought of it that way but humans generally seem to end up sort of "cliqueing" together.
At some point there would be a class of people with cars and they would sort of have a North Korean type of system with a huge disparity between the haves and have nots
Making the mother of all lines here, Jack! Can't fret over every curve.
😂😂😂
hell yeah baby
You can't stop me from building jack , the 3d renders have been uploaded to RUclips already
Armstrong would not approve of a ‘green project’ like this.
This will be constructed over at least 2 generations . Sons and daughters will follow. It will be breathtakingly beautiful on every level . Kev.
Generations? LOL! Every dictator chooses his own legacy project. This looney toons brainfart will fail spectacularly
How well will it deal with extreme weather such as sandstorms? how much of a wind tunnel effect will they be dealing with between the walls? How well have they planned the logistics both in construction and when it comes to living supplies for residents when it's completed?
It will have dinosaurs and an artificial moon. Everything else are trivial concerns.
One more thing to add - thermal expansion. They'd have to leave small gaps throughout.
@@Eidako You had me at Dino.
Is is possible to already rent an appointment?
I doubt there would be much wind given the structure that they're going with inside the walls. It's not gonna be hollow in the middle, there's supposed to be structures placed offset from each other, and other trees and things
Money
Whether it's possible or not I'm curious what the physical implications would be of building a huge flat surface across the open desert like that. Would it have some sort of butterfly effect on winds, that effects the jet streams and therefore changes the climate around it, or even have lasting effects on surrounding climates? That would be an interesting subject to see covered.
Good point, but also an interesting one. A project this size and scale would certainly change the winds, and create new rainfall zones. Could these be beneficial?
@@thecleeze6359 As someone who lives in a semi desert area? No. It will most likely act like mountains and create a break in the normal rainfall.
Also if they do the glass idea BOI. THE AREA AROUND IT WILL BE A DEATH RAY
@@elvingearmasterirma7241 Yeah i wonder what they are planning on doing for reflection. there are some buildings they didn't' take that into account and are actual frying pans in the streets below. Imagine you're not allowed to leave the city because it will cook you like a death ray if you step out when the suns on that side of the structure lmao! Some real scorched earth style shit lol
@@Algorythmfpv My guess is nothing. They're building it in a damn straight line. In the middle of a desert.
Nothing about this project screams careful forethought
*It just fucking absorbs and emits a bunch of insufferable light and heat*
The sheer amount of glass needed renders the entire project totally impossible beyond a hint of a doubt. We're already seeing supply issues in the glass manufacturing industry. The Wall will be an economical and ecological disaster beyond measure. "Carbon neutral" concrete and glass are two of the most CO2 intensive materials in current use.
It is built in a desert though. Desert = sand = glass ;)
@@Xlcola dessert sand cannot be used to be a mirror
@@Xlcola was going to say.
But clearly not
@@Xlcola Not all sand is the same. Desert sand has the wrong minerals. It is mostly Gypsum which can’t be made into glass. You need sand high in silica which is mostly found on beaches.
@@bradarnold7834 Saudi Arabia has so little beach style sand, they import sand from Scotland beaches lol
A logistics nightmare. Anyone who has ever played a colony or factory game knows that, if you build your base really long and skinny, getting the resource transportation to wherever it needs to go is utter madness.
The question that remains is how does this structure interact with the ambient weather conditions?
1. During the rare rainfall events, how will the surface flows reach the sea? Are they installing subsurface piping to bypass the city? Could the piping be expanded to include a subsurface reservoir or an infiltration gallery?
2. What will the reflected light do to the adjacent landscape and animals?
3. Will there be migration corridors for animals to pass to/from the sea?
4. What kind of glass will withstand sand storms? Will it be a special glass that does not dull under sandblasting? Or do they have a plan to restore the glass after a sand storm event? What are the logistics of someone doing the repairs, like would it need to be done at night? Can the repairs withstand the temperature changes between night/day?
