This past Wednesday, many users across social media compared Saudi Arabia’s recently unveiled advertisement for an absolutely massive megacity project that it has proposed to outright dystopian horror.
The new project, which has been titled “The Line,” is a new smart megacity project being pushed out in the planned city of Neom, which is located in the far northwestern part of the country. This worryingly ambitious project will end up being about 200 meters, or roughly 650 feet wide and just about 500 meters, or 1,600 feet tall, but it slated to extend out over 170 kilometers, or roughly 106 miles long. The website for this new project stated that once the town is done, the city will house just over nine million people over a total footprint of roughly 34 square kilometers.
“For too long, humanity has existed within dysfunctional and polluted cities that ignore nature,” exclaimed a promo video for the new project. “Now, a revolution in civilization is taking place. Imagine a traditional city, and consolidating its footprint, designing to protect and enhance nature.”
The video also claims that The Line is being created to “provide a healthier, more sustainable quality of life.”
The website seems to promote the highly futuristic megacity as running entirely on renewable energy and preserving 95% of the surrounding land for nature. The city will be constructed as a series of independent nodes connected by a high-speed rail system that can move the entire length of the city in roughly 20 minutes. The city is broken down into three layers: two of which will be underground for infrastructure and transportation, and the final one on the surface which will be only available to pedestrians. There will not absolutely no roads or cars, and the website issues the claim that all people who live there will be able to take care of their daily necessities within a roughly 5-minute walk of their neighborhoods.
The web page also highlighted the city’s micro-climate, which will be created by “natural ventilation,” creating the “ideal climate all-year-round.” The promotional video went on to explain that the megacity will be surrounded by a structure of mirrored glass facade, and will have “equitable views” and an “immediate access to nature.”
It has also been announced that the city will be run by AI technology. The released video stated that most services will be entirely autonomous and that artificial intelligence, working alongside predictive models and data analysis, will allow improvements to daily life to come forth.
All of this ended up sparking a series of intense reactions across social media, with almost all of them comparing the city to works of dystopian horror fiction.
“I never seen something more dystopian,” exclaimed user @adara_salim.
“Saudi Arabia figured out a way to cram all the city-dwelling libs into a giant wall that they never have to leave and convinced them it’s really cool and progressive,” stated Michael Knowles. “If we can build it on the southern border, Mohammad bin Salman deserves a Nobel Prize.”
“This remake of Blade Runner is a little disturbing,” explained John Dickerson, an anchor for CBS News.
“How is this not a dystopian video game trailer?” tweeted out one games journalist, Ryan Brown.
“So…..Snowpiercer….But it doesn’t move…But guaranteed to have the same class stratification,” predicted journalism professor and MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson.
As reported by Bloomberg, the groundwork for the city started back in October of 2021, and the first residents are slated to move into their new homes as soon as 2024.