The authorities of Saudi Arabia and the Neom joint-stock company (created by the Saudi government and led by Mohammad bin Salmán, crown prince of this Arab country) presented the official start of the works on The Line last October with great fanfare. , a city of great proportions with a linear design that is intended to be the largest existing human construction on the planet.
The promoters of this megaproject defend construction as a new city model and highlight factors such as the non-circulation of private vehicles as an element in favor of ecological sustainability.
Since long before the start of the works, various experts in urban planning and ecology have questioned the design and scope of this megalopolis that would house up to 9 million people in a group of skyscrapers that would extend in a line 170 kilometers long and 200 kilometers wide. broad.
Rafael Prieto-Curiel and Dániel Kondor, researchers at the Complexity Science Hub, in Vienna (Austria), now review The Line project from the urban planning, transport, energy efficiency and ecology points of view, and reach several rather negative conclusions, the chief of which is that The Line "is the least efficient way possible to make a city." The data, arguments and final assessment of these two experts have been published in an article in the journal NPJ Uran Sustainability, from the Nature publishing group.
The Line is presented as "the embodiment of the dream of starting from scratch and completely rethinking a city" -indicates Rafael Prieto-Curiel- but, to begin with, "a linear construction is the worst way to design a city", if we remember for example that for thousands of years cities with a circular structure have been created, "for a reason humanity has 50,000 cities, and they are all round in some way".
The first major criticism of Prieto-Curiel and Kondor refers to mobility. If we randomly choose two people who live in the future on The Line, they will be, on average, 57 kilometers away from each other. In Johannesburg, which has an area 50 times the size of the new Saudi project, two random people are only 33 kilometers apart.
On The Line, assuming a walking distance of one kilometre, only 1.2% of the population are within walking distance of each other. This makes active mobility difficult, so people will depend on public transport, warn the authors of this critical analysis.
The backbone of public transportation is planned to be a high-speed rail system. “For everyone to be within walking distance of a station, there must be at least 86 stations,” explains CSH researcher Dániel Kondor. As a result, trains spend considerable time at stations and will not be able to achieve high travel speeds between two stations.
According to the researchers, therefore, a trip is expected to take 60 minutes on average, and at least 47% of the population would have an even longer trip. Even with additional express lines, earnings are limited due to the additional transfers required. The result is that people would continue to travel longer than in other major cities, such as Seoul, where 25 million people commute to work in less than 50 minutes.
Research shows that people want to spend little time commuting from home to work, so efficient transportation plays a key role in the success of cities. But can these city trips be avoided with a high-density design? That is, with jobs, purchases, services, very close to each other, experts wonder.
"Cities are more than a collection of semi-isolated neighborhoods nestled next to each other. What distinguishes a city from smaller settlements is not just its size, but additional opportunities outside of the immediate neighborhood, such as concerts or a job search For this reason, we need to consider transportation throughout the city," explains Kondor.
If you take The Line and turn it into The Circle, a city with a radius of 3.3 kilometers, the distance between two people would be only 2.9 kilometers, and 24% of the population they would be within a short distance of each other, these experts calculate. Most of the mobility could be active (walking, cycling or similar), making a high-speed rail system unnecessary. Alternatively, The Circle could allow for good connectivity even at lower densities, avoiding the need for super-tall buildings.
"This project gets people talking about urban forms, and that's immensely important because cities, especially in Africa, are growing," says Prieto-Curiel. Historically, cities often grew organically, while planned cities often fell short of expectations; therefore, there is a need for greater public participation in urban design on a human scale.
In addition, sustainability is emphasized in many aspects of the project. For example, there will be no cars for distances that do not exceed five minutes on foot. This not only saves a lot of space in terms of infrastructure and parking, but also reduces the number of cars. Furthermore, all power will be produced with zero carbon emissions. However, what is not taken into account here is the construction of the skyscrapers, which requires a lot of material and energy.
"Overall, it stands to reason that other considerations may have influenced the choice of this unique shape, such as branding or creating compelling videos for social media. However, it's important to understand the consequences, especially if The Line is about as a showcase of modern construction and urban planning technologies", underlines Prieto-Curiel. The image may be attractive but the content does not withstand urban and ecological criticism.
