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Now, don't compare it to life style in the US, or anywhere else - this is one of a kind project, so we can only theorize and make assumptions - but try to think outside the box. Probable possibilities, pros and cons of such urban planning. I know, we are flaw seekers, fault finders and nit pickers - so, are we capable to seriously evaluate such project?
To me, it sounds like building a city somewhere in Space, but let's see how it goes... lol
So far, all we (only) know are cities built in circles.
And, yes, this is more like sci-fi concept and something we aren't used to see or live in.
But instead of dismissing it with one or two words, for the sake of it, we can at least analyse it
The idea of building a 130-km-tall skyscraper and laying it on its side is something new, but linear towns are not.
You can find several of these in Amish country — roads that connect towns or crossroads that are lined with houses all the way between them, yet you see farms behind the backyards.
The Philadelphia neighborhood I live in, Germantown, began as such a settlement in 1683. It would not begin to grow beyond "the Great Road" — now Germantown Avenue — until the 1830s, when the first railroad through the area ran to the east of the street.
Oh, I would say that many small cities in the US are built linear. Houses in both sides of the highway and crossroads.
Linear settlements are seen along roads, railways, rivers, sea coast and in foothill regions etc. These types of settlements are narrow in shape and they spread along a straight line. Roads are parallel to each other.
The only difference is that the Saudis are planning to built a million population cities, so they need to build skyscrapers and connect them vertically. And that they are going to build them along a commute train, not a car road.
But the principle is the same.
Champlain, Quebec, Canada is an example of a linear settlement.
The idea that was picked up in 1965 by two young architecture grads, Michael Graves and Peter Eisenman, in a proposal called the Jersey Corridor Project. They proposed a twenty-mile long linear city.
They have made a lovely video that describes the linear city. All over North America, lots of money is being spent on rail and transit infrastructure; perhaps the linear city is an idea whose time has finally come, and could help pay for it all. https://youtu.be/8nhuBHWA6OA?si=TzRF1F6npkkiOGwJ
How is local transportation going to be provided in this linear city? They keep touting the high-speed rail line that will go from one end to the other in 20 minutes, but the only way it'll be able to do that is if it doesn't make any stops along the way. Thus, the train would be useless for the vast majority of the residents. Will there be other, local-stop trains as well? Or maybe a series of moving sidewalks to take people between nearby sections?
Fancy prison is fine because no one who doesn't have to go outside goes outside. My eldest brother worked there for about twenty years. It was all about the air conditioning.
How is local transportation going to be provided in this linear city? They keep touting the high-speed rail line that will go from one end to the other in 20 minutes, but the only way it'll be able to do that is if it doesn't make any stops along the way. Thus, the train would be useless for the vast majority of the residents. Will there be other, local-stop trains as well? Or maybe a series of moving sidewalks to take people between nearby sections?
The anticipated high-speed train that will zip through the city has an agenda as streamlined as its architectural host: make only four stops and cover the entire 170-kilometer stretch of the city in a lightning-fast 20 minutes. The train can achieve optimal speeds, in part because it won’t have to deal with curves or complicated track configurations.
I don't know how they want to make 5 minute city with only four train stops over 170km stretch. But it looks like there will be 4 cities grouped along the line, and people will commute using AI enabled transport and next generation fright transportation.
Looking at the picture on the link below it appears that there will be some sort of transportation within the city. No?
The anticipated high-speed train that will zip through the city has an agenda as streamlined as its architectural host: make only four stops and cover the entire 170-kilometer stretch of the city in a lightning-fast 20 minutes. The train can achieve optimal speeds, in part because it won’t have to deal with curves or complicated track configurations.
I don't know how they want to make 5 minute city with only four train stops over 170km stretch. But it looks like there will be 4 cities grouped along the line, and people will commute using AI enabled transport and next generation fright transportation.
Looking at the picture on the link below it appears that there will be some sort of transportation within the city. No?
I haven't seen anything saying how wide The Line would be, but based on the picture shown in the link, let's say it's 100 meters wide -- roughly the length of a football field, including the end zones. If so, then the entire thing would be 17 square kilometers. With a million residents, assuming they're spread out evenly, this would give a population density of just shy of 59,000 per square kilometer. For comparison purposes, this is just slightly more than TWICE the population density of Manhattan. Maybe they'll have leafy parks as shown in the illustration, but most of The Line will by necessity consist of high-rise buildings. Or, maybe one really long high-rise building.
I don't know exactly what "AI enabled transport" means. I assume it means driverless vehicles, i.e. buses. Given a straight transitway with no grade crossings, paralleling the high-speed train in the basement level, it would be easy enough to provide such vehicles for local travel and for connecting with one of the four train stations. I would think some sort of fixed guideway, like an automated people mover, would be an even better option. But, that said, a lot of daily travel will be on foot, because population densities like they're proposing would easily support a variety of supermarkets and other necessary stores at regular intervals.
Is The Line going to intersect with any existing cities? If not, how will people travel outside of the city? How will they get to an airport? And also, how will freight be brought to a junction point where it can then be loaded onto the local freight transport for internal distribution?
Honestly, the whole thing kind of reminds me of the futuristic domed cities of the 1970s sci-fi film Logan's Run. Let's hope The Line has a happier ending.
Yeah, there isn't much info about it, yet. Or where is the nearest airport, or how people will go outside the city walls for outdoor activities.
Oh, ok - there is a bit of an info about airport:
The region has its own airport - Neom Bay Airport. Currently, only 3 airlines operate flights to/from this airport - these are flyadeal, flydubai and Saudi Arabia's national carrier, Saudia. A new airline, NEOM Airlines, will also be based at this airport and is set to launch in 2024. https://www.alternativeairlines.com/flights-to-neom
The Line city supposed to be 200 meters/218 yards wide.
Re: transport
A metro system will allow local travel from module-to-module. Plus there will be horizontal transport corridors at four different heights that might well be pods, light rail or even horizontal elevators – we are still deciding on that particular solution. https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline. (#5)
Not going into the laws and technicalities - maybe building a new city from scratch isn't totally bad idea. It would be a great way of testing if we actually could live in a city that is not totally car dependent, plastered with concrete parking lots and big box supermarkets, sustainable and environmental friendly.
Not sure what's his idea about planning the city, but it could be a resident choice to live in such city or not.
No one would be "made" to live there if that means "suffering" of any kind.
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