Neom: An Update on the World's Most Ridiculous City (It's Still Ridiculous...)

Two years ago, we and megaprojects made a video on the topic of an ambitious and perhaps somewhat far-fetched new idea that had emerged from Sai Arabia, the leader of that country, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and his allies had come up with a vision for a planned

city

that its name was to be neon and rival the

world

's great global cities in its scale, while sweeping them all when it came to technological innovation and sheer ingenuity, was going to be a powerhouse in every way imaginable, an achievement generational in human development. a new wonder of the

world

and the critical achievements that would turn both Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince into Heroes who would guide Humanity through the 21st century now, two years have passed and the reality is anything but the blind ambition that was to build the neon.

Instead, he has become frustrated, the world's adoring public has begun to laugh, and the vast expanse of desert where this entire apparatus was supposed to come into operation in just a few months now lies nearly empty, stripped of its humanity and potential. to serve a vision that may never come true this is the story of neon an idea that was supposed to change everything and this is also the story of neon or one of the

most

spectacular failures of human engineering this side of the Revolution Industrial just before we continue with the current video let me ask a question do you ever feel like you're online and say oh no my ISP is definitely watching what I'm doing they're selling my data to big corporations because apparently that's something I shouldn't be a thing but it is and you can make it not a thing with today's fantastic sponsor Surf Shark Surf Shark takes all your data, all your Internet activity, encrypts it and transfers it through a VPN so that your ISP is not a busybody. you know what you're doing online, everything is secure, everything is fine, plus it's incredibly easy to use, just download it, whether it's on your PC, it works on everything, I mean, it won't work on a calculator like the one from the 90s, but if you have an iPhone, if you have an Android PC, Mac, it will work, everything will be fine, it's

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Kabal n was meant to simply be an ultra-futuristic, ultra-futuristic city that promised improvements in every aspect of the cities we less enlightened humans call home. The heart of the big day neon project is the same as the line has always been, a concept for a plan. City spread over a linear stretch of land 170 km or 110 M long by only 200 M or 660 feet wide for perspective. Long enough to stretch from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast in any part of the nation of Panama, but not wide enough to accommodate a 10,000-seat soccer stadium, it was conceived as a car-free city, without roads, where he had everything he would need in the course of his daily life.

Life, whether occupational, educational, recreational or otherwise, was just a quick 5-minute walkway organized around a high-speed train that could take residents from one end of Neom to the other in just 20 minutes, the city ​​would be constantly monitored by a predictive AI that Could you sophisticated technologies to ensure that everything within

neom

was going as planned or at least that was the plan the last time we posted a video on this topic? But we're happy to report that it's only four months after the first episode came out. Arabia announced a review from that point on, the line was actually not going to be individual buildings at all, but rather a single continuous building that would extend along the 170 kilometer length of the line;

On the outside it would be clad in an all-glass, mirrored exterior capable of housing 9 million residents, it would be a continuous ice scraper, rising high enough that the Empire State Building could not hope to compare, which the mega building would maintain the same general idea as the line had started, where the communities would be organized in such a way that all the basic services you might need would be within a 5 minute walk, of course, the construction of a 170 km long glass structure It comes with quite a few technical challenges, especially when you add in the effects of the hot Saudi sun, but that was nothing.

The great minds behind the project couldn't handle Beyond the Line Saudi Arabia would have built a second new-age monstrosity, this one going by the name oxyon and intended to be a massive industrial complex situated conveniently between the line and the Suz Canal. Side Oxyon Hub would have integrated an existing coastal port into a fast-growing development octagon. Most touted features included its integrated distribution systems, its net-zero carbon emissions, its fully automated port, and its new record as the world's last largest floating structure as the line it was intended for. to be passable and when people needed to come to buy land from other parts of Saudi Arabia, they did so with hydroelectric means of transportation.

Its deeper details were a mess of 2021-era buzzwords, from the Internet of Things to machine learning and more, all focused on creating an industrial innovation hub that, of course, could become a new global leader and even that wouldn't be enough for neon. Since publishing our original episode about the project, a whole host of new promises have emerged from the Saudi government, all with fancy names and concept art to go with them. Trina is supposed to be a huge winter destination just 50 miles from the sea with alpine and adventure sports. Calo is promised as a high-end island holiday hotpot with over 150 movement points for the world's

most

luxurious.

Super Yachts Epicor will reportedly include an ultra-luxury hotel with architecture that simply must be seen to be believed intended to attract ERS and free spirits. uto is a theater of the future carved into a mountain aquum. as cites a digitized underground community of the future, while the gdor community apparently intended only for golfers will feature 1990's glass-clad apartments hanging at the bottom of a massive arch for some reason and even that's not the end of what Arabia Saudi has imagined for neon. was going to get air taxis that would transport people across the entire Neon complex with operational air taxes that were supposed to fly in 2024.

