Tabuk (Saudi Arabia): A futuristic megacity in Saudi Arabia will have two skyscrapers spread across desert and mountainous terrain, according to the latest revelations on the project by the kingdom's de facto ruler.
Red Sea megacity NEOM is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's bid to diversify the Gulf state's oil-dependent economy, built around parallel structures of mirror skyscrapers spanning 170 km (more than 100 miles) .
Since its inception in 2017, NEOM has consistently raised eyebrows with proposed extravagances such as flying taxis and robotic maids, even as architects and economists questioned its viability.
Prince Mohammed drew an even more ambitious vision on Monday night, describing a car-free utopia that would become the world's most livable city "by far".
However, analysts have noted that NEOM's plans have changed over the years, raising doubts whether this line will ever become a reality.
NEOM, a biotech and digital hub covering 26,500 square kilometers (10,000 sq mi), was once billed as the regional "Silicon Valley".
It is now a means to re-imagine urban life on the 34-square-kilometer footprint and what Prince Mohammed describes as "living ability and an environmental crisis".
"The concept has changed so much since its inception that it is sometimes difficult to determine its direction: scaling down, scaling down or taking an aggressive sideways turn," said Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Officials previously predicted that the population of NEOM would exceed one million, but Prince Mohammed predicted it would reach 1.2 million by 2030, rising to nine million by 2045.
The staggering figure is part of hopes of a nationwide population boom that Prince Mohammed said would be needed to transform Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude exporter, into an economic superpower.
The 2030 target is to have 50 million people living in the kingdom, half of whom are Saudis and half are foreigners, which is about 34 million people today.
He said that the target is to reach 10 crore people by 2040.
"The main goal of building NEOM is to increase the capacity of Saudi Arabia, to bring more citizens and people to Saudi Arabia." And, since we're just starting out, why should we copy normal cities?"
According to a promotional video released on Monday, the site will be powered entirely by renewable energy and will have "a year-round temperate microclimate with natural ventilation".
Past environmental commitments by the state, such as a pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2060, have raised doubts among environmentalists.
According to Torbjorn Saltweed of risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft, NEOM is well positioned to harness solar and wind power, and the city also plans to host the world's largest green hydrogen plant.
“However, given the unprecedented scale and cost of the project, the overall viability of NEOM remains unknown,” he said.
The line, which is only 200 meters (yards) wide, is intended to stack Saudi Arabia's unruly and wasteful urban sprawl, houses, schools and parks on top of each other, in what planners call "zero gravity urbanism". ,
According to Prince Mohammed, the "first phase" of the project, which will run until 2030, will cost 1.2 trillion Saudi riyals (about $319 billion).
Besides government subsidies, he said, possible sources of funding include the private sector and an initial public offering for NEOM in 2024.
Getting the funding needed remains a potential challenge, although the current environment is more favorable than it was during the coronavirus pandemic, which drove oil prices down.
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