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.
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?
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.