5. The design imagery is focused on the interior. Are the outside walls transparent so one can look outside, or must there be significant insulation so the view must be to the interior?
These questions are posed to be sure the project is a success, that the walls will function as a canyon creating a lush valley at the floor.
good questions bro 😊
Let me answwear all of those - they're filthy rich, so they don't care.
It's not going to get built like on renders anyway...
The Line - City of Birdstrikes
None of those things will have been thought of
If anyone actually put thought into the designing of this structure they would’ve known it was completely impractical
@@spicylemon7475 but it worked in Minecraft...
The best cities i have ever lived in have had low level vertical living (4 stories) and about 85% of everything I need on a daily basis within a 5 minute walk. All ground level tenancies were retail, offices or services. everything above was residential. being only 4 stories everything was walk up, no elevators were necessary. The sense of community and friendship was fantastic.
Which city is that?
Where is that?
I don’t see the issue with a city built vertically, as long as there’s enough space to have open “planes” like parks & etc… I fail to see how this is any worst than big cities we have. nowadays
But I myself don’t crave big cities in general. I like owning a car and having a house with a yard. Not a fan of apartments or having someone living above my head. The Line solves the traffic / no parking spot issue along with many other big city problems. It’d be a good place for the people who are looking for this type of life style.
Please tell me where so I can move there, lol
@@Soliye. Adam Something made a video about it and explains it better than I ever could, but some big issues are the lack of sunlight, general claustropobia, navigating it is pretty much a nightmare, disease, railways have a ton of potential logistical issues (i.e. what if a train goes down, what if a rail breaks in the middle which is an issue cause it's only one direction), and more.
Also you can solve the car issue by, you know, using/investing in public transport like this is doing...
Honestly, if the line works out I'd be genuinely impressed by human achievements
It won't
Human arrogance and greed
I'll be impressed when humanity stops obsessing themselves into lies and depression and actually exist.
if the line is finished people would live there for a month then the overcrowding would simply forced people out
There's maybe a 0.001% chance of it actually working out. Even if it's built.
It's not designed to be inhabited by humans. Maybe the worlds biggest ant colony?
Yes,this project must win.
To me the most unrealistic aspect of this project is that half of it cuts through mountains, some of which are 4x as high as the proposed structure. It begins at sea level, so unless the structure “climbs” over the terrain, they would be forced to tunnel through kilometers of terrain. Either way they will be dealing with 90km of difficult, remote terrain that had to be blasted and removed. That alone is completely insane.
I would say it’s more likely they are planning on building/selling/populating it in phases, starting with the most expensive, desirable, and easiest to build segments near the coast, so that they can bankroll the project and give it momentum, and if they never make it to the mountains, then the line just remains shorter…but the fact that they already have a camp in the mountains so far away from the coast tells me that’s not the case, and they are probably already working on surveying/site planning and site preparation.
Another thing that has to be mentioned is that this is a seismically active area, actually the most seismically active area in Saudi Arabia. The seismicity is associated with the opening of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba and translation along the Dead Sea fault, which lies under the Gulf of Aqaba, just west of the western end of this proposed structure. Additionally, and most people don’t know this, but the western mountains of Saudi Arabia are covered in recent, active monogenetic basaltic volcanic fields, and there actually happens to be one of these, Harrat Uwayrid, fairly close to the eastern end of the line. It has erupted historically. I don’t know that it actually intersects the line in its current incarnation, but these volcanic fields are expansive, young, and quite frankly, new volcanic fields can spring up along the western margin of the Arabian Shield (the name for the block of Precambrian basement rock that rifted to form the Red Sea, on top of which the line is built, and on top of which all of these volcanic fields have erupted) at literally any time in this early period of rifting. It may not be for 100s or 1000s of years…but if one is thinking about the “future of humanity”, volcanism and seismicity are important considerations, not to mention sea level rise associated with global warming, given that this structure is close to the coast for half of its proposed length. Geology is clear-disasters will occur in our future, but our concept of time and memory is usually too short to realize it.
