The world's largest construction project is carving a path through the Saudi desert, but will the 170-kilometer-long megacity known as "the Line" ever become a reality? Journalists cannot freely report from Saudi Arabia, so we analyzed satellite imagery and spoke to experts to separate the vision from reality.
Not only have the cost and the timeline for construction shifted in the sand, but recent reports suggest that thousands of migrant workers have died while trying to deliver Mohammed bin Salman's "Vision 2030."
00:00 - Intro
01:43 - Mohammad Bin Salman's Dream City
02:25 - Luxury Island And Ski Resort
03:21 - Construction And Design Of The Line
05:39 - Solving The Problem Of Expanding Cities
07:11 - Circular Vs Linear Cities
08:32 - The History Of Linear Cities
10:16 - Delays And Spiralling Costs
12:12 - Human Rights And Cleared Villages
15:49 - Sustainability Pledges
16:45 - Environmental Impact Of Construction
18:06 - Keeping The Line Cool
19:32 - Water And Desalination
20:27 - Bird Migration
20:53 - Progress Update
21:27 - Credits
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Satellite Images Reveal The Reality Of Saudi Arabia's $2 Trillion Megacity In The Desert
Not only have the cost and the timeline for construction shifted in the sand, but recent reports suggest that thousands of migrant workers have died while trying to deliver Mohammed bin Salman's "Vision 2030."
00:00 - Intro
01:43 - Mohammad Bin Salman's Dream City
02:25 - Luxury Island And Ski Resort
03:21 - Construction And Design Of The Line
05:39 - Solving The Problem Of Expanding Cities
07:11 - Circular Vs Linear Cities
08:32 - The History Of Linear Cities
10:16 - Delays And Spiralling Costs
12:12 - Human Rights And Cleared Villages
15:49 - Sustainability Pledges
16:45 - Environmental Impact Of Construction
18:06 - Keeping The Line Cool
19:32 - Water And Desalination
20:27 - Bird Migration
20:53 - Progress Update
21:27 - Credits
------------------------------------------------------
#saudiarabia #megacity #businessinsider
Business Insider tells you all you need to know about business, finance, tech, retail, and more.
Visit our homepage for the top stories of the day: https://www.businessinsider.com
Business Insider on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/businessinsider
Business Insider on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/businessinsider
Business Insider on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/businessinsider
Business Insider on Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/Business_Insider/5319643143
Business Insider on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@businessinsider
Satellite Images Reveal The Reality Of Saudi Arabia's $2 Trillion Megacity In The Desert
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00:00The world's largest construction project, known simply as The Line, has already started
00:08to leave its mark on the Arabian desert.
00:12Saudi Arabia's billionaire Crown Prince wants the 170km long megacity to be visible
00:18with the naked eye from space.
00:21Satellite images show how the landscape is transforming.
00:26Where there was once sand and rock, you can make out deep trenches, thousands of trucks
00:31and excavators, and entire new towns.
00:36Workers and their families are already promoting their new lives here on social media.
00:42But satellite pictures also show us villages that have been wiped from the map.
00:50And the controversial project appears to be struggling, with media reports of cancelled
00:55contracts, scaled back construction and spiralling costs.
01:02Plans to welcome the first residents to The Line back in 2024 never materialised.
01:09So is building what architects told us is essentially a giant greenhouse in one of the
01:13hottest and driest places on earth really a good idea?
01:23We analysed the very latest satellite views from above and spoke to experts to find out
01:32if Saudi Arabia's desert dream stands a chance of being anything more than just a mirage.
01:46The Line is the brainchild of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS for
01:52short.
01:54In 2003, he told the Discovery Channel that he will build his extraordinary megacity against
01:58all odds.
01:59They say a lot of projects that happen in Saudi Arabia can be done.
02:03This is very ambitious.
02:05They can't keep saying that and we can't keep proving them wrong.
02:09The multi-billionaire prince is no stranger to lavish spending and futuristic construction
02:13projects.
02:16It's all part of his Vision 2030 plan to diversify Saudi's economy away from fossil fuels and
02:22into sports, entertainment, technology and tourism.
02:26In fact, this whole region, dubbed Neom in 2017, is going to be home to an array of fantastical
02:32projects like Sindala, a once barren island just off the coast that has already been transformed
02:39into a luxury beach destination with hotels, a golf course, beach club and marina.
02:47And work has started in the mountains on what MBS hopes will one day be a desert ski resort
02:52called Trijena.
02:54And here the clock is ticking, the resort needs to be ready by 2029 when it will host
02:59the Asian Winter Games.
03:01The mountains don't get much rain and even less snow, so it will need to rely almost
03:06entirely on the artificial kind.
