Saudi Arabia’s wildly ambitious plan to build 500m tall, mirrored, 170km long parallel skyscrapers, forming a 1.5M population desert city has been curtailed to 2.4km long.
The news was broken by the financial news publication Bloomberg, which said that Saudi Arabia’s government had “scaled back its medium-term ambitions” for Neom, of which The Line is the most significant sub-project.
The Saudi government had hoped to have 1.5M residents living in The Line by 2030, but this has been scaled back to fewer than 300,000, according to the report. It is unclear how it intends to house a higher concentration of people considering the proposed length (and therefore area) has been massively slashed.
Do we have a list of stupid city ideas? I think El Salvador’s Bitcoin City and Egypt’s new capital should belong there.
If you’re interested in the inner workings of shitty civic planning check out James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State. He’s an anthropologist who took a particular interest in why top-down societies always seem to miss the mark in infrastructure, ecology, agriculture, and social services (among others). A significant portion of the book is spent critically analyzing Le Corbusier’s work and his ideological contemporaries. With Brasilia as a case study for the failures of “high modernist” ideology and design philosophy. It’s a great read and I think a lot of these new urban planning projects that are obviously insane and impractical owe a lot to these batshit crazy people from the past that founded this particular flavor of foolish
I guess they read about China’s recent success with a fusion reactor.
How recent are you talking and by what measure of success? Because I’m not finding anything when I search and, as far as I know, the world is still a long way away from fusion as a practical energy source.
So by “recent,” you meant 2022 and by “success,” you mean running 17 minutes.
How long do you think you can power a city with those 17 minutes of fusion?
Because my guess is around 17 minutes.
It’s a substantial leap in proof of concept. The previous record was 17s. They’re opening up all research that led to the success, with many scientists claiming potential for controlled applications within 20 years.
Even improved harnessing and storage of 158M°F could allow the reactor to work in modulation. It’s a big deal in the science community.
“Many scientists” like the ones who have been claiming that my entire life since the 1980s?
Can you show me any of their peer-reviewed journal articles that say so?
And considering your definitions of “recent” and “success” turned out to be a little on the untrue side, I’m not inclined to believe your “big deal” claim either.
You do know the difference between a peer-reviewed journal article and a regurgitated press release on a site called ‘Nuclear Newsire,’ right?
Try South Korea instead. I think they’re the ones who achieved a 48s run recently.
China sustained 158 million degrees Fahrenheit (70 million degrees Celsius) for 1,056 seconds.
I wouldn’t call that a practical energy source either.
fusion won’t generate anything but hype. if you want reliable power source, just build normal uranium fueled nuclear powerplants like a responsible government, not overhyped garbage like hedge fund manager that just got his shipment of good idea powder
desert sun’s rays nuke the lake in front of glass wall/city
“Where lake go?”
That’s not a big problem since this is in a desert. Getting any water there in the first place is the problem. And, based on the mockups I saw, there’s supposed to be a lot of greenery.
water policies of saudi arabia are straight up insane. riyadh takes half of water from seashore desalination plants (that burn massive amounts of oil, so big that it cuts into their oil revenue very significantly). for the other half, they have somehow found non-renewable water, literal fossil water, and it’ll run out in decade (might have misremembered). at the same time there are no water meters in the city at all
at the same time there are no water meters in the city at all
Apparently Ireland hasn’t billed for water either, and the prospect of the introduction of billing had activists objecting on grounds like “you can’t charge for water, water is life-critical and a human right”. I remember reading comments on /r/Europe from Irish readers who were really upset at the prospect of needing to pay for water.
googles
It looks like as implemented, billing is only for households that use substantially more than the average and start going out late this year:
https://www.moneyguideireland.com/water-charges-2017-new-rules.html
The latest information from Irish Water is that the earliest that excess charges will apply is Q3 2023 at the earliest.
So the earliest any household will get a bill from Irish Water is October 2024.
ireland has less issues with potable water supply i suspect
also unrelated but why are you googling loudly
You’ve missed the point that the government had relatively recently introduced a ‘temporary’ Universal Service Charge during the recession and had not (and have not to this day) removed it. I was in favour of metering water but the argument wasn’t as simplistic as you’re making it.
Ireland being a low density country with an inundation of fresh water rain and springs is certainly worth mentioning when comparing with Saudi Arabia though…
It would just fry anyone who stands there for more than five minutes.
probably beats living in saudi arabia
I don’t know it’s probably great for Bonesaw McKillajournalist.
This is truly the most moronic project ever, but at least I had a good laugh about it today.
It’s even dumber than dumping sand into the ocean in the shape of a palm tree and calling it a suburb.
But do they have enough millionaires to house in there?
1 mile is not a city. it’s smaller than the park next to my house
Did they plan for sewage this time? Or will there be another poop train?
I see this a lot and I’m not sure whether to attribute it to ignorance or racism, but Saudi Arabia isn’t the UAE.
Lucky for them. The UAE is utterly incompetent at sewage and garbage. Pretty sure it’s because everyone running the stuff over there is either a relative of someone important or someone imported who wants to be seen as impressive.
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Drown you in paperwork
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Demand the most expensive version of everything since the most expensive one is better in their mind.
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More paperwork
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Demand you follow some weird standards that seem to be a mixture of old UK and lord only knows what
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Finally they agree to the project and they demand a discount
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More paperwork
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Demand to see entire system in operation remotely.
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Tell you they aren’t ready and are willing to pay for storage
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Wait five years and finally turn it on.
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Huh. Both in my case. Education will helpe in both issues. Thanks.
Its more likely that they’re directly next to each other but the uae gets more coverage but is much much smaller.
You might be surprised how many places have a system like that in the developed world.
The
LineDashHuge waste of time and money. That effort could be focused on many better and more reasonable projects. This is what happens when fucking idiots get a ton of money inherited from their parents. We should never have relied on Saudi oil, it’s been a drain on humanity.
Lol
I think at that point it’s a town.
It is unclear how it intends to house a higher concentration of people considering the proposed length (and therefore area) has been massively slashed.
I got a brilliant idea: extend it slightly to the sides, maybe in a round shape. This allows for a more efficient way to house a high concentration of people.
🤏
The stupidest idea for a city that I’ve ever heard has gotten marginally less stupid.
At least now you can get from one side to the other quickly in an emergency.
Not that they’ll even build these 2.4 km.
I think it came up like this: Saudi king at his last visit at Chinese Wall. „Uw, one can see it from the space? That’s awesome.“ At home: „Servants, build something as big as the Chinese Wall that is visible from the space, so everyone sees how great I am.“
I’m pretty sure the whole “can be seen from space” is wrong.
As if he cares
You can’t see it with the naked eye, but only with magnification
That’s just existing with extra steps.
Ever used Google Maps? Everything can be seen from space.
Some things are too small to be seen from anywhere.
Like ur dick
lol gottem
That would be crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, because king Salman has retired in all but name
Is that bone saw cunt, or some other auth piece of shit cunt?
That is Mr. Bone Saw(MBS)
I live in the city (Terre Haute, Indiana) where Mr. Kashoggi, the man who was murdered by MBS, went to school (Indiana State University) and there was very little outcry, which saddened me greatly.
Well yeah, he wasn’t white.
Honestly, that is not a big Terre Haute problem today compared to a lot of Indiana. While it is still by far majority white, there is a sizable black population compared to a lot of other Indiana towns this size and there’s no “black part of town,” it’s thoroughly integrated. As far as Kashoggi is concerned, there also is a large enough local Muslim population to support a mosque. ISU is also a progressive school despite being in Indiana they are very big on multiculturalism. I don’t know what the Muslim population of the school is, but enough that you would notice and the school does have public celebrations of holidays like Eid, so it was actually surprising.
Now, I admit that was not always the case. In fact, a little over a century ago, Terre Haute was the site of an absolutely horrific lynching of a black man. And, of course, since this is Indiana, there is not a total lack of racism. But compared to other parts of the state I’ve been to, it’s doing relatively well on that front.
Yes it’s Mr Bone Saw
It was the crown prince, not the king, but I’m pretty sure that’s more or less how it went.
Ask anyone who’s ever built a house and they can tell you what a stupid fucking idea it would be to have a foundation that large.
Even if they somehow had some magical way to solve the foundation issue, with the original plan… could you imagine having to go from one part of the city to another for pretty much any reason? In a linear city? You better hope that other part is really close. Especially if it’s a personal medical issue or a dying loved one.
This is a good place to have elon’s little super tube!!
Also: this city has only one road. How is traffic going to be? Better hope you somehow get a flat near your work, and that everyone else does too, and that nobody ever moves or cha’mnges job for any reason. This is such a horsehit project I’m surprised the guy who proposed it didn’t get thrown out of the window like in the meme.
Never mind commuter traffic, imagine how long it would take necessary commodities to the right places in a timely manner!
I never looked into it more than a tertiary “Holy shit that looks dumb,” and yet somehow it’s even dumber than I thought!
I mean, how is it any different to any other multi km wide city?
For one thing, you can avoid congestion.
Sorry, I mean those saying I hope you don’t need to get to the other side, or what if you move.
Their plan was to have most people commute by train and have a veritable army of self-driving trains. That’s easily the most well thought part of the harebrained idea.
Not just train
Hyperloop
You know the thing that totally exists and wasn’t a scam to stop California from installing high speed rail that would cut into a certain company’s EV sales.
I thought the proposed plans had multiple level high speed rails inside?
Oh, I know that one - Tesla would solve it with hyperloop and boring /s
