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This town has everything: modern urban planning, ancient sodomy laws, and a summer temperature approaching that of the Sun. But Saudi Arabia’s ambitious “The Line”, currently being built in Neom, has not yet achieved the “civilisational revolution” it promised in its massive PR campaign.
Influencers have started posting about their daily lives in the new Saudi city of Neom. The Saudis seem to be marketing Neom as some kind of planned suburb/encampment for wealthy Westerners: pic.twitter.com/cjncZfckxZ
— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) September 17, 2024
The streets and pavements were desolate, as was the public park, in a video shared by a South African influencer living in Neom. The few residents appeared to eat all their meals in a sad, fluorescent-lit “dining hall”. All of the buildings in the clip were three storeys high, a far cry from the promised 105-metre-high metropolis, and the bike lane was predictably not in use. The scene closely resembled a collection of hotels surrounding a mid-sized regional airport. Granted, Rome wasn’t built in a day — or a desert.
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