The Futuristic Building in The Desert Promising To House 9 Million People In A Vertical, Sustainable, Car-Free City With Total Efficiency

Written by Romário Pereira de Carvalho

Published on 04/09/2025 at 13:51

Updated on 04/09/2025 at 13:57

Renderização realista de The Line, cidade linear no deserto saudita com 170 km de extensão, 500 m de altura e custo estimado em US$ 500 bilhões. Projeto prevê abrigar até 9 milhões de pessoas em ambiente vertical, sustentável e sem carros

2 people reacted to this.

The Line Challenges The Traditional Model: Linear City With 170 Km, Vertical, Sustainable And Planned For Millions, Without Cars And With Maximum Efficiency

The idea seems to have come out of a science fiction movie, but it is already under construction. In the heart of the Saudi desert, The Line is emerging, a megalopolis designed to function as a linear, vertical, and 100% sustainable city.

The project, part of the NEOM initiative, challenges traditional urban logic and seeks to redefine life in dense areas.

A City In The Shape Of A Line

The plan is ambitious: 170 km long, 500 meters high, and only 200 meters wide. This structure, called a “3D city,” organizes housing, offices, green areas, and services in vertical layers.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Sustainability As A Promise

The Line is born with the goal of being carbon neutral. The energy will come from renewable sources, and the occupation will be only 34 km², preserving 95% of NEOM’s territory.

Furthermore, according to the Saudi government, this configuration reduces the necessary infrastructure by up to 98% compared to conventional cities.

Another highlighted point is the planned urban climate. The proposal includes natural ventilation, calculated shade, and distributed green areas to mitigate the desert heat and make life more comfortable.

Therefore, sustainability is not just an energy promise but also part of environmental design.

Tight Deadlines And Giant Costs

Construction is already underway, but the schedule is bold. First deliveries are expected by 2026, with an expectation of reaching 1 million residents by 2030 and expanding to 9 million by 2045.

The cost is equally impressive: US$ 500 billion, financed by the Saudi sovereign fund and private investors. The project has become a symbol of the country’s attempt to diversify its economy beyond oil.

Between Utopia And Challenge

Despite its grandeur, experts raise doubts. Technical viability, maintenance costs, and social impacts of living in such a controlled environment are critical points.

Additionally, the promise of total autonomy raises questions about privacy and coexistence.

The Line emerges as an urban laboratory on an unprecedented scale. Between the utopia of efficiency and the challenges of real life, the project exposes both futuristic ambition and the contradictions of inhabiting a city at the edge of the possible.

With information from Gazeta de São Paulo.

0 Comments

most recent

older Most voted

The Futuristic Building in The Desert Promising To House 9 Million People In A Vertical, Sustainable, Car-Free City With Total Efficiency

The Line Challenges The Traditional Model: Linear City With 170 Km, Vertical, Sustainable And Planned For Millions, Without Cars And With Maximum Efficiency

A City In The Shape Of A Line

Sustainability As A Promise

Tight Deadlines And Giant Costs

Between Utopia And Challenge

Libya built over 4,000 kilometers of underground pipelines to bring water from the Sahara to coastal cities in a project that the government itself called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Desert sand, previously discarded for being too smooth for concrete, becomes an ecological brick in the United Arab Emirates, dispensing with Portland cement, curing at room temperature, and attempting to transform dunes useless for construction into raw material for a new arid engineering.

He transformed an abandoned plastic water tank into an underground house in the “hobbit hole” style, using only repurposed pallet wood, without heavy machinery or expensive labor.

Chinese woman planted trees for decades while sand buried part of her house, received $5,000 from an American in 1999, and helped transform the desert into a forest of 8 million trees in China.

Almost 6,000 residents live concentrated along a single street nearly 9 km long in the interior of Poland. Houses form a continuous row, and behind them, narrow agricultural strips emerge, creating one of the most unusual rural patterns in Europe.

Described by astronauts as one of the most unlikely natural phenomena on Earth, the Okavango Delta spreads over up to 15,000 square kilometers in the middle of the desert and transforms Botswana into a living labyrinth of channels, islands, and flooded areas.