03:11Of course, MBS already has his own palace complex in Neom, with private beaches, lush
03:17green gardens, a golf course and 10 helipads.
03:23Construction on the line began in October 2021.
03:27What we can see on satellite imagery today is a giant scar cutting inland from the Red
03:31Sea through the mountains and out the other side.
03:36But beyond the epic earthworks, there's little sign of the mega city presented in glossy
03:41promotional videos.
03:43Just think a skyscraper city that runs uninterrupted for 170 kilometres.
03:50That's the distance between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., or Naples to Rome.
03:55So the line is designed to be a city like no other city that's ever been built.
03:59Everyone thinks the lines are building.
04:01It's not.
04:02It's a frame.
04:03It's a city and it has a framework and a grid structure to it.
04:06The glass clad monster is also supposed to be 500 metres high and 200 metres wide.
04:13To give you an idea of what a mirrored glass wall in the desert might look like, take a
04:17look at this, the Mariah concert venue built by the Saudis in 2019.
04:23This is the largest mirrored building in the world, for now, but it is only three storeys
04:28or 26 metres high.
04:31If built, the line will be one of the top ten tallest buildings in the world and by
04:36far the longest.
04:39Buildings produced by Neom promise suspended gardens, waterfalls cascading down buildings
04:45and all your daily needs within a five-minute walk.
04:48A high-speed train is planned to take citizens from one end to the other in just 20 minutes.
04:54There are even flying taxis.
04:56In fact, prototypes recently took to the air at this facility, just four kilometres from
05:01the line.
05:03One consultant who worked on the megaproject told Business Insider that the city is designed
05:07with a wealthy minority in mind.
05:11Yet the line promises to eventually house nine million people within a footprint of
05:16just 34 square kilometres.
05:19That's more than five times the population of Manhattan in just over half the space.
05:25And according to Neom, this is what Manhattan would look like if it was squashed into the
05:29same footprint as the line.
05:32It might seem crazy, but urban planners say we do need to rethink how cities grow.
05:41In the last 75 years, city populations have rapidly expanded.
05:45More than half the world, 4.4 billion people, now live in cities.
05:51And the UN predicts it will be nearly 7 billion by 2050.
05:55But this expansion is not sustainable.
05:58Look at the rapid growth of Las Vegas in this time-lapse of NASA satellite imagery.
06:04Or Lagos, Nigeria, over a period of 40 years.
06:07And Paris has expanded 200 times in size since 1800, even though its population today is
06:14only 22 times bigger.
06:17The team at Neom believe that cities need a reset.
06:21The cities are falling into the trap of the traffic jams, the pollution, the social disconnect.
06:27If humanity is not ambitious in this precise moment, when are we going to be ambitious?
06:33The line is designed as a solution to both urban sprawl and population explosion, as
06:38MBS told the Discovery Channel in 2023.
06:42The population is going to jump inside Arabia from today, 33 million, in 2030, something
06:48between 50 to 55 million.
06:50That raises a very important question that we need to create a new city.
06:54Owners of the line have praised MBS for being bold and innovative.
06:58The energy within Saudi Arabia at the moment is incredible.
07:02I think Neom is, you know, the pinnacle of that change and it's really exciting to be
07:06part of that.
07:08But not everyone is convinced by the design.
07:11The greatest architects and environmentalists were visionary.
07:16They pushed the boundaries, you know, we need to build globally, you know, why are we to
07:21do it live?
07:22For thousands of years, we've mostly built cities that have dense walkable centres expanding
07:27outwards over time in a circle.
07:31Walkable interaction is the basis of cities.
07:35Businesses happen historically and now where you get easy interaction between people.
07:43And if a city the size of the line were instead built in a circle, more people would be in
07:48walking distance of each other.
07:51And what many people love about city living is the buzz of unpredictability.
07:55London, New York, Bangkok, they are big, they are messy and you find all these fascinating
08:03places.
08:04The thing with the line, it lacks imagination, actually at the level of experience.
08:10Shape aside, will anyone actually want to live in an enclosed linear city in the desert?
08:16There's no precedent for a city where millions of people live in a building and may not go
08:25outside.
08:26Something like the line would be a massive social, psychological experiment.
08:33This is not the first grand plan for a linear city, but history shows us that they rarely
08:38make it off the drawing board.
08:41Toward the end of the 19th century, urban planner Arturo Soria proposed a 55-kilometre-long
08:46central tram line in Madrid, with houses on either side, but only around five kilometres
08:52were ever built.
08:54And it's now absorbed into the sprawl of Madrid.
08:58Around 30 years later, Edgar Chambliss designed Roadtown, a linear city with a monorail below
09:04ground and a walkway at the top.
09:06In the 1960s, two Princeton University professors devised the Jersey Corridor, a 32-kilometre
09:12linear city featuring two parallel buildings running between New Brunswick and Trenton.
09:19They hoped the city could one day stretch from Boston to Washington DC.
09:23But neither of these American dreams ever made it to brick and mortar.
09:28Perhaps the closest example we have to something like the line is Corviale, a one-kilometre-long
09:34social housing block in Rome for 8,000 people.
09:38Never fully completed, it fell on hard times.
09:42And this is what it looks like today.
09:47It seems MBS is undeterred by history.
09:50According to the Wall Street Journal, when urban planners suggested alternative designs,
09:55the Crown Prince brushed them aside.
09:58You know, megaprojects and megacities have always, you know, they often include a desire
10:05by a government to portray power or equity or some other ideology to a national or global
10:14audience.
10:15But there is evidence that MBS's ambition may be stalling.
10:20Satellite images from May 2023 show earthworks in full swing across the length of the line.
10:28Almost a year later, Bloomberg reported that the line was being scaled back and workers
10:33dismissed.
10:36Recent satellite imagery does appear to show less activity on the ground.
10:41The focus for now is a section of the line called the Hidden Marina, where residents
10:45will be able to sail under the city and then straight out to sea.
10:50NEOM executives call it the largest excavation project in the world, moving over 90 million
10:56cubic metres of material.
10:59But it is now understood that only this 2.4 kilometre section of the line is expected
11:03to be built by 2030, instead of the full 170 kilometres.
11:09It wouldn't be the first Saudi megaproject to hit the brakes.
11:13Ambitious plans to build the world's tallest building, the Burj Jeddah, have been on hold
11:17since 2018, following a number of arrests of senior figures involved in the project
11:22as part of an anti-corruption crackdown.
11:26Construction on the one kilometre high structure only restarted in January 2025.
11:31While Saudi authorities claim it was always the plan to build the line in modules, others
11:35suspect funding challenges.
11:37Over the last year, reports from experts have indicated that the country might be starting
11:42to feel some strain of the financial pressure of the project.
11:45With some plans scaled back, oil pricing resulting revenues have also been lower in the last
11:50year or so.
11:51Saudi Arabia also hoped foreign investment would prop up a lot of the spiralling costs
11:55but experts have said that this may not have reached the kingdom's desired levels.
12:00Analysts estimate that it could cost more than $2 trillion to build the full line, four
12:05times the original budget.
12:09But already progress on the line has come at a human cost.
12:13This region has been home to the Huaytart tribe for centuries, a Bedouin people known
12:18for their horse-riding skills.
12:22Satellite photographs from 2020 show the Huaytart villages of al-Qureiba, Shama and Gayal located
12:29close to the path of the line.
12:31But in these images from 2024, they are gone.
12:35In January 2020, residents of these villages were served eviction notices.
12:41They protested on social media, posting videos with the hashtag Huaytart against displacement.
12:47Human rights group Al-Kest has been monitoring the evictions closely and say the majority
12:52of the 20,000 Huaytart tribe members have been displaced.
12:56Many videos show that security forces were violent with the locals to force them out
13:05and many people fled to their houses.
13:11But not everyone fled.
13:13Abdul Rahim, a government employee at the Ministry of Finance, decided to take a stand.
13:18According to Al-Kest, on April 13, he was shot and killed by Saudi special forces.
13:48Saudi authorities claim that he fired first and labelled him a terrorist.
13:52There is no evidence whatsoever of him shooting first.
13:56Since Hamad bin Salman came to power, everyone that is seen as a potential threat or a dissident
14:06will be charged under terrorism charges.
14:10And all trials are held behind closed doors.
14:13The question is why this lack of transparency?
14:17Al-Kest say 47 tribe members have been arrested, including many of Abdul Rahim's relatives.
14:27They say three have received severe prison sentences and three others are sentenced to
14:31death.
14:32Reports of intimidation and inhumane evictions have not gone unnoticed.
14:37The UN sent an open letter to the Saudi government concerned about the harsh treatment of the
14:41Huaytart, including reports of torture.
14:45Organising groups like Al-Kest have applied pressure to international companies contracted
14:50by NEOM.
14:51Most are staying put.
14:53Not UK-based Solar Water, which pulled out of a contract to build a solar-powered desalination
14:59plant in 2022.
15:01The founder and chief technology officer told us he was appalled by the treatment of the
15:06Huaytart.
15:07You cannot move people away from their homeland.
15:11I was very upset.
15:13All the fishing villages along the coast, they're no longer there.
