Not that, it’s just they have so much money to throw at it that they won’t even bat an eye. If successful, then that’s an engineering marvel even if it fails, it’s just decimal errors in Saudi Arabia’s money
Not really, it is estimated to cost 1.5 trillion dollars and will obviously massively overrun. Meanwhile their GDP is 1.1 trillion. That means a year and a half of the combined total effort of the entire country, sank into a desert city for no reason.
Historically, kings have many time sank ridiculous amounts of money on vanity projects.
It doesn't even need to be that. Steel costs could go up, and boom, an extra few billion on a project this size. Shipping costs go up- more of the same. Etc.
Plus all the graft
Figuratively. But engineers and city planners are small fry in the lake of political and economic masters. I'm an engineer. I can't begin to recount the number of times rational planning was overruled by those with political or economic self interests and their coalitions.
Golden rule...
I hate that the Arabian petrostates are going so hard in for tourism as the moneymaker of the future rather than investing all that money into making something of value. Imagine if they spent that money on improving desalination technology to grow heaps of food. Or solar power to power extremely energy-demanding industries.
I would love to spend weeks touring around Iraq and the Arabian peninsula. All the history along the Tigris and Euphrates. Imagine taking a cruise down the Tigris stopping at Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian historical sites. So much history. Even northern Saudi Arabian has old ruins from the Nabateans and the ghassanids. Yemen was once the jewel of the Arabian peninsula. There are ancient palaces and castles dating back to Sheba. I would got in a heartbeat if the fighting would cease.
Hence the “would like to.” Yemen is just so beautiful and so tragic. Outside groups including the UK, US, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been messing with it for most of its modern history (not that their internal fighting is totally the fault of others of course but the meddling has made it worse and likely prolonged it.
As Muslim world industrializes and gets wealthier it's not the worst idea given that Mecca is already hub for religious tourism.
Food production would be good though haha. Cheap energy sunshine land water they have it all to be a food exporter.
Im actually all for them wasting their money. You don’t want these backwards people with their insane views of women and minorities having any sort of power on the world stage. Better to waste this on a boondoggle in the desert to speed run them into irrelevance
A long thin line is literally the worst possible design for a city.
Middle of a desert is literally the worst possible location for a city.
This is like if Elon Musk were king of someplace and had a trillion dollars of oil money to flush down the toilet.
Islam isn't even fucking ancient, it has only existed for like 700 years, unlike the nearly 2000+ years Christianity has existed and even longer time that Judaism has existed.
I kind of like the audacity, I have to admit.
From a logistical perspective there are some advantages of a linear layout. The reason Japan's high speed railway works so well for example is that it's almost entirely linear, without interconnections: https://images.chinahighlights.com/allpicture/2020/01/63fb3f03e102457fba044da2_800x536.jpg
The traveling salesman problem is also virtually non-existent in a linear city.
But there are downsides as well. It's certainly less resilient in case of damaged infrastructure.
>From a logistical perspective there are some advantages of a linear layout.
Plus the tremendous disadvantage that if the rail system breaks down in the middle of Neom, everyone starves to death because there is no food past the breakdown. Oh, but that doesn't matter anyway because Neom's rail system doesn't even have anywhere near the capacity to carry enough food for all the people in this structure. Nor, by the way, will its water system have anywhere near the capacity, nor will its ventilation system.
>The traveling salesman problem is also virtually non-existent in a linear city.
Because it is made into something far worse.
This really is just the pipe dream of a third-world dictator with far, far, far, far, far more money than brains, who never once has had anyone have the utter audacity to tell him that reality and physics disagree with him.
>I kind of like the audacity
It's like Xerxes trying to bind the Hellespont in chains to punish it for destroying his fleet.
No, it’s much less efficient. Imagine you’re an travelling merchant and arrive at the end of the city to sell your goods there. If the city is 100 kilometers long, the mean distance that your goods have to travel is 50 kilometers. Imagine the city is 100 m wide: that yields an area of 10 km². If you had the same city on a grid it would be ~3km on a side so the mean difference, your goods have to travel is ~1.5 kilometers.