As for the construction and architecture itself, I think a lot of the problems pointed out in this video are mitigated by the design, because a lot of the construction can be done in parallel, and it can be extensively modularized, both in terms of construction method and in terms of structure/finishes/infrastructure, given its extremely repetitive cross section. It’s really just a question of capital and labor. They have plenty of the former from gouging the world for years with fossil fuels, and the later can be cheaply imported and set to work in a massive parallel operation. Access to the site will be trivial and as it is built things will scale jump and become even faster. And they don’t have to build the whole thing at once, it can be built in stages.
Wind is fairly high in this portion of Saudi Arabia, as well as solar gain-they will have no trouble powering the site and creating renewable energy and zero carbon water. As for dust storms, I don’t think they are common in this part of the country. It’s definitely a very interesting project, but in my mind the biggest issue is going to be dealing with the land itself. In the video it shows them clearing and grading the land, but they will have to excavate quite deep as well to put in all of the infrastructure and underground system, as well as to provide sufficient pilings for a 500m tall building. No evidence of that as of yet.
Edit: have to add, for being a “green project” the shape of this city basically creates a 500m high 170km long wall for any migrating animals. Then again, it is the desert and the construction will kill off anything that does manage to live there. Guaranteed, with the 500m tall mirror finish hanging wall façade, 100s of birds are going to be killed per day from flying into. Bird holocaust. Not to mention the windmills.
(I am a former architect turned geospatial analyst and app developer, with a massive interest in earth sciences)
No one is reading all of rhat
I read all of this. Sound like the people funding this have zero interest in Natural occurrences or the effect it may bring on the back end. This is for pure design ONLY.
@@GA3S_ I heard an interesting theory on another channel about this: basically, the Saudi Crown Prince, who is a total crook, with horrible human rights record, who has a team of thugs who carry out heinous, unnatural extrajudicial killings at his word, who is the one behind this project and promoting it (you can see him in the video), is using the project purely as a means of rehabilitating his and Saudi Arabia’s image. Apparently they are claiming that this “perfect city” will have its own separate judicial code, lessened restrictions on their conservative Islamic theocratic law, etc. Basically the idea is, the goal of the project might not be to actually get a city built and populated, but rather what’s actually more important is just convincing the world that Saudi Arabia is a place where such a thing **could** happen, that it is a good place to invest in for businesses around the world, and that it’s more progressive than they thought. Kind of an architectural project as performative politics. This is actually more common than most people know in architectural history, and it’s a tool especially employed by authoritarian regimes wishing to rehabilitate their image or celebrate their grandiosity. Both the 3rd Reich and Mussolini’s Italy had huge public architectural projects that went uncompleted and functioned much in the same way (though they also did complete some of them). Another big reason for this architectural marketing ploy is that Saudi Arabia’s oil won’t prop it up forever, and it needs to pivot to a different kind of economy, and the Saudis are starting to bank hard on international finance and investment, advanced research, and renewable energy. The theory is that this project is kind of the flagship of this new Saudi future economy, and in this contemporary world that consumes media and virtual reality as content and message, they may not even have to build the entire city to accomplish their goals.
And with everything being so closely packed together, repairs are going to be a nightmare. If you live in Los Angeles or New York City etc how much traffic is generated by road work or sewer repairs and things like that.
How will people get any sunlight at the lower levels?
Thanks for sharing this information
Rural communities have tons of line-villages: everyone builds their farmhouse along the main road, with their fields basically in their backyard.
It does not scale well: everyone wants to live close to the town square.
what if town square is after every 1 km or so?
I don't even live in a town and have no desire to be anywhere close to the center of one.
@@hicknopunk well you‘re also not totally stupid , those who will buy into this concept are the exact people that will tolerate nothing but the closest place to town center
Each and every one of them
@@pfizerpricehike9747 sounds like hell. I hate going into town twice a month.
I take a cabin in the forrest anyday. you and the other sheep can go and live in a big box. .
