Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” – a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
Organization: Saudi State
Project type: Urban development
Project name: The Line
Date: 2017 – 2025
Cost: Total $2 Trillion (estimated had the project been completed)
Synopsis:
Ambitious mega-projects often fail when vision outpaces governance, technical realities and project budgets. Saudi Arabia’s Neom project (and particularly its flagship development ‘The Line‘) has become one of the highest profile examples of the risks.
Announced in 2017 Neom was designed as a futuristic city region built around renewable energy, advanced technology, and large-scale urban innovation. The center-piece was to be a single 170Km long mirrored structure called ‘The Line’. Rising 500 meters (taller than the Empire State Building) above the desert the structure was intended to house up to 9 million people in a car-free, high-density linear city. To make that work basic municipal services including transportation, water supply, sewage, evacuation planning, and environmental management required entirely new thinking. Needing vast quantities of steel, concrete, glass and cladding there were concerns that the scale of the project would put pressure on global supply chains. That pressure could potentially dive cost inflation for every other construction project around the world.
As planning progressed the true complexity and costs started to surface. Repeated redesigns and a gradual reduction in the scale meant that what had been proposed as 170Km continuous building became a 1/2 mile long initial structure. Even at that scale the project generated criticism related to environmental disruption and the displacement of local communities in the development area.
As of late 2025 reports indicate that work has stopped for now. Although things may change direction in the future, for now it appears that despite the grandiose plans, ‘reality’ remains the reigning undisputed heavyweight champion of the world!
Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Major commitments being announced before engineering feasibility, operational requirements, and long term financial demands were fully understood.
Reference links:
Margot Jantz