A once-ambitious vision of a mirrored linear metropolis is shrinking fast amid delays, deaths, and dwindling financing. It’s probably dead at birth.

Saudi Arabia’s flagship megaproject, The Line — a 169-kilometer linear city conceived by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the core of the futuristic Neom Project development — is facing major setbacks. Once promoted as a revolutionary urban model that would house nine million residents, its grand ambitions are now colliding with financial, logistical, and human-rights realities.

At the project’s center is a planned skyscraper measuring approximately 488 by 201 meters, envisioned as a continuous wall-like structure stretching the full length of the desert megacity. Early designs called for an exterior entirely clad in mirrors and even included a 30-story building suspended from a bridge.

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But according to multiplying media reports, much of the work has stalled, costs have ballooned, and foreign investors — once essential to funding the project — are backing out. Human-rights observers have also raised alarm over countless worker deaths linked to ongoing construction.

A sci-fi dream vs. harsh reality

Satellite imagery shows extensive excavation and tunneling for a railway meant to link The Line with a nearby airport.

Beyond that, progress has slowed dramatically. The vast project has already undergone radical scaling back: instead of the originally planned 20 city modules, the blueprint now envisions just three.

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Early plans called for completing the 20 modules — which represented only the first 16 kilometers of the envisioned 169-kilometer structure — by 2030, with residents moving in by early 2025. Today, crews have barely begun laying a future foundation.

Such downscaling has only deepened investor skepticism. As one senior construction manager told the FT:

“As you went below seven, it started becoming ever more difficult to sell it as an investment. [That is] why I think it has died… it’s just uninvestable.”

Despite significant domestic financing from wealthy Saudi families, the government had counted on substantial foreign investment. Now, insiders doubt The Line will ever be built as intended.

Foundations buried in sand

An internal audit launched in 2023 was abruptly halted by Prince Mohammed and the project’s governing board. Former employees likened the working culture to “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” meaning there’s massive deception around the project.

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Even so, officials publicly insist the project remains active. A November 2024 press release claimed The Line “continues to accelerate from vision to reality” — despite sources claiming that most work “had effectively stopped” aside from a few buildings near a planned marina.

The project’s massive foundation pilings — among the largest ever attempted, with diameters between 2.4 and 3 meters — now lie partially buried beneath drifting desert sand.

The future of The Line — once the most dramatic piece of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 agenda — now appears more uncertain than ever.