You have to respect the absolute audacity that this is even being considered, will most probably get not even a quarter of the way completed before I feel it will be either drastically shortened or just abandoned
A quarter? Dubai had zero master plan no one can go anywhere without a car. It's a boondoggle. Soon as the economy if world collapses this will be abandoned. Why a straight line why not circular? Coz they are engineers who don't think about anything except paper drawings. Sand is not amenable to heavy buildings which will shift or crack under weight.
Humans invented cars,plans,phones,went through space,yes this is really hard and it'll probably take a long time but it's not impossible,stop wearing people down just because of your stupid opinion.
Thought it was obvious this was handout scheme for the rich thinly hidden behind their weird fetish for "futuristic" things
Correct. They will singlehandedly cause shortages of all kinds of shit.
As it should, this project is evil.
Option 3 sounds the best!!! Meet demand and expand when needed!! An amazing project if it’s completed
Option 3 feels much more likely to me, they have a ton of resources and it does seem theoretically possible, but I think it’s definitely either not going to meet the insane scale they proposed or not meet it for many many years
not to mention the amount of brine a desalination plant would generate to supply fresh water to a structure that size. The desalination plants in california are already creating ecological dead zones
@@Mrdestiny17Maybe they can collect the brine and spread it across the desert.
@@Mrdestiny17 pretty sure the Arabian desert is the biggest dead zone in the world with those massive dunes and little to no vegitation
Well if UAE and Burj Khalifa are anything to go by, Saudi might also forget to add sewage to this thing.
@@Revenant-oq9tsOh, they’ll definitely be adding sewage. Now, sewers on the other hand, that’s a different question.
I think this will end up like other mega projects that just halt one day and never resume. But I do hope this succeeds even if it’s marginally smaller than the renders because it does look kinda sick and would definitely make for an interesting mega projects documentary.
Also any lessons learned from building NEOM can go into building Agropolis.
i.e., a huge tower the size of a city, but many many stories high, with farms inside *and* outside, on the roof and around the walls, capable of housing an entire country's worth of people and also feeding them, using much less land space and while not carbon zero, cycles the carbon dioxide back into the vegetation the inhabitants consume.
I hope it fails so badly that they don't even make a dent in their budget before they divert the rest towards building up existing neighbourhoods and investing in public transportation in their cities. Thats never going to happen, they would need to care about their citizens first.
Or maybe instead of making another luxurious, inaffordable superstructure for the wealthy they should focus on improving the state of already existing cities, investing in public transit and the like
Even if it is built, it will most likely become a park hill situation. Lots of illegal doings as there is little police
It’s disgusting
Imagine life outside the line , when it reflects the sun's rays on the sand.
So you live in sand?
Deep fried 💀
And the sand also will reflect the sun rays back at the sun
@@mrtechno8973 Bro where do you think a countrly like Emirates was built?
@@smiles9882 Why kids don't understand "simple" sarcasm? Why kid?
If it actually becomes complete, this could be amazing but terrifying in execution.
This feels like one of those things me and my mate would try to make in Minecraft before giving up after a few hours
💀💀💀💀
This feels like some big wall I built around my village in Minecraft and I abandoned it with. My friend after complete three ou t of four sides 😭😭😭
I think it will be interesting to move into a new building that is already 50 years old when completed
I'd be interested in an estimate of raw materials needed for the project. Must be unimaginable amounts of steel and concrete. Are the amounts needed even available? I don't see this ever getting anywhere near complete.
and the Glass...
If only desert sand is usable.
That was my concern, most of the steel/iron will come from Australia.
Failing that, expect mining operations in Africa & South America to kick into high-gear.
I read an estimate; "a carbon footprint of about 1.8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent in the glass, steel, and concrete".
Think of the surveillance capabilities of a purpose built city.
I don't have any idea how the fuck they will be able to feed that much amount of houses and buildings only using solar and wind, having to move energy is gonna be a nightmare
@@orchestraoverseer9426 It's like they were trying to minimize efficiency of infrastructure when they designed it.
