Neom: Saudi Arabia's 'The Line' to only be a mile

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Saudi Arabia's Neom city's "The Line" more like a dot now

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Saudi Arabia’s mega futuristic project "The Line" reportedly gets cut short by 98.6%, The Cradle reported.

As per a report by Bloomberg, the $500 billion Neom linear city is being scaled down to 2.4 kilometres with less than 30,000 residents.

Before, The Line, as part of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s (MBS) 2030 vision, was planned to cover an area of 170 kilometres and house at least 1.5 million people.

However, as reports suggest, due to financial constraints, MBS has decided to scale down the mega-project.

Upon the project announcement, MBS described the city project as "tackling the challenges facing humanity in urban life today" to "shine a light on alternative ways to live."

"The pullback on The Line comes as the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund has yet to approve Neom's budget for 2024," Bloomberg wrote, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

"It shows that the financial realities of the trillions of dollars of investment are starting to cause concern at the highest levels of the Saudi government as it tries to fulfil its ambitious Vision 2030 programme, the overarching initiative tasked with diversifying the kingdom’s economy."

Saudi Arabia's Neom The Line development also ignited a fury of human rights concerns as the construction would require the Howeitat tribe to be expelled from their lands in the Tabuk region.

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