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It appears that Neom—Saudi Arabia’s hugely expensive, architecturally bizarre urban development project—is floundering and close to collapse. A new report from the Financial Times cites high-level sources within the project to paint a picture of dysfunction and failure at the heart of the quixotic effort.
Neom was envisioned as a vast series of fantastical urban developments spread across the coast of the Red Sea. At the center of the project is The Line—a proposed 105-mile-long city which developers had initially projected could house as many as 9 million people by the year 2030. The Line is defined by bizarre architectural flourishes that, as the story notes, have seemed impossible even to the execs tasked with making them a reality.
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The predictable result of a “kingdom” ruled by an overgrown baby, who got put into power because it benefits other countries who need the oil to keep flowing. All the consulting and contracting dollars made along the way are a huge plus for those other countries duping the baby king. They’ve been duped by consultants for decades on idiotic projects like crop circles which suck up huge amounts of water to produce food at a higher price than they could get it imported using the very limited water which will not be replenished. They were sold on the idea of food independence, but it’s idiotic to tap into those reserves when you can import the food for cheaper. Keep the reserve in case food imports jump up in price! Now they’ve used up much of those reserves and won’t have it available for such an emergency, but the king of the time trusted the American consultants and enjoyed fluff pieces printed in American newspapers talking about how he’s such a visionary (sound familiar?) for pursuing this.
When the oil money runs out, they’ll be back to fighting over dunes of sand. It’s a damn shame because that money could’ve done so much good, but instead it went into feeding the egos of a bunch of “princes”.
The damage to the Saudis’ brand here could be quite bad.
Ah yes, the once great brand of the Saudis’. Damaged… What idiot wrote this?
someone who did not want to be thrown into a shredder?
They’ve been quite successful at laundering their image. Plenty of people talk about going to Dubai as if it’s no different to going to Paris. The recent comedy festival got limited pushback online but doesn’t seem to have actually had any negative effects on the comedians who performed there.
Dubai is not in Saudi Arabia.
You’re right, I’m an idiot
I do agree with your first sentence, though, your examples just weren’t great 😁.
Are they going to properly demolish it or just fly some planes into it?
It’s 9-1111111111111111111111 all over again.
Oh, you mean that project for which they forcefully relocated thousands of people and killed at least one?
Sure would suck if the Saudis murdered and imprisoned people and then bulldozed their homes for one of the dumbest and most expensive architectural failures in human history.
At least they’re not wasting resources and fossil fuels during a time that is critical for the planets climate. /s
I think SAs wild architecture ideas are cool and fun but it’s the blood money, slavery, and human rights violations that bother me.
They’re also wildly terrible. The only reason any of them get built is because the government throws huge amounts of money at it and doesn’t care about the feasibility or impact.
Those are very much vanity projects, as Saudi royalty are on a epeen contest versus other Gulf emirates.
Part of the reason why Iran hates Saudi Arabia and its royalty for being predisposed to decadence just like the last shah they overthrew, in addition to the Sunni-Shia schism.
Who didn’t see this one coming?
It doesn’t matter.
That money was wasted lining the pockets of cronies, while everyone else still has to live in squalor.
It was actually a pretty great extraction of wealth by UK and international architectural and civil engineering firms.
it’s almost funny how terrible the sauds are at
investinggambling, or it would be if they didn’t blow shit up everytime they get bagged.nobody likes a sore loser
McKinsey & Company alone pocketed $800+Millions for their “engineering consulting” … If they gave me a $1000, I’d have given better consulting and saved them billions