I would never ever want to put a foot in there. This is a prison that would limit people’s freedom to an insurmountable extent! I hope it never becomes a reality.
I think a Circle or something like Hexagon structure have more advantages.
Well yeah, these is a reason you dont build cities in a line. Deliberately building the one thing all other cities continiously strive to avoid, "bottlenecks". Its like asking for congestion. One accident, one technical fault and your whole city is locked down.
You mean like a city
Yeaah and if you would now remove the walls oh holdon
@@Recktorph no no,the walls ARE the city. That is where the people live and where the shops are.
Well they already have build it lol (and in the same area NEOM (the Hexagon is like 90% finnish))
I was actually involved with a TV advert promoting this! Neom, watch out on your tv screens soon!
If you use Sentinel Hub Playground or EO Browser, you can actually see that, as of today, the construction does actually span about 153km, give or take a bit for mountainous terrain and areas where it hasn't yet started. It's quite impressive how easily you can spot it from the satellite imagery!
can you send the coordinates?
Yeah, won’t be able to see it on google earth for another two years probably when they decide to update the satellite imagery again
@@goldmark7439 It is west of saudi arabia south of the border with egypt i'm pretty sure
@@goldmark7439 Coordinates are roughly 28.1285, 34.9408.
@@Clorix1thnx
5:00 your calculator math only makes sense in theory.
There are way more people working on this, and also, you mentioned it yourself, they will certainly work in parallel
I wonder how the desert will work on those buildings. Sand and wind are some of the roughest combinations when it comes to wearing stuff down. I assume a sandstorm would essentially sandblast all the windows, making them blurry as heck.
Their mirrors sir
@@ahmedneazy9077 Their mirrors what?
*They are mirrors
Is what he meant to say
Dubai is somehow still existing niga
@@ahmedneazy9077 you realize mirrors are made of glass?????
I have been waiting for this since 2012, here's to its successful completion
Ok, just hear me out. Instead of constructing a 170km long line, we'll bend the two ends of each wall in a circle to meet each other, that way less space is taken up. We can remove one of the walls and repurpose it for building structures inside said circle. We could also just remove the last wall. By doing this, any disasters that might occur on the line damaging a section will not render the sections of the line inaccessible to each other. A circle design also improves efficiency as utilities won't have to travel 170 kilometers to reach the end, but rather a much smaller diameter of 6.6 kilometers to reach either side. We can also account for the growth of population, so instead of being confined to your population by the walls, the city can expand and therefore support more people. So there you go. Fixed your line. Thank me later Neom!
Spare me your logic and practicality!
You’re essentially describing a hub and spoke design, which many cities are based on. Of course the difference is that the city center is literally in the center, and then the spokes extend out from there, which are then connected by concentric circles (highways), where most of the suburban population lives. Check out the Dallas metropolitan area for a great example.
@@davidswanson5669 I think (but might be wrong) that Sussus Amogus is purposefully describing turning it into a more traditional city, as a funny critique of the idea =P.
Perimeter = Pi times diameter (or 2 times radius). If we talk about a true circle the diameter would be 54,112km(P=170km), not 6,6km(P=20,73km).
But thats still way better than 170km from end to end.
They are making history not practicality, and history don’t document projects of your thinking 😅
I'll be keeping an eye on this over the years. Very interested to see how they fair, and if it fails miserably, we should still be able to take a lot away from the attempt if nothing else. Gonna be fucking impressive even if they only get some of it done
its a giant waste of money build for the rich
Fare*
as in, farewell.
@@kaliningradtoczechrepublic8162 it might bring them more money in the long run if it becomes a big tourist attraction
@@yaboyrams9500 doubt it. A city is not sustainable purely of tourism, especially an unnecessarily expensive one like this one. There best hope is to occupy it with a bunch of rich people(which seems to be the plan). Realistically i dont see any way this will ever be profitable
They'll keep the construction until their oil resources are depleted. Most rich people in arab got rich by trading oil until then they still have unlimited money.
