When you picture the future, what do you imagine? Flying cars? AI doctors? Skyscrapers nearly a mile high? Some of these fantasies may actually be closer than we think. For proof, look to The Line.
The Line is a futuristic city, being built by the company NEOM in the Tabuk Province of Saudi Arabia right now. Measuring 106 miles long and only 656.2 feet wide, The Line will be just that—a line. That is, if you can see it at all. The entire city will be encased by 1,640-foot tall mirrored walls, with a total footprint of only 34 kilometers. One report estimates the cost of the project to be $1.5 trillion, with funding coming from private investors and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign fund controlled by the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince.
Life in The Line will be different than in any place known today. The city won’t include roads, cars, or any greenhouse gas emissions, instead running on 100% renewable energy, meaning the city will be energy self-sufficient and carbon neutral. 95% of the land will be preserved for nature, and to ensure that The Line’s residents will be able to enjoy this abundant land, the city’s climate will be controlled at an ideal temperature year-round. Furthermore, all necessities will be accessible within a five minute walk, and a high speed rail line will run end-to-end in twenty minutes. This idea is encapsulated by the term hyper-mixed-use land, which means that every aspect of life, such as residential life, work, entertainment, and education, will occur all over the city, rather than in specific zones.
Described by the phrases zero gravity urbanism and vertical urbanism, the project will have little reliance on the ground, instead creating multiple vertical planes, changing the concept of topography as we know it today. People will live in dense, highly urbanized skyscrapers, with layers upon layers stacked on top of each other. The phenomenon of people coming closer together than ever before, such as in The Line’s design, is expressed by the term hyper-proximity. The hope is that this hyper-proximity will promote social interaction and cultural exchange.
The Line can largely be summed up with the word artificial. It’s not just an artificial environment or the talk of an artificial moon, but artificial intelligence. American debates about the spread of ChatGPT pale in comparison to the prevalence of AI in The Line. AI will be at the root of the city, controlling power, water, healthcare, security, etc. To make it more extreme, AI will monitor residents’ phones, homes, cameras, and more, and residents will be compensated for their data. AI will even play an integral role before the city is populated. Rather than building The Line from the ground up, NEOM will use AI to design it, and then assemble it from a series of pieces, like a giant LEGO kit.
As of 2024, construction on the city was underway, but delays and hurdles with the budget led to discussions on scaling back. Originally, The Line was expected to be home to one million people by 2030, with that number increasing to nine million by 2045. However, it is now estimated that the city won’t be able to hit this 2030 benchmark due to a lack of completed infrastructure.
There are, undoubtedly, benefits to the project. The Line will reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependency on oil, and the city’s immense sustainability initiatives are much-needed steps in the right direction for the planet. On the economic side, the project is expected to create 380,000 jobs, contribute billions of dollars to the country’s GDP, generate revenue from industries like tourism, and diversify the country’s economy. And who knows? If The Line is a success, it could serve as an inspiration for other cities, revolutionizing the way humans live on Earth. It could be a utopia.
But it could also go horribly wrong. There are certainly a lot of downsides, ranging from bad to worse. Critics online are quick to point out what they see as a massive inherent flaw: the linear design of the city makes it vulnerable and inefficient, so it should be constructed as a circle instead. Others note that one high speed rail line for the entire city will not be enough to meet demand. Still others reject the concept as a whole, calling it a dystopia. They’re concerned about the safety of the widespread data mining, and to them, life in the city seems too controlled. Though all of these concerns are hypothetical for now, there have already been real-life consequences of the project too. Authorities were authorized to use lethal force to clear the land needed for construction, and when one villager from a tribe in the region refused to leave, they were shot and killed. At least 47 other villagers were detained for resisting eviction, with varying degrees of consequences. It was reported that the people forced to relocate are being compensated, though not with the promised amount.
Regardless of whether you think The Line is a utopia or dystopia, it’s not in isolation. Whatever the outcome of this project is, it will affect the rest of the world. Humanity will learn something from this venture into a new form of civilization. The Line is indicative of change. It’s a bright neon sign, telling us that modernity is fluid, progress never stops, the future is coming. But at what point does the future become the present? And is it still futuristic if it’s happening right now?
AP Human Geography teacher Mr. Landesman provides an answer, saying that The Line is futuristic because of its complete utilization of renewable energy. He comments, “The biggest thing we can get out of it for cities worldwide is the whole use of renewable energy … even if it fails, [The Line] can help us learn how to use renewable energy more effectively.”
As with seemingly everything related to The Line, the upsides come with perils. “I’m afraid that if it works really well initially, it will cause people to want to make that the solution,” Mr. Landesman explains, conveying his worry that hyper-fixation on The Line could mean a disregard for other viable solutions to the planet’s environmental and societal issues. He thinks that The Line is “a creative and unique idea,” but also points out that “it looks like it’s going to benefit the wealthy, which would … just create a bigger separation between the rich and the poor.” Mr. Landesman elaborates that it’s “more of a dystopia because you’re separating yourself from the realities of life, and you run the risk of not having what you need because of the way it’s designed.”
Furthermore, Mr. Landesman notes that the radically new elements of The Line aren’t actually that novel. Vertical urbanism has existed for years, with Mr. Landesman specifically pointing to Chicago as the epitome of vertical urbanization. Even The Line as a whole isn’t as groundbreaking as it seems—it comes in the wake of a different megacity that failed due to the pandemic. Mixed-use land is also already implemented around the world, and can especially be seen in older European cities.
Mr. Landesman continues with The Line’s relevance to Enloe, remarking that students should pay attention to the city because the future is theirs to design. He concludes, “If they can study things like this and see what works and what doesn’t work, who knows where the great, brilliant minds of … Enloe scholars can utilize the information.”
Ultimately, The Line is not just a project in the Middle East. It’s an experiment for the entire world, and it will have implications for the future—our future.
Works Cited
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Serra Utkum Ikiz. “Saudi Arabia “Not Building the Line” but Will “Create” Using AI.” PA | Architecture & Technology, Dec. 2022, parametric-architecture.com/saudi-arabia-not-building-the-line-but-will-create-using-ai/?srsltid=AfmBOorgMZAzBKflK27ZGULQJFCw42pNrT-4AgXfyt_lrjiQb3u6XvBz. Accessed 20 Feb. 2025.