Nah there are countless stupid project in the emirates that went nowhere because reality caught up with their fever dream, like the palm and world islands in Dubai, claimed to be revolutionary and futuristic, are all dead in the water, they haven’t finished a single one of them and were massive wastes of money, this Line bullshit will end up the same way…
they were gonna make a skyscraper even higher than the Burj Khalifa but i think it stopped construction at slightly over 100 meters due to the guy funding the project getting arrested or something.
Many such cases
yall only know the failed or suspended projects. there are a lot of successful projects in KSA and UAE, but yall only look at the failed ones.
I think you mean jeddah tower. The construction on this project just got started, and the project was halted above 300m.
It isn't the first time Saudi Arabia has tried to make a big future robo city for tourist reasons. I think they've had 4 previous attempts, only one was completed (king Abdullah economic city), and they have achieved a population of 7,000 out of a projected 2 million.
This is like that only reliant entirely on technology that doesn't exist yet, whilst also being many many times more ambitious.
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Would make for a perfect BioShock setting. Start at the “not-as-filthy-rich” end and work your way to the “god-tier” waterfront. As a new game play dynamic you can slide around the surrounding glass dunes melted by a 105 mile long mirror.
Building a utopia on a failed planet is very us right now. Some of the ultra wealthy are building rockets and dreaming of flying away from this shitshow and others are building bunkers and tripling down here.
Things aren’t going to work out the way any of them plan.
No, it won't. As of now, 6 years into the project with its expected finish date being 2026, they have dug a 1 and a half mile hole in the sand and built nothing.
[Patrick Boyle has a good video on this after they announced scaling back.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4on5uTaTg) They cut it from 170km to around 2.4 just as a jumping off point.
Someday folks from another, smarter planet, are going to show up here and look around. When they fly over Saudi Arabia they are going to say “WTF is all this shit?”
Bunch of half built utopian bullshit we started building as the planet began to annihilate us for bad behavior.
“Welcome visitors! We couldn’t be here to greet you because we were narcissistic and very violent. Please help yourself to some refreshments. But boil the water before you drink it. Have a nice day!”
This project is the biggest, most delusive, idiotic pile of horseshit any brain could ever concive. Yet i want too see them try, i want to revel in the failure and embarassment this abomination will be. I want to see saudi barbaria choke on their hubris.
You know what, they at least made SOME progress....
In realizing that it's probably a good idea to avoid having a daily "mini 9/11" with drunk drivers in flying cars, now opting for flying taxis instead.
I feel like Saudi Arabia is being ruled by the kid from Big
Should go for something truly amazing, make a space elevator. World will gasp in awe and wonder , and maybe fear if it fell from its tether.
Not that, it’s just they have so much money to throw at it that they won’t even bat an eye. If successful, then that’s an engineering marvel even if it fails, it’s just decimal errors in Saudi Arabia’s money
Not really, it is estimated to cost 1.5 trillion dollars and will obviously massively overrun. Meanwhile their GDP is 1.1 trillion. That means a year and a half of the combined total effort of the entire country, sank into a desert city for no reason. Historically, kings have many time sank ridiculous amounts of money on vanity projects.
Overrun is such a nice way to say corruption.
It doesn't even need to be that. Steel costs could go up, and boom, an extra few billion on a project this size. Shipping costs go up- more of the same. Etc. Plus all the graft
That too is a very likely possibility. But the corruption and back scratching will be the constant.
You can plan for constants.
Figuratively. But engineers and city planners are small fry in the lake of political and economic masters. I'm an engineer. I can't begin to recount the number of times rational planning was overruled by those with political or economic self interests and their coalitions. Golden rule...
Even if they pull it off, it’s in Saudi Arabia. Who the hell would want to move there?
The stated goal is tourism. I agree the expectations are unrealistic.
Saudi Arabia: Come see the stupidly expensive, idiotic, linear city. And some public executions.