"I'd like to order a pizza."
"What's your address?"
"Just go about 150km and I'm on the left."
Who would want to live in something like that? Couldn't even pay me to live like that!
what's wrong with it?
@@bitasaurapart from it being a glass structure in the middle of a desert and it being completely removed from society by being in a desert… and that to get from end to end will probably take a longer commute than its worth.
And it looks ugly as hell.
@@bitasaur location, looks, being crammed like sardines with other people, the cost to be there is going to be ridiculous, supply problems will arise because 1 dust storm is going to decimate solar panels, I could go on and on but don't feel like typing an essay...
On the other hand,the concept art/renders are absolute desktop wallpaper material
Not american
Even simple heat management on this scale would be a challenge. Heat transfer is tied to surface area, and they have eliminated fully half of the available surface area by connecting thousands of towers in a line, and then half again by putting a second line next to it.
Not quite following. Yes heat management will be an issue, but by eliminating sides, you reduce the amount of heat that will transfer into the building from outside, which is a good thing at least in my perspective. However cooling these buildings will require insane amounts of energy and there is no way solar and wind farms are going to be sufficient to do it.
@@monkymind4316 They'll use the energy from the powerful desert sun to run their air conditioning so to keep out the heat from the powerful desert sun.
Sand will absolutely scratch the life out of solar panels and jam up wind farms like no one's business.
I predict that not only will this be abandoned mid construction, but it will also be less habitable than desert surrounding it.
Yeah... Except the other side is in the desert sun whilst usual buildings will have other buildings covering them. Generally it's just way to big and totally unnecessary too. If this was an intelligent solution to anything it might have worked but it's just some kind of heat stroke feather dream.
@@einfachnurleo7099 I think that's why they have mirrors on the side? The reflection would avoid the heat of the dessert but I cant imagine standing outside the wall being reflected all the sunlight, it could be one of the most dangerous spots in the world to just stand around
they’ve thought about this. trust me. they have all the money in the world to hire the greatest engineers and scientists to plan this out. they dont need opinions of amateurs on youtube.
A byproduct of what happens when a man holds too much power that no one bothers to tell him the impossibility of an idea like this
No one bother or no one wanting to die ?
This also means in the case he dies (unlikely but not impossible) or gets deposed (virtually impossible) the whole project will fall apart.
It is possible to complete, if it does work the way the vision was presented, then it would be a great human accomplishment.
I'm actually excited to see the outcome of this infrastructure. No matter if it fails, it'll still be cool
Meh. Have you seen their designer islands? They're boring to look at.
@@llIlIlllII if i look out of my window, there is a forest, 300m away....i can drive thru it with my bicycle for another 3km...before i hit the high speed railroad....
I love watching rich Saudi assholes waste money for no apparent reason, but they are just going to use slave labour to do it, and end up leaving most of them there when this thing fails miserably.
Wonder if it's just a homelessness solution for Dubai
@@Arltratlo L
That’s what i’m saying
I have heard of closed down shopping malls being turned into condos/apartments with coffee shops and small businesses downstairs and housing up stairs. So I would say it's not a terrible idea and also not out of the question, but the scale of the project is obviously too large. Probably a much smaller/modular version could be a realistic idea.
there is a difference between an abandoned shopping mall in the middle of a city and a giant wall in the middle of the desert...
@@waterlevelroute I think stores on streets and markets are much nicer plus much better for the environment
its definitely a terrible idea lol
Those work well in already built cities that have established industry etc. this is going to be a new city in middle of nowhere. You are going to be stuck with the things close to you on this straight line. Hope you don’t find a job on the other side of the line. The whole point of living in a self sustained community is that you DONT have to commute. This shape of this feature will require everyone to commute to be able to enjoy all aspects of the structure. That in in itself defeats its purpose.
@@Hlebuw3k our cities if you think about it it was all forest and jungles back in the time. It’s just a normal cycle, eventually it will be populated like it or not