Welcome to Saudi Arabia’s new sustainable NEOM City.
The city, which will be run using robots and free of cars, might read like something from a utopian sci-fi novel but according to executives at this week’s ‘Discover NEOM’ event at Spencer House in central London, it’s about to become a reality in Saudi Arabia, If you want to visit NEOM City you have to get the visit visa where the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has already designated an area in the country’s northwest region close to the Suez Canal, near its borders with Jordan and Egypt.
“NEOM is a new vision of what the future can be,” creators say on neom.com which sets out the proposed plans
Project 2030
The proposals for NEOM might sound like science fiction, but its Saudi creators insist it will just be a taste of the future of urban living.
The smart city is being hailed as the flagship of the country’s Vision 2030 program but insiders suggest that potential visitors might not even have to wait that long.
According to the Saudi government, NEOM hopes to have its first residents in place in 2024.
A tale of two cities
What is Saudi Arabia’s new city actually going to look like?
First, it’s not just one city. NEOM is actually being planned as a 10,000 square-mile city-state, tech hub and 16-borough metropolis, and will contain two separate cities: (OXAGON), and (The Line).
.OXAGON
As the name suggests, OXAGON will be an eight-sided city, with planners aiming for it to be a “comprehensive cognitive city” and “the industrial city reimagined”.
.The Line
Meanwhile The Line, NEOM’s second city, aspires to be a pollution-free, pedestrianized, “hyper-connected” city built in a 105 mile straight line.
According to its site, The Line will create 380,000 new jobs, spur economic diversification and contribute SAR 10 billion to domestic GDP by 2030.
Facebook: Ayla Company
LinkedIn: Ayla Company