Scientists have created a material six times lighter than air, 75 times lighter than styrofoam, and that becomes stronger the more it is compressed: aerographite seems impossible, but it can reinforce structures, batteries, and satellites.

Ecuadorian volcano at 6,268 meters is more than 2,000 meters closer to space than Everest, which is 8,848 meters, because the Earth is wider at the equator.

To halt the advance of the Sahara, the 8,000 km Great Green Wall in the Sahel relies on reforestation to combat desertification, but by 2026 it remains far behind the goal of 100 million hectares.

The most common mistake when storing eggs is leaving them in the refrigerator door, where temperature fluctuations crack the shell, remove the cuticle, and cause them to lose freshness, with a risk of contamination.

Public school students in the hinterlands of Maranhão create a bioinsecticide with neem and castor to protect corn crops, transform rural waste into biogas and biofertilizer, and bring sustainable technology to producers at ExpoSertão.

A city has planted 880,000 trees and 2.5 million smaller plants since 2016, reduced the temperature by up to 3°C in some areas, and won an international award for using vegetation to combat urban heat in Colombia.

The Futuristic Building in The Desert Promising To House 9 Million People In A Vertical, Sustainable, Car-Free City With Total Efficiency

The Line Challenges The Traditional Model: Linear City With 170 Km, Vertical, Sustainable And Planned For Millions, Without Cars And With Maximum Efficiency

A City In The Shape Of A Line

Sustainability As A Promise

Tight Deadlines And Giant Costs

Between Utopia And Challenge

Libya built over 4,000 kilometers of underground pipelines to bring water from the Sahara to coastal cities in a project that the government itself called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Desert sand, previously discarded for being too smooth for concrete, becomes an ecological brick in the United Arab Emirates, dispensing with Portland cement, curing at room temperature, and attempting to transform dunes useless for construction into raw material for a new arid engineering.

He transformed an abandoned plastic water tank into an underground house in the “hobbit hole” style, using only repurposed pallet wood, without heavy machinery or expensive labor.

Chinese woman planted trees for decades while sand buried part of her house, received $5,000 from an American in 1999, and helped transform the desert into a forest of 8 million trees in China.

Almost 6,000 residents live concentrated along a single street nearly 9 km long in the interior of Poland. Houses form a continuous row, and behind them, narrow agricultural strips emerge, creating one of the most unusual rural patterns in Europe.

Described by astronauts as one of the most unlikely natural phenomena on Earth, the Okavango Delta spreads over up to 15,000 square kilometers in the middle of the desert and transforms Botswana into a living labyrinth of channels, islands, and flooded areas.

Scientists have created a material six times lighter than air, 75 times lighter than styrofoam, and that becomes stronger the more it is compressed: aerographite seems impossible, but it can reinforce structures, batteries, and satellites.

To halt the advance of the Sahara, the 8,000 km Great Green Wall in the Sahel relies on reforestation to combat desertification, but by 2026 it remains far behind the goal of 100 million hectares.

Long before sustainable construction became a trend, China built earthen fortresses with multiple floors, a central courtyard, and the capacity to house up to 800 people living in a community.

Switzerland took 17 years to tear through the Alps and build the world’s largest railway tunnel, a 57.1 km passage under 2,300 meters of rock, with 50 °C heat and 28.2 million tons excavated to connect the north to the south of Europe.

Ecuadorian volcano at 6,268 meters is more than 2,000 meters closer to space than Everest, which is 8,848 meters, because the Earth is wider at the equator.

To halt the advance of the Sahara, the 8,000 km Great Green Wall in the Sahel relies on reforestation to combat desertification, but by 2026 it remains far behind the goal of 100 million hectares.

The most common mistake when storing eggs is leaving them in the refrigerator door, where temperature fluctuations crack the shell, remove the cuticle, and cause them to lose freshness, with a risk of contamination.

Public school students in the hinterlands of Maranhão create a bioinsecticide with neem and castor to protect corn crops, transform rural waste into biogas and biofertilizer, and bring sustainable technology to producers at ExpoSertão.

A city has planted 880,000 trees and 2.5 million smaller plants since 2016, reduced the temperature by up to 3°C in some areas, and won an international award for using vegetation to combat urban heat in Colombia.