{"id":279616,"date":"2025-11-08T16:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/279616\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T16:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:12:07","slug":"youll-never-guess-what-happened-to-saudi-arabias-100-mile-skyscraper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/279616\/","title":{"rendered":"You’ll Never Guess What Happened to Saudi Arabia’s 100-Mile Skyscraper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not long after being appointed crown prince by Saudi Arabia\u2019s royal family in 2017, Mohammed bin Salman announced an enormous construction project for a futuristic linear city called Neom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the vision is a 1,600 by 660-foot skyscraper called The Line, initially meant to span the entire 105-mile length<\/a> of the city and accommodate a population of nine million people.<\/p>\n

And to call it a megalomaniac pipe dream would be an understatement. The outside of the wall-like city was meant to be entirely covered by a mirrored finish that reflected the surrounding desert \u2014 and feature a 30-story building hanging from a bridge.<\/p>\n

As the Financial Times reports<\/a> in an extensive and revealing new feature, the sci-fi vision has since collided with reality at full force. Much of the construction has ground to a halt, and outside investors are balking at skyrocketing costs, leaving the future of The Line hanging by a thread<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not to mention the countless workers who have died<\/a> while working on the project, to the dismay of human rights observers.<\/p>\n

While extensive excavation and tunneling for a railway that was meant to connect The Line to a nearby airport can be seen from space<\/a>, construction has already fallen far behind schedule. The scope of the enormous project has also been reined in significantly, from 20 city modules that were once meant to house millions of people to a mere three, per the FT.<\/p>\n

According to early concepts, the 20 modules \u2014 accounting for just ten out of the originally conceived 105 miles of the skyscraper \u2014 were meant to be completed by 2030, with the first residents moving in in early 2025. Yet, construction crews have only started work on a future foundation.<\/p>\n

That kind of significant downscaling has made it far harder to sell the vision to investors. Even a previously revised plan of constructing just seven modules, enough to house 300,000 to 500,000 people, was met with skepticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you went below seven, it started becoming ever more difficult to sell it as an investment,\u201d one senior construction manager told the FT. \u201c[That is] why I think it has died\u2026 it\u2019s just uninvestable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with heavy backing from wealthy Saudi families, the government was still hoping to bring in outside money to build The Line. But now that foreign backers are backing out, managers are doubtful the project will ever be built.<\/p>\n

An attempt in 2023 to internally audit the project was immediately shut down by Prince Mohammed and his governing board, with former Neom employees comparing the working culture to \u201cThe Emperor\u2019s New Clothes,\u201d according to the FT.<\/p>\n

Despite a litany of hard questions, the project remains technically alive. Even the hanging 30-story building, which experts told the newspaper makes no sense, is still in the plans. A November 2024 press release<\/a> claims that the project \u201ccontinues to accelerate from vision to reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, a source told the FT that most of the work on The Line \u201chad effectively stopped,\u201d apart from the construction of a few buildings around a planned marina.<\/p>\n

Enormous pilings for the city\u2019s foundation \u2014 some of the largest ever installed, measuring anywhere from eight to ten feet in diameter \u2014 have perhaps fittingly been covered in the surrounding desert\u2019s sand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think as a thought experiment, great,\u201d a Saudi Arabia-based urban planning expert told the FT. \u201cBut don\u2019t build thought experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on The Line: Saudi Arabia\u2019s 100-Mile Skyscraper Is Turning Into a Disaster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not long after being appointed crown prince by Saudi Arabia\u2019s royal family in 2017, Mohammed bin Salman announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-279616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}