NEOM City - The LINE City Saudi Arabia

The Line: Saudi Arabia’s Futuristic City or a Bold Dream?

You’ve probably seen it by now the shiny mirrored city stretching across the desert that has taken over the internet. At first glance, many thought it was just a metaverse project or some wild concept art. But no this is a real proposal. Saudi Arabia wants to build a futuristic city called The Line, and it’s unlike anything the world has seen before.

Some call it the future of architecture. Others see it as a dystopian experiment. So, what exactly is The Line? How would it work? And what can it teach us about cities today?

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What is The Line?

The Line is part of NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s mega-development project announced in 2021 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s designed as a 170 km long, 500 m high city in the middle of the desert near the Red Sea.

Here’s the wild part:

• No cars.

• No streets.

• No carbon emissions.

• Housing for 9 million people.

The city will be built between two gigantic mirrored walls with just a 200-meter gap in between. Inside, everything homes, parks, schools, workplaces will be stacked vertically. A high-speed train will run the length of the city, taking you end-to-end in just 20 minutes.

In short, The Line takes the idea of a “15-minute city” (where all your needs are close by) and cranks it up to an extreme.

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Why Build This?

Saudi Arabia is pushing Vision 2030, a plan to transform its economy away from oil. Mega projects like The Line are part of that rebranding. The city is being marketed as:

• 100% renewable energy powered

• A way to preserve 95% of the surrounding nature

• A global hub of innovation

But of course, there’s more to it. Bold, futuristic designs also serve as powerful PR tools to make Saudi Arabia stand out on the world stage much like Dubai’s skyline once did.

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Can It Actually Work?

That’s the big question.

Building something this massive raises huge engineering challenges:

• How do you deal with Earth’s curvature over 170 km?

• Can 9 million people live without cars?

• Would mirrored walls in a desert really be good for the environment?

Some experts believe The Line won’t be built exactly as shown in the renderings. Instead, a smaller, scaled-back version may emerge. Still, even if only part of it happens, the project could lead to breakthroughs in engineering, sustainability, and urban design.

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Is It Really a New Idea?

Not entirely. Linear cities have been imagined before. In 1969, the Italian group Super studio created artworks showing endless block-like structures cutting through landscapes intended as a critique of urban sprawl, not a utopia.

Other “smart cities” are also in the works:

• Toyota’s Woven City in Japan

• Egypt’s new smart capital

• Telosa in the U.S., a proposed utopian city

So while The Line looks like science fiction, it’s part of a bigger global trend of rethinking how cities should function.

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Why It Matters

Today’s cities don’t work for everyone. In London, 1 in 52 people are homeless. Many areas lack access to fresh food or green space. Urban sprawl makes life harder for millions of people.

Projects like The Line may seem extreme, but they spark important conversations:

• Should cities be more walkable?

• How do we make housing, nature, and services accessible to all?

• Can bold designs push us toward better urban living?

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Final Thoughts

Will The Line ever be built exactly as promised? Probably not. But that might not be the point.

The real value of The Line is in the questions it raises and the innovations it could inspire. Maybe we don’t need a 170 km mirrored wall in the desert but we do need cities that are greener, fairer, and more efficient.

Sometimes it takes a bold (and maybe impossible) idea to make us rethink the way we live.

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👉 Would you want to live in The Line? Or does it feel more like a futuristic prison than a paradise?

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