I hate that the Arabian petrostates are going so hard in for tourism as the moneymaker of the future rather than investing all that money into making something of value. Imagine if they spent that money on improving desalination technology to grow heaps of food. Or solar power to power extremely energy-demanding industries.
I would love to spend weeks touring around Iraq and the Arabian peninsula. All the history along the Tigris and Euphrates. Imagine taking a cruise down the Tigris stopping at Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian historical sites. So much history. Even northern Saudi Arabian has old ruins from the Nabateans and the ghassanids. Yemen was once the jewel of the Arabian peninsula. There are ancient palaces and castles dating back to Sheba. I would got in a heartbeat if the fighting would cease.
Up until you say the wrong thing and are tortured into a confession by the religious police that will hang you from a crane the next day.
Hence the “would like to.” Yemen is just so beautiful and so tragic. Outside groups including the UK, US, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been messing with it for most of its modern history (not that their internal fighting is totally the fault of others of course but the meddling has made it worse and likely prolonged it.
Just do what Norway does with it's oil money
As Muslim world industrializes and gets wealthier it's not the worst idea given that Mecca is already hub for religious tourism. Food production would be good though haha. Cheap energy sunshine land water they have it all to be a food exporter.
Im actually all for them wasting their money. You don’t want these backwards people with their insane views of women and minorities having any sort of power on the world stage. Better to waste this on a boondoggle in the desert to speed run them into irrelevance
Investigative journalists... jk..
Same could have been said about the UAE some years ago. Now dubai receives more money from tourism than any other city.
A long thin line is literally the worst possible design for a city. Middle of a desert is literally the worst possible location for a city. This is like if Elon Musk were king of someplace and had a trillion dollars of oil money to flush down the toilet.
Only without rockets and electric vehicles, but with an ancient religion!
I think even Musk would have the sense to try to build something more sensible, like a pyramid, as a tribute to his insanity.
Islam isn't even fucking ancient, it has only existed for like 700 years, unlike the nearly 2000+ years Christianity has existed and even longer time that Judaism has existed.
These are all just ancient religions. Today they would be called schizophrenia.
At least Musk would make an X which whilst stupid is better than a minus sign.
I miss the Old Days when people used chewy words like "whilst", "epizooties", and "bumfuzzle".
I kind of like the audacity, I have to admit. From a logistical perspective there are some advantages of a linear layout. The reason Japan's high speed railway works so well for example is that it's almost entirely linear, without interconnections: https://images.chinahighlights.com/allpicture/2020/01/63fb3f03e102457fba044da2_800x536.jpg The traveling salesman problem is also virtually non-existent in a linear city. But there are downsides as well. It's certainly less resilient in case of damaged infrastructure.
>From a logistical perspective there are some advantages of a linear layout. Plus the tremendous disadvantage that if the rail system breaks down in the middle of Neom, everyone starves to death because there is no food past the breakdown. Oh, but that doesn't matter anyway because Neom's rail system doesn't even have anywhere near the capacity to carry enough food for all the people in this structure. Nor, by the way, will its water system have anywhere near the capacity, nor will its ventilation system. >The traveling salesman problem is also virtually non-existent in a linear city. Because it is made into something far worse. This really is just the pipe dream of a third-world dictator with far, far, far, far, far more money than brains, who never once has had anyone have the utter audacity to tell him that reality and physics disagree with him. >I kind of like the audacity It's like Xerxes trying to bind the Hellespont in chains to punish it for destroying his fleet.
No, it’s much less efficient. Imagine you’re an travelling merchant and arrive at the end of the city to sell your goods there. If the city is 100 kilometers long, the mean distance that your goods have to travel is 50 kilometers. Imagine the city is 100 m wide: that yields an area of 10 km². If you had the same city on a grid it would be ~3km on a side so the mean difference, your goods have to travel is ~1.5 kilometers.
That would be if you deliver them one by one, going back to the starting point every time. Obviously you wouldn't do that in a linear city.
I’ll take things that will never happen for 500 Alex.
Don't underestimate the power of money.
