What Happened to Saudi Arabia's 170 km City of the Future?

In 2021, Saudi Arabia promised a city 170 kilometres long, with zero cars and zero streets. By 2024, the plan for this decade had shrunk to 2.4 kilometres. In 2026, even that stopped. In 2016, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman named his country's problem in his own words: "We have addiction to oil." The Line was meant to be part of the cure: twin mirrored walls 500 metres high, running from the Red Sea into the mountains, for up to nine million people. At the start, the cure for oil would be paid for with oil. To build it, the prince needed three things: an empty piece of land, a design that could stand up, and money from people who were not Saudi. This documentary follows all three. Who lived on the land he called a "blank canvas"? Why did foreign investors stay away? How did an internal audit put the cost of NEOM at 8.8 trillion dollars? And what is actually in the desert today? For more stories of ambition, engineering and the consequences of getting it wrong, subscribe to After Ambition. CHAPTERS 00:00 170 kilometres, then 2.4 01:00 A cure for oil 02:39 NEOM: 500 billion dollars 03:10 Three things the prince needed 03:23 A blank canvas 04:33 The man who would not leave 05:24 Wiped off the map 06:05 Two walls of mirrors 07:26 140,000 workers 08:17 The bill 09:23 8.8 trillion dollars 10:22 From 170 km to 2.4 11:49 Withdrawal 12:51 Stopped until after 2030 13:59 What was left SELECTED SOURCES NEOM via PR Newswire — HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman announces THE LINE at NEOM https://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea... NBC News — Saudi Arabia Announces Reform Plan to Cure Economy's 'Addiction to Oil' https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sa... Public Investment Fund (press release) — NEOM: the destination for the future https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/news-and-in... NEOM via Cision / AAP — NEOM unveils design of THE LINE (press release) https://www.aap.com.au/aapreleases/ci... New Civil Engineer — Neom plans for Saudi Arabia's linear city cut from 170km to 2.4km https://www.newcivilengineer.com/late... BBC News — Neom: Saudi forces 'told to kill' to clear land for eco-city (Merlyn Thomas, Lara El Gibaly) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle... BBC News — How Saudi Arabia's spending spree reached the end of the line (Sebastian Usher) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2... ALQST for Human Rights — Last inhabitants of al-Khuraiba village evicted to make way for NEOM https://www.alqst.org/en/post/last-in... UN OHCHR — Saudi Arabia: UN experts alarmed by imminent executions linked to NEOM project https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releas... ALQST for Human Rights — The Dark Side of Neom: Expropriation, Expulsion and Prosecution https://www.alqst.org/uploads/the-dar... Architects' Journal — The Line architect Peter Cook questions Saudi desert city's buildability https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/n... Middle East Eye — Saudi Arabia: Satellite images show progress on Neom's The Line https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sa... New Civil Engineer — Anticipated cost of Saudi Arabia's Neom gigaproject explodes from $500bn to $8.8 trillion https://www.newcivilengineer.com/late... Semafor — Saudi's PIF takes $8 billion writedown on megaprojects (Manal Albarakati) https://www.semafor.com/article/08/15... Semafor — Saudi's NEOM halts work on The Line until after 2030 (Matthew Martin) https://www.semafor.com/article/05/22... Dezeen — "More than $50 billion has been spent so far" on Neom (Tom Ravenscroft) https://www.dezeen.com/2025/02/11/neo... PRODUCTION Visuals are AI-generated reconstructions, not archival footage or photographs of the site. Narration is AI-generated. Satellite images: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2026. Relief: SRTM elevation data, NASA/USGS. Music generated with Google Lyria 3 #NEOM #TheLine #SaudiArabia