NE was supposed to be covered by a heavy veil of quantum cybersecurity to defend against cyber attacks. Surrounded by lush fields of crops growing everything needed to sustain the people living on the line and elsewhere, NE was going to rely on cloud seats to generate constant rain, feature a Jurassic Park-style attraction with robot dinosaurs giants, it would include a space having robot cage matches and the sand on its beaches would glow in the dark, there was even supposed to be a giant glowing artificial moon in the sky because Humanity's current moon apparently wasn't innovative enough or something So, perhaps it shouldn't be a It is surprising that the plan has attracted both skeptics and supporters, many of them with an idea of ​​what it would take to produce something of new scale and ambition, and pointing out that there is actually not much evidence to suggest that Saudi Arabia could make this happen while any other nation An architectural firm or Engineering Corporation would agree that it is not feasible to simply say with the technical challenges that stand between Muhammad bin Salan and a fully completed n and not with the kind of problems that are solved with an entrepreneurial attitude and some self-confidence, but more In recent years, Saudi Arabia has entered sports ranging from golf and soccer to mixed martial arts and boxing, and continues to intensify its geopolitical powers and increase its influence around the world.

It has stayed just as far from the focus on neon. After a long year of dazzling promotional videos, new concept art and announcements of new aspects of this rapidly evolving Vision, it becomes clearer every day that

neom

is the Penny Beast, the grand experiment by which Saudi Arabia's entire adventure in the 21st century will be judged, so how is it going? It's actually going pretty bad, it's hard to point to any initial cause for concern around neom, as you could argue that this is all cause for concern, but the report that really hit neon where it hurts is one that came to light on On April 5 of this very year 2024, the report came via Bloomberg News or one of the world's leading voices when it comes to reporting on what the world's crazy rich oil and technology barons are doing and According to the report, anonymous figures familiar with Audi Arabia had reported that the plan to have a line partially built on the ground by 2030 that would house one and a half million residents at that time had been drastically revised.

On the downside, current expectations for the number of residents in Los Nom by 2030 have dropped to 300,000, just 1/5 of the previous figure, at which time the line was supposedly

still

intended to extend 170 km when complete it will only have 2 .4 km long or about a mile and a half due to cuts. Project contractors have begun laying off workers around the project as senior members of the Saudi government began looking for ways to salvage its ambitious Vision 2030 program or mitigate the damage that could result from not reaching the goal now just because the Just because the queue seems much smaller doesn't mean the entire neon project has stalled in Cala - for example, the luxurious Island Resort we mentioned is expected to open later this year elsewhere.

Saudi investment of about $8 billion has resulted in construction. of vast solar and wind farms aimed at creating green hydrogen that Saudi Arabia could begin exporting as global oil sales decline, but those successes come against a backdrop of much more worrying failures across the vast majority of the pipeline, not On the entirety of the land currently under development the task at hand is

still

a matter of earthworks and foundation construction. Satellite images from 20124 show that no structures have yet formed on the land designated for the line, just some closed, official communities for the people who work on them.

The at images clearly show the fundamental work carried out on the designated stretch of land, but nothing else elsewhere, Nom airport, which is operational at the moment, only serves four airlines with connecting flights to only six cities, one of which London is outside the Gulf States. Saudi Arabia's Finance Minister Muhammad Al Jadan has recently admitted that it will be necessary to pass the year 2030 even to build the factories and human infrastructure needed to build large parts of Nom, although Al Jadan in those same statements was careful to state that the Project delays are a good thing in the long run.

At the moment there doesn't even seem to be a plan for how Oxyon, the world's largest floating structure, is supposed to float. Not surprisingly, Saudi officials have strongly rejected Bloomberg's claims since they were published. Saudi Arabia's Economy Minister Fel Al. Ibraham has insisted that neom is not backing down and told an interviewer named Dan Murphy of CNBC citing here all the projects that are moving full steam ahead, we set out to do something unprecedented and we are doing something unprecedented and we will deliver something that is unprecedented for neom projects the planned scale continues asplanned no changes to the scale we point out, of course, that there is plenty of breathing room between we will deliver something unprecedented and we will deliver a 170 km long glass-clad AI City at 1. mile This version of the thing would still be unprecedented, we agree, except that it would simultaneously be unprecedented and about 1.4% of the vision that was initially promised, but it speaks double or not.

