Almost every city in the world wants to be known for something that makes it iconic. Whether it’s the Eiffel tower in Paris, the casinos in Las Vegas, or the beaches in Rio de Janeiro, cities have always tried to create popular attractions. But Saudi Arabia isn’t just interested in creating popular attractions for its residents or tourists from all over the world, instead it wants to completely reinvent how cities are made. 

Try to forget about a typical city being spread out over a large part of land and think about a city that is built into a long narrow line. This mega building project is called “The Line”, it’s a new sustainable city that is 170 kilometres long and only 200 metres wide. This city won’t have borders but it will have tall mirrored walls that will be 500 metres high, which is the same height as a skyscraper. The city is meant to house over 9 million people and be able to support millions of tourists visiting every year. On the inside, the idea is to have different layers on top of one another. Of course, we’re all familiar with the idea of apartment buildings where people are stacked on top of one another. But in The Line, they are talking about layering public parks, gardens, schools, and all sorts of normal city development. Rather than walking or driving down the street to your nearest park, grocery store, or place of work, you would instead move up or down like an elevator in a building. The idea is to have everything someone might need in their life to exist no further than 5 minutes away. This is meant to make The Line a “green city”, as you won’t need to drive or commute, and you would produce very little carbon. In fact, they plan to have no cars in the city and to only have a convenient high speed rail link that will be able to travel from one end of the city to the other in around 20 minutes. 

However, there are a lot of skeptics who think this project will be unliveable and not feasible. The infrastructure will need a lot of resources to build, especially one that is so tall and layered. Although the city wants to be 100% renewable, many experts doubt this will be possible. The city will be built in the desert where they will be able to use solar power, but it may not be enough to power an entire city for 9 million people. It’s not just that it will be expensive to build, but some feel that the city won’t be a place where people will want to live. Having a very tiny bit of space and everything you need that is 5 minutes away, can make some people think of the city as a prison. For many critics, they do not enjoy living in such dense areas and prefer to have wide open spaces for them to explore.   

Although there is no confirmed date of completion for the city, construction has already started. The king of Saudi Arabia is confident the government will be able to build the city and for the project to be the next step for all cities in the future.