21st Century (2000–present)

NEOM – The Line (proposal/ongoing)

2021– · Saudi Arabia · Middle East & Turkey · Transit-oriented urbanism and corridor planning · Planned by Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Sentinel-2 satellite mosaic (17/19 Oct 2022) showing the excavated linear footprint of The Line cutting across the NEOM desert, with a 150 km scale ruler. The straight-line corridor geometry of the pr
Sentinel-2 satellite mosaic (17/19 Oct 2022) showing the excavated linear footprint of The Line cutting across the NEOM desert, with a 150 km scale ruler. The straight-line corridor geometry of the pr · cc-by-sa

Core idea

Linear settlement concept with transit spine

Why it matters

Provocative rethinking of city form

Description

NEOM's The Line (proposed from 2021) is a Saudi plan for a linear city in the desert — two mirror-clad parallel skyscrapers stretching up to 170 km, stacking living, working, and transit vertically with no cars, marketed as a radical zero-carbon settlement.

Significance

The Line is the most extreme contemporary statement of speculative, state-capitalist future-city ambition, reviving the linear-city and megastructure dreams of the 20th century at almost incomprehensible scale — a lightning rod for debate over feasibility and purpose.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.