Al Ibrahim clearly seeks to convey the message that there is nothing wrong with the neon project. any potential changes as an action to increase its economic effects quoting here again we see comments from the market we see more interest from investors and we will always prioritize where we can optimize for optimal economic impact today the economy in the kingdom is growing faster but we do not want overheat it we don't want to deliver these projects at the cost of importing too much against our own interest now that we are in mega projects obviously we don't want to speculate too much about the logic that could drive Saudi Arabia's ministers to insist that their project will reach the initial goal set when It seems very likely that those standards will not be met, perhaps they know something we don't and have a secret plan that involves carrying out essential work until the last moment. three months before the deadline and somehow have the entire line emerge from Sands right after, as if by Magic, but most likely Saudi Arabia urgently needs investors and say anything that could reduce investor confidence It would now almost certainly be that the line will not be recoverable if it continues on what appears to be its current trajectory, well below what Muhammad bin Salan had promised, so how does this happen?

How do we take on a project of such impressive ambition? We went to the trouble of designing it, promoting it, and continuing to add things and then reaching the brink of ruin, all in just the span of time. In a couple of years, it turns out there are a variety of answers that help explain how Saudi Arabia got here, and like Spears against a woolly mammoth, it wasn't just one well-placed blow that brought it all down, it was a long process. and painful. A cascade of factors that, once accumulated, simply could not be overcome, perhaps the most important problems are those involved in Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, called the public investment fund or PF, this same year Saudi Arabia stated The PIF controls an estimated amount of assets worth around $925 billion, but according to Bloomberg Pi's cash reserves are falling with just $5 billion in cash on hand, it hasn't been this low since 2020. , when Saudi Arabia began publishing data on Pi holdings.

It is only a pittance compared to what Muhammad bin Soman himself has said would be the total cost of the first phase of construction, from the equivalent in Saudi reals to $320 billion. Half of the bill is expected to be covered by the pif which can currently cover a little less than 5% without that money Yom can't be built, it's that simple right now the pif is working overtime to attract investors and raise capital however they can B Salan as a reference the need for external financing for years, but currently it appears that those needs far exceed what Saudi Arabia has been able to generate through investors outside its own government, but even then This explanation leaves a little to be desired;

After all, we can assume that at some point someone who is good at accounting within Saudi Arabia looked at PIF looked at Neom and thought it was a good idea to greenlight the project so well. What went wrong between then and now? To answer that question, it's worth taking a closer look at why exactly Saudi Arabia wanted to build neom in the first place, diversification. Saudi Arabia is a very, very rich nation that brings incredible income to its coffers year after year, but for one key reason: oil. Saudi Arabia is not just an oil producing nation, it is the oil producing nation that is only behind Russia and the United States in barrels produced per day, but the per capita rate is very high.

The problem with this is that the world is in the process of weaning itself off of oil and even if it were not, oil is still a finite resource and production is expected to increase. Over the next few decades, Saudi Arabia has the wealth to invest in a future in which it will remain reasonably stable, but if it wants to continue growing and getting richer like all nations do, then oil simply wasn't going to do the job. would come in, while neon is just one part of a much broader strategy, it is arguably the most important piece of the overall vision.

Saudi Arabia wants to expand into technology, especially clean technology, transportation and logistics. Global sports and entertainment, tourism and luxury services and entrepreneurship. Big RIT. along with other efforts that have less to do with neom, including mining and petrochemical production; However, all of those efforts are based on the same shares of Saudi wealth, most notably in the PF, and with so many simultaneous industrial reforms, megaprojects, international acquisitions and investments and more, all happening in Once the well begins to run dry in An autocratic nation where all individual and collective successes and failures depend on the favor of the Crown Prince, it is important to propose and complete projects that can woo Muhammad bin Salman.

The problem is that Bin Salman is known to have an eye for the extravagant and Saudi Arabia can only support so many crazy ideas at a time the nation's coffers are very deep but they are not limitless but numbers alone do not tell the whole story n has also apparently developed a work culture that sent both foreign executives and expatriate workers fleeing for the hills, the problems here appear to stem from one Nadm Alasa, CEO of Neon Projects and an ally of the Crown Prince, according to more sources. spacious. It is known that it is very difficult to work with Al Nasser getting out of his way. to scare and belittle employees, especially foreigners, after those foreigners, including high-level engineers, architects, urban planners and other experts, were poached from Western companies to come work on the project, Anassa might not even be disagree with that assessment, according to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal. gave this gem of a quote during an NE meeting I drive everyone like slaves when they drop dead I'm glad that's how I do my projects Former executives have criticized our NASA for everything from belittling their colleagues to outright demoting them to participating in and promoting discrimination within their organization, those are issues that have not been helped by news related to Saudi Arabia's broader human rights record, for example the murder of journalist Kamar Kogi in the country in 2018, which led to several figures previously involved decided to give neom something Meanwhile, reports of workers' dismal working conditions during preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup have sparked greater concern for the tens of thousands of workers working on the project neon, although the conditions they face and the people who work in neon are currently unknown.

They are not the only ones in the crosshairs of the Project leaders, also in the crosshairs is the large tribe of people who had a substantial population residing in their historic homeland in Saudi Arabia. The problem is that this is also where neom is being built. The first reports were deeply worrying but not necessarily unexpected. The hoats issued eviction orders as Saudi Arabia had tried to evict them from their land by offering very inadequate compensation in return, but then Saudi security forces killed a villager after he denounced the Saudi situation. actions and several were sentenced to prison terms of several decades after being accused of terrorism and resisting forced evictions the other three have been sentenced to death and those sentences have been confirmed by an appeals court a panel of experts from the The United Nations assesses that these prisoners are being tortured into making forced confessions in order to justify their imprisonment and murder;

At the moment, these evictions of more than 6,000 harat from their lands have not yet been remedied in any way. For its part, Saudi Arabia denies having sentenced these men to death and claims that they have connections with al-Qaeda in the Islamic State. Of course, these are all deep and serious problems that can still be disguised by simply investing money in the project, but Saudi Arabia Not only is it strapped for cash, but it has also taken a recent hit with the loss of investment from a very important partner, just like Saudi Arabia. In the heat of her ambition to design neon, she was also engaged in a diplomatic normalization process with Israel, the nation that has long had a tense and often contentious relationship with the Saudi Kingdom.

With the prospect of normalization, great interest arose in part of Israeli investors who were more than happy to help the leaders of both nations make the Middle East's two most formidable economies more interdependent, but since the start of Israel's war against Hamas in 2023, that normalization process has been put on hold and with this, all the money that could have gone to neom from Israel is nowhere to be found and finally we have to deal with the fundamental question at the heart of all planned cities, it sure is great build them, but does anyone really want to live there similarly?

In addition to the UAE's use of artificial islands filled with luxury villas, NE's focus on luxury vacations is a clear attempt to attract the super-rich, who may be enticed to move forward by things like a permissive tax code and a lax legal system. By the way, these are features that are expected to be part of the neomin practice, but Nom's focus on an AI-powered city that collects immense amounts of data from residents, even from inside their smartphones and homes, does not has been taken in good faith by people who might otherwise consider living. There, for a nation with Saudi Arabia's human rights record and autocratic tendencies, allowing an all-powerful AI to see inside your home and communications is a big ask, the idea of ​​Yom being a functioning surveillance city for your residence it is not. necessarily a false statement, but it has proven to be much less attractive than Muhammad bin Salan and his main AIDS would have expected, so when we step back for a moment and consider what could be the next step for neon, there are some confusing factors that prevent us from establishing a clear conclusion. answer Chief among those factors is the Saudi government itself, according to Nom's website, its press materials, statements about the project by Saudi decision-makers and more, all is well if we analyze the available data, disclosures from sources available that are considered reliable and the progress visible so far. that doesn't seem to be the case, so at this critical juncture where Saudi Arabia has invested gigantic amounts of capital in the project, one of two things must be true: either Saudi Arabia has a way out of this or it doesn't. has.

In the event that Muhammad bin Salman has a way out, whether strictly to save face or to return to Pace for what was supposed to be good for Saudi Arabia, perhaps the answer will come in the form of a new source. investment an injection of cash into the PF from other parts of Saudi Arabia or leveraging assets within the PF that are currently tied up elsewhere at the moment the pif owns ownership shares in a wide variety of London heo airport companies video game companies Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard, Boeing, Disney, BP and the Newcastle United soccer team how important those assets are to Saudi Arabia, only the Crown Prince can say, but whether the nation intends to go all-or-nothing for neon, there is a lot to sacrifice to make that happen.

Another possibility is that Saudi Arabia doesn't have a plan to make this work, maybe they are hoping to find a silver bullet to address the countless problems they face, maybe they are running out of time as long as possible beforehand. having a global black eye on the scale which now that we think about it certainly fits with the concept of doing something unprecedented and then receiving something unprecedented in return, it is impossible to quantify how much money Nom has already devoured down the deep, dark hole of losses. . that can't be recovered, but unless this whole thing is a massive fraud or money laundering scam, which it doesn't openly appear to be, it's almost certainly gone through a huge amount of money incash.

How does Saudi Arabia recover from such a devastating mistake? manages to diversify its holdings with Neon dead in the water and how the people responsible managed to keep their heads from rolling, we'll have to wait to find out until then, Neom will still be among the strangest megaprojects on the planet. amalgamation of grand ambition autocratic cruelty limitless human hope and the bitter realities that have long been part of Saudi Arabia's place on the global stage if it ever emerges from the Desert Sands to become even half of what the kingdom has promised, then it'll be in every part of your wonder world, but the idea of ​​neon ever really taking off seems to be getting less and less likely by the day.