The Line: Saudi Arabia’s 170-Kilometer Dream Quietly Shrinks

At sunset in the Saudi desert, dust lingers in the air like a curtain unwilling to drop. Near the NEOM site, workers make their way back to their buses, helmets hanging from exhausted hands, as vast cranes remain motionless beneath a pink sky. The Line, the ambitious 170-kilometer “city of the future”, was meant to cut across this terrain as a steel-and-glass mirror. Now, the skyline appears oddly vacant.

There is no press conference to announce it, and no ceremony for a dream that has been reduced in scale.

Instead, there are fewer lorries, more subdued evenings and an increasing feeling that something enormous has quietly come undone.

From 170 kilometers of hype to a few quiet miles of reality

When Saudi Arabia revealed The Line in 2021, the world looked on with equal measures of amazement and scepticism. It was presented as a 100-mile linear city in the desert: no cars, no roads and a flawlessly climate-controlled interior behind gleaming mirrored façades. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described it as an urban revolution and a central element of Vision 2030.

In its YouTube promotional film, it resembled science fiction.

At ground level, it was dust, pressure on deadlines and money disappearing at speed.

By 2024–2025, people close to the project were quietly acknowledging what the polished visualisations had omitted. Only a very small section of The Line is being constructed; some insiders put it at merely 2.4 kilometers, a fragment of the 170 kilometers originally promised. Reports emerge of widespread redundancies at NEOM, while construction areas contract.

The Saudi government has not declared, “we’ve canceled the 100-mile megacity.”

Rather, the plans are described as “re-phased”, “prioritized” and “adjusted to market conditions” - language that suggests withdrawal without ever naming it.

Why has the project been cut back so sharply after billions have already been spent? The blunt answer is money and time. Analysts calculate that completing The Line could require hundreds of billions of dollars, potentially more than a trillion, without any certainty that millions would choose to live in a narrow mirrored structure in the desert.

The global economy lost momentum, oil prices fluctuated and Riyadh began reassessing the figures.

Seen this way, The Line’s quiet contraction is not so much shocking as an overdue encounter with reality.

Billions burned, questions rising: who owns this failure?

In theory, the remedy is straightforward: reduce the scale, deliver it in phases and concentrate on parts likely to appeal to tourists and investors. In practice, matters are much more complicated. Contractors have committed heavily to equipment, logistics and labour. Local communities were told they stood beside the world’s most daring experiment, only to see that prospect recede.

Saudi young people who viewed NEOM as a generational opportunity now ask on social media where the jobs have gone.

Most people recognise the moment when an ambitious workplace or household plan quietly falls apart and nobody wishes to say, “This didn’t work.” At national level, that unease is magnified by billions. The Line represented a new Saudi Arabia: technologically advanced, diversified and less reliant on oil. Its retreat poses an uncomfortable question for both citizens and investors: when a dream this costly deflates, who is responsible?

Let’s be honest: almost nobody publicly takes ownership of a mega-mistake every single day.

Within Saudi Arabia, criticism remains cautious. Abroad, it is not. Urban planners and economists are already examining The Line as an example of “vanity urbanism”: striking drawings paired with weak business models. Human rights organisations highlight communities reportedly displaced from the NEOM area and ask what becomes of people moved for a project that no longer exists on its promised scale.

Investors, unsettled by delays and revised plans, are becoming more wary of other Vision 2030 mega-projects.

The desert says nothing, yet the silence surrounding The Line’s downsizing is eloquent.

How Saudi Arabia tries to pivot – and what the rest of the world should learn

Behind the public-relations curtain, Riyadh is working quickly to recast the narrative. Officials stress that NEOM extends beyond The Line, pointing to Trojena, the mountain resort; Oxagon, the floating industrial hub; and Sindalah, the luxury island. Their message is that the vision survives, although in another form.

The approach is plain: redirect attention towards smaller, more “deliverable” elements that can be displayed by 2030, even as the 100-mile city gradually slips from view.

For countries tempted by their own megaproject ambitions, this should be a clear warning signal. The urge to create “the biggest”, “the tallest” or “the most futuristic” is compelling. Politicians enjoy tidy renderings. Technology firms favour buzzwords. Citizens like believing that their city has finally reached the map.

But history contains abandoned airports, underused financial districts and stadiums that come alive only for major events. The Line’s gradual retreat shows that steel and glass do not automatically produce life.

“Grand visions are easy at the podium,” one Gulf-based consultant told me. “The hard part is living with the bill, the delays, and the disappointment when reality refuses to follow the PowerPoint.”

• Follow the money trail – Establish who paid, who benefited and who lost out when projects are reduced or delayed.
• Look beyond the renderings – Consider how people would genuinely live, work and afford rent within these futuristic schemes.
• Watch for quiet U-turns – Governments seldom announce failure; more often, they rename it and carry on.
• Remember the human ground cost – Displacement, job losses and damaged trust rarely feature in glossy brochures.
• Ask who can say “no” – Where nobody can challenge a leader’s dream, the chance of billion-dollar mistakes rises dramatically.

A shrinking mirror in the sand – and the story that lingers

The most unusual aspect of The Line’s story may be how swiftly the world moves forward. Our feeds will replace one spectacle with another: a new desert city, another flying-taxi proposal or another AI-driven paradise. But the questions left in north-western Saudi Arabia will not disappear with the headlines.

For workers who arrived and later departed, this is not an internet meme. It represents years of their lives built into structures left unfinished.

For Saudis, the discreet retreat strikes a sensitive point. Vision 2030 offered more than higher GDP; it promised a different experience of pride, momentum and a country finally creating its own narrative. When one of its best-known symbols contracts in the shadows, the vision is not destroyed, but trust is damaged.

People ask: if The Line can be scaled back without an explanation, what else could change without warning?

For everyone else, this concerns more than Saudi Arabia; it reflects a worldwide period of mega-promises. From Egypt and India to the Gulf, cities are drawing futuristic hubs intended to bring in foreign capital and Instagram posts. Some will be completed, some will pause and some will remain nothing beyond attractive animations.

The straightforward reality is that urban futures are more likely to resemble a gradual, untidy patchwork of improvements to places where people already live than a flawless 170-kilometer mirror.

The desert may forget The Line’s intended full length before the spreadsheets do. Yet the tale of a 100-mile ambition that quietly fell to a few kilometers will endure as a warning - and perhaps, for the boldest leaders, an encouragement to be more candid when a grand vision begins to fracture.