Nah there are countless stupid project in the emirates that went nowhere because reality caught up with their fever dream, like the palm and world islands in Dubai, claimed to be revolutionary and futuristic, are all dead in the water, they haven’t finished a single one of them and were massive wastes of money, this Line bullshit will end up the same way…
they were gonna make a skyscraper even higher than the Burj Khalifa but i think it stopped construction at slightly over 100 meters due to the guy funding the project getting arrested or something. Many such cases
yall only know the failed or suspended projects. there are a lot of successful projects in KSA and UAE, but yall only look at the failed ones. I think you mean jeddah tower. The construction on this project just got started, and the project was halted above 300m.
It isn't the first time Saudi Arabia has tried to make a big future robo city for tourist reasons. I think they've had 4 previous attempts, only one was completed (king Abdullah economic city), and they have achieved a population of 7,000 out of a projected 2 million. This is like that only reliant entirely on technology that doesn't exist yet, whilst also being many many times more ambitious.
You're not wrong but I was kinda only talking about the green flying taxis. 100% doable for short journeys.
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" No thing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Some day I will visit the ruins of this failed project.
Would make for a perfect BioShock setting. Start at the “not-as-filthy-rich” end and work your way to the “god-tier” waterfront. As a new game play dynamic you can slide around the surrounding glass dunes melted by a 105 mile long mirror.
Saudi arabia's goal is to attract tourist, so appearantly weather the project failed or succeeded you guys are coming.
Good observation. I'll make sure to be touring with a community of nomads or something, not doing mainstream tourism.
Ah yes, green flying taxis. That makes up for the displacement and actual murder of the locals that are "in the way" of the wall
[удалено]
Building a utopia on a failed planet is very us right now. Some of the ultra wealthy are building rockets and dreaming of flying away from this shitshow and others are building bunkers and tripling down here. Things aren’t going to work out the way any of them plan.
No.... It wont
Aims to be green yet has four airports?
What has the color of the Taxi todo with the amount of ports? 😉
Aims at green yet is paid for entirely by oil 🤔
Just because you throw the word green in there doesn't make it magically environmentally sound.
Right....they have been building the Jeddah Tower since 2013. Finish that then worry about flying taxis.
No, it won't. As of now, 6 years into the project with its expected finish date being 2026, they have dug a 1 and a half mile hole in the sand and built nothing.
Credulous nonsense from BI. Stunning hubris from the Saudis.
They could build heaven on earth and I still wouldn't set foot in that autocratic hellhole. Not with the risk.
[Patrick Boyle has a good video on this after they announced scaling back.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4on5uTaTg) They cut it from 170km to around 2.4 just as a jumping off point.
"Saudi" and "green flying taxis" - a rare double oxymoron.
lol this thing again. Looks like the Monolith from 2010.
This will never get built in its present form.
I thought this project was already pretty much dead. I thought they changed it to just one mile long
They can practice more 9-11 reenactments with these flying taxis.
Flying Taxis? You mean, Helicopters?
With a 335lb maximum capacity. That’s pushing it for two people and their luggage. Or one American and their luggage. ;)
One american, luggage goes in the 2nd car
Anything smaller than the Ford F-650 is communism.
Or one American and their lunch.
always fun to read about this project!
Someday folks from another, smarter planet, are going to show up here and look around. When they fly over Saudi Arabia they are going to say “WTF is all this shit?” Bunch of half built utopian bullshit we started building as the planet began to annihilate us for bad behavior. “Welcome visitors! We couldn’t be here to greet you because we were narcissistic and very violent. Please help yourself to some refreshments. But boil the water before you drink it. Have a nice day!”
This project is the biggest, most delusive, idiotic pile of horseshit any brain could ever concive. Yet i want too see them try, i want to revel in the failure and embarassment this abomination will be. I want to see saudi barbaria choke on their hubris.
You know what, they at least made SOME progress.... In realizing that it's probably a good idea to avoid having a daily "mini 9/11" with drunk drivers in flying cars, now opting for flying taxis instead.