15:19Human rights groups and trade unions have also drawn attention to thousands of cases
15:23of exploitation of workers on Saudi megaprojects, including NEOM.
15:28A documentary by ITV reports that as many as 21,000 migrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh
15:34and India may have died in Saudi since the launch of the 2030 vision in 2016.
15:41If Saudi Arabia's pledge to uphold human rights as part of this vision is under scrutiny,
15:47so too are its promises of sustainability.
15:50The world's number two oil-producing country has pledged to generate half its energy with
15:55renewables by 2030, but in 2023 it was still at less than 1%.
16:01And in the NEOM region, they're looking to meet 100% of their energy needs with renewable
16:06power.
16:08Solar farms can already be seen in satellite images here, close to the workers' camps.
16:14And a new wind farm can be seen emerging from the desert here, further north.
16:18The energy needs now, and for a future megacity, are off the charts.
16:23According to NEOM, the whole region, including the line, will need over 100 terawatt-hours
16:28of power a year by 2030.
16:31That's similar to the annual electricity consumption of the Philippines.
16:36You are going to build the most efficient city, build a gridded city that's six to
16:40ten storeys tall, with lots of shade and lots of solar panels and parks.
16:46But even if the running of the line can one day be as promised emissions-free, the construction
16:50is far from it.
16:52Every square metre we build, whether it's a line or a detached house, anything, has
16:57an environmental impact.
17:00It took around eight years to build One World Trade Centre in New York.
17:05The line would be the equivalent of building thousands of them.
17:10And the taller a building, the higher its carbon footprint, requiring stronger materials
17:14such as steel and concrete to withstand the force of the wind.
17:19Concrete is incredibly carbon-intensive.
17:21Steel is incredibly carbon-intensive.
17:25Professor Oldfield has estimated that building the line would generate more than 1.8 billion
17:30tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to four years' worth of the UK's total emissions.
17:37Even if you were to build a normal city of six to eight storeys tall, it would have a
17:43very big carbon footprint.
17:45I think it's just going to be terrible, or even treble, with the line.
17:50Because of its height, because of its structural gymnastics, because of its kind of hedonistic
17:55design, it's going to have a material requirement which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
18:09And then, once built, this giant glass, steel and concrete structure that designers say
18:14will blend into the landscape will need to be kept cool enough for people to live inside it.
18:20Well, one of the biggest problems is that it's essentially a big greenhouse.
18:25Now, you don't need to have a PhD in physics to understand what happens when sunlight hits
18:32glass, it heats up.
18:34Compare that to traditional Saudi buildings, which are made of mud, stone and clay and
18:38designed to be naturally cool.
18:40The irony of Neom is that although it's presented as being this futuristic city, it's a lazy city.
18:47The architectures are lazy.
18:49Before the fossil fuel boom, architectures were generally a lot harder working.
18:55They were built to keep heat in or keep it out.
18:59If they can't keep the heat out, the consequences could be deadly.
19:03In June 2024, Saudi Arabia was hit by an extreme heat wave.
19:08Over 1,300 people died on the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, where temperatures reached over
19:1450 degrees Celsius.
19:182024 was the hottest year on record.
19:24And scientists predict that average temperatures in Saudi are likely to go up by two degrees
19:28Celsius by the middle of the century.
19:33Perhaps the most precious resource in a desert megacity is water.
19:37The region gets around six centimetres of rainfall a year.
19:42And it's estimated that four fifths of Saudi's ancient underground aquifer have been sucked
19:47dry by desert farming in the last three decades alone.
19:54Currently more than half of Saudi's water is supplied by energy-hungry desalination plants,
19:59which spew out an estimated 60 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
20:05Salty waste brine is then often discharged back into the sea, harming marine life.
20:11Neom has said renewable energy will power 100% of the desalination plants, something
20:16that has never been achieved before.
20:19With ambitious plans for re-greening the desert and growing crops, finding sustainable water
20:24is still a crucial issue facing the line.
20:28Conservationists also see the line as a death trap for wildlife.
20:32Take a look at this map of bird migrations through the region.
20:37Around 2.1 billion birds from over 100 different species, including endangered ones, pass through
20:43the area.
20:44Bird collisions with glass is an enormous problem.
20:47You know, the figures in the States are in the many hundreds of millions a year.
20:51And that's just one nation.
20:55Back on the construction site, little by little progress is being made.
20:59The latest satellite images of the hidden marina show a new excavation in progress and
21:05hundreds of trucks busy shifting dirt.
21:08Neom executives have admitted it may take 100 years to complete and fill the line.
21:14But now there is a more concrete date in the diary.
21:18A stadium suspended 350 metres high up on the skyscraper is to be one of the official
21:23venues of the 2034 World Cup.