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Saudi Arabia reveals 170-km-long mirrored skyscraper to house 9M people
- haphazardeous 4y agoif it's built, I suspect we may experience what living on Mars would be like.
- parsimo2010 4y agoThis is a terrible design. A linear layout removes a degree of freedom compared to a normal city. And it doesn’t even look cool to balance the impracticality. Not that I was planning on moving to KSA, but if they pursue this I will just be further convinced that they are fumbling around trying to modernize their country without any idea of what they actually need.
- achow 4y agoOn the contrary the article says this.. "The designs revealed today for the city's vertically layered communities will challenge the traditional flat, horizontal cities and create a model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability,"
- parsimo2010 4y agoThe article is wrong
- ratg13 4y agoThere's a reason houses aren't built like grain silos. This article and digital rendering has seemingly managed to convince you otherwise.
- azatom 4y agoThe reaaon is that those houses are not built in the desert. Your point is invalid. You have to protect the plants from the drought and humans from sandstorms. You can not cover a km wide 100m tall city, it has to be 200m x 500m. (numbers are arbitrary, but it has to be compact and as always, biger is cheaper, if 200x200 already covered "up" it is. But of course the whole idea is just "clickbait".
- samytessier 4y agoIt really doesn't seem practical though. Instead of a 20 minute metro trip to the other side of town, you're looking at a 2 hour ride...
- zardo 4y agoNo the article says it's a 20 minute ride to the other side of the city. Next you're going to say that a sky bridge 300m above the ground with a shin high guard rail is impractical.
- divbzero 4y agoAs described in OP: > A transport system running the length of the megastructure would be designed to connect both ends of the city within 20 minutes. It would take a 500 km/h train to cover 170 km in 20 minutes. I think only maglevs [1] approach that speed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev
- ncmncm 4y agoIt would take more than 20 minutes if it had to stop in the middle. So, I guess it stops only at the ends?
- divbzero 4y agoI suppose so? The Shanghai maglev train [2] might be the only high-speed maglev in operation [3]. The train has a cruising speed of 431 km/h, but averages 250 km/h in actual operation — covering 30 km in 8 minutes with no stops in the middle. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_maglev_train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_maglev_train [3]: Maglevs in Beijing, Changsha, Incheon, and Aichi Prefecture all operate at ~100 km/h or less.
- JediLuke 4y agoIt might actually be good for transport, you could run one set of rails along the entire length and just jump on/off at your desired station. Probably the real-estate in the middle would be the most expensive because it will still be the hub of the city.
- bergenty 4y agoI disagree. It’s time we tried something new rather than the organically outward expanding cities we’ve always done. I’m all for this and if nothing else we will learn something from the experience at a cost trivial compared to the wars that we have been fighting in contemporary times.
- mc32 4y agoThey forgot to put in an ocean water pump that will pump water 100 miles upland in order to than have a nice saltwater river meander between the two buildings flow back to the ocean.
- euroderf 4y agoAre you thinking they could structure it internally like, say, Snowpiercer ? No-one is going to be able to go outside the box to move in the second spatial dimension.
- Mali- 4y agoCool graphics, I do not believe this will ever be built.
- cephei 4y agoThe whole complex comes in at about 34 km^2 which puts the population density at about 10 times the density of Manhattan. The water and energy needs alone will require several key innovations before this becomes even a pipe dream. Household and public space water usage could be a billion gallons of fresh water a day.
- Arnt 4y ago25% of the country's population in one bulding. This can't be something they really intend to build, the plan must be their equivalent of a concept car.
- ncmncm 4y agoOn the other hand: Dubai. One desert dystopia deserves another. The US made Vegas. And stopped.
- herghost 4y agoFeels both exciting and terrifying in about the same proportions!
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThis doesn't strike me as quite as ridiculous as it did on first glance. One, you've got a giant vertical wall that can have building integrated PV for windows. TWo, you've got a shaded area on the north side. Three, they're building it partly undergound, which is good for hot climates. Four, it's planned as a post-car, walkable city which in general is an exciting concept. Five, it appears to be going for an enclosed living area, which is seen as dystopic by people who live in moderate climates, but has always made sense to me for regions with extreme weather (hot or cold) and doing it on a scale that might avoid the downsides of feeling like you're shut in. Redundancy of infrastructure in a linear city strikes me as a potential problem, as is the fact that one end is near the sea and the other end just seems randomly inland. If there's some purpose to the location that I'm not aware of (joining two important places for example) then it's an interesting response to the 'organic' growth of sprawl that occurs when you have two cities linked by a fast communication route, by planning it in advance.
- wizwit999 4y agore location: Look at what country the city is nearest. hint I'm not talking about Jordan.
- lven 4y agoYes interesting. There are also good reasons to build cities in circles/squares. 1. Minimize the perimeter to area ratio. This minimizes the interface with the outside, such as protective walls and access points. On the other hand, in linear city, everyone gets a nice view, albeit basically the same view. 2. Minimize distance between points. Putting everything on a line means increases the distance for point to point trips. In a 2d city, things are closer together. In a 3d city, even more so. This affects travel, networks, etc. Important / highly frequented things will cluster in the middle. 3. Enhance resilience. If there's a roadblock or problem in a linear city, the whole thing gets blocked. In a 2d city, you can usually just reroute around. This applies to travel, sewage, grid, etc blockages. Linear city is just asking for single point failures. Many of these points fall apart when you consider American cities are built kind of like 1d cities around highways and such. The linear city is just admitting it upfront.
- petre 4y agoIt looks like the dystopic cities from Blade Runner, only with vegetation instead of acid rain.
- klyrs 4y agoThe plan is vegetation, but acid rain wins that fight.
- simple10 4y agoGoogle "Saudi Arabia linear city" and you'll likely see an ad for neom.com [1]. It's worth checking out the site for the impressive but bizarrely fantastical concept art. A BBC article [2] about Neom mentions it will have an autonomous legal system drafted by the investors. It feels like Saudi Arabia is trying to create the next Hong Kong. Maybe the linear city plan is more of a way to convince investors there's enough real estate room to expand. Or perhaps there's a reason to need an autonomous legal zone stretching from the Red Sea to inner Saudi Arabia. [1] https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-59601335 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-59601335
- onetokeoverthe 4y ago
- sakerbos 4y agoI can't tell if I'm excited or terrified by this idea.
- ncmncm 4y agoTerror is a kind of excitement. But a $trillion pile of empty, decaying buildings slowly being covered with sand need not be terrifying if you (like everybody else) don't go there.
- avgDev 4y agoSaudi Arabia builds things with modern day slavery. Please read on kafala system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafala_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafala_system Bonus negative points for treatment of women.
- tmdh 4y ago> Bonus negative points for treatment of women. They treat women with respect and dignity. What are you talking about? Women feel safe there. My mom likes to live there. I know because I've lived there for 18 years.
- avgDev 4y agoOh for sure. They just recently were allowed to start driving. They just recently were allowed to get a passport and travel freely without permission from male guardian. Male guardian approval is required to seek an abortion. Male guardian permission required to marry. There is still much segregation and inequality. Family laws skews towards males, as they become guardians. Child custody also skews towards males. It is quite distant from the freedoms women experience in the western world. I won't even mention the treatment of migrant female workers.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
- kgeist 4y agoI wonder what will happen during rush hours when everyone needs to use the transport system
- ncmncm 4y agoEveryone will live at their job.
- pmlnr 4y agoDomed cities dystopia on the horizon.
- globalise83 4y agoI am 100% sure that "Neom" is a colossal Ozymandian mistake that will end up wasting many billions of dollars while achieving precisely nothing of any value to Saudi Arabia or the rest of humanity.
- throw149102 4y agoI cannot imagine a worse way to organize a city than to put it on a line in the middle of a desert with no economic activity whatsoever. Here's a question - what does this city produce? What industries could possibly exist in a city where the only way in or out is on a single line? How do shipments of goods for the grocery stores and restaurants and everything else get into the city? If I want to buy a desk, or a mattress, or anything else does it go on the maglev(s)? The city seems to ignore the fact that building up is exponentially more expensive compared to building flat. Simply getting the material to the height it needs to be now requires a crane, not to speak of the transportation, accessibility, and plumbing issues. Has anyone considered what would happen if there was a fire in the middle of the city? Would people be cut off from their jobs? What if repairs take weeks or months?If the maglev breaks the whole city goes with it. Final point - building a city in the middle of the desert rather than somewhere cold with access to clean drinking water seems stupid in the face of climate change (or in general).
- bradleybuda 4y agoIt's amazing that people keep reporting on Neom as if it is actually going to happen. It's not a credible plan. This is a rich kid's over-funded sci-fi.
- m0llusk 4y agoThis was first proposed earlier, at least 2021. Since that time many of the big building projects in Saudi Arabia such as Jeddah Tower have been cancelled or put on hold.
- dr_faustus 4y agoI really wonder if there is snake oil the Saudis haven’t bought. It will be so much fun to watch once the petro dollars dried up.
- kwere 4y agohow cool would it have been if NEOM was a blend of Arab culture (muscat?) with sensible city design (no carcentric hellhole), instead Billions off Saudis people money will be wasted in this BS. Maybe the plan is to make a meropoly baackbone but its too enormous for the country (or any country) needs or any country
- ksaj 4y agoThis will have an interesting impact on people who are still convinced the world is flat. You will not be able to look down the hall from one end to the other.