THE LINE: sustainable reality or an apparent green face?

The principle behind the construction is that of sustainability.

What will the cities of the future be like?
According to Eurostat data, cities occupy only 3% of the earth’s surface but are responsible for 60-80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions.
Today, half of humanity – 3.5 billion people – lives in cities. By 2030, nearly 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas and 95% of city expansion will take place in developing countries. Cities will necessarily have to be rethought from a sustainable and green perspective.
Here are some of the challenges that the cities of the future will have to face in the coming years:

• The city of the future must pay more attention to waste management. Final Eurostat data show that 5 tons of waste per inhabitant were produced in the EU in 2016. The average recycling rate in the EU was 45% respectively and for Italy it was 43.5%.
• Protect the landscape and cultural heritage
• Guarantee safe and quality housing
• Foresee sharing systems or shared mobility such as cars, bicycles, scooters and scooters

The news coming from Saudi Arabia about the city of the future par excellence is recent.

Let’s find out what The Line is
Described as “the futuristic model par excellence” The Line is an urban project that NEOM is carrying out in Saudi Arabia. The project covers an area of ​​about 26 thousand square kilometers with 170 kilometers in length and only 200 meters in width. By 2030, 9 million residents will live in the city. The surface will be larger than that of Israel and should develop in the province of Tabuk, outside the borders of the kingdom. of which it will not even adopt the legal system but will have an autonomous legislative system.

The Line is based on the concept of hyperproximity: services will always be a five-minute walk away, but there will also be a high-speed train with an end-to-end transit of 20 minutes.
Homes, public places, pedestrian areas, schools, workplaces are vertically stratified, allowing citizens to move effortlessly and to move around without the need for means of transport.

The Line will be a city that is strongly close to the environment and the buildings are designed to work with renewable energy at 100%. Also about 95% with large green areas that will be preserved. The outside of the city will be covered with a mirrored glass window, which will allow it to merge with nature, making it almost invisible.

Within The Line, the life experience will be completely entrusted to Artificial Intelligence. L’IA it will be used both in transport but also throughout the city, giving life to one Cognitive City (every citizen becomes an integral part of the decision-making and maintenance process of public areas).

Neom, the complete project involving the construction of The Line, will create 380 thousand jobs and its contribution to GDP is estimated at over 39 billion euros by 2030.

Project feasibility: the pros and cons
The structure is already one challenge for the planners who are planning it. For example, they must meet the 2030 deadline set by the prince’s national transformation plan. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the project could take 50 years to be completed. Furthermore, considering the glass surface, there is the problem created by the birds that will migrate and be hindered by its enormous horizontal and vertical extension.

The territories selected as the site of the project were deemed morphologically suitable but no one took into account who already lived there. They are the members of an ancient Bedouin tribe and many have been forced out with force and without compensation, to make way for the foundations.

