Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is working on the creation of Neom, a new city he plans to build from scratch in the northwestern corner of the kingdom.
The news of a “startup” city (lately I talked about DiverCity, to say) "is already unusual in itself, but it is also the shape of Neom that is very intriguing. Mohammed bin Salman announced that it will be a real linear city, which will develop over a length 170 kilometers (105 miles).
The Line
Colloquially called “The Line“, this vision of Neom will apparently consist of a series of housing modules repeated across the length of the linear city.
Each module will be a real autonomous neighborhood, with all needs reachable in five minutes on foot.
Traffic will not be a problem
The most surprising thing about this urbanistic approach to the linear city is the role assigned to transport. Cars and driveways will only be placed on a lower level, leaving the level of the pedestrian and green area. To move around (it should be said) the city, a fast transport system. Very fast.
Mohammed bin Salman says traversing the entire linear city will take 20 minutes, presumably via a Hyperloop-like system, positioned in a second sublevel.
Neom is the megacity of the future
Neom's approach is also important for the desire for flexibility. With this scheme, cities become real "giant decumans", crossed by rapid trains. Expanding Neom will be quite easy: just add a new module anywhere on the line and connect it to the existing transport system. A bit like building a house and connecting it to a system. With the difference that in the linear city, instead of a house there is an entire neighborhood.
A way to build a megalopolis that has both human-scale neighborhoods and large-scale dynamics.
Here is the video of the presentation. It lasts four minutes, but if you're short on time, go straight to 1:47 and then let me know what you think, maybe on the Telegram channel of Futuroprossimo.it.
