The most ambitious building project of the decade just hit pause. Reports say Saudi Arabia has shelved major construction on The Line, the 105-mile linear city at the heart of NEOM, until at least 2030 while it reviews costs and scope.
The Line was pitched as two mirror-clad walls running across the desert, 500 meters tall, eventually housing nine million people with no cars and no streets. What’s actually in the ground is a fraction of that: excavation, some structural work and a lot of earthmoving for a first stretch far shorter than the original vision.
Where the linear city stands now
Cost is the obvious pressure. Estimates for the full concept ran into the hundreds of billions, and oil revenue has to cover a long list of other commitments. The reported reset trims near-term ambitions to something the budget can carry, with completion targets sliding well past the dates floated at launch. NEOM officials have said little publicly, which is its own signal.
None of this means The Line is dead. Big state projects slow down and restart all the time, and Saudi Arabia has the balance sheet to keep going if it chooses. But the gap between the renderings and the dirt has gotten hard to ignore.
The lesson for megaprojects
There’s a pattern here that applies far beyond the desert. Projects that lead with a finished image, rather than a buildable first phase, tend to collide with sequencing reality. You can’t pour 105 miles of city at once. You build a segment, prove the systems, then extend. The most durable megaprojects, from transit lines like the Riyadh Metro to phased industrial campuses, work because they’re designed to open in pieces. The Line was designed to be unveiled. That’s a harder thing to finance. Report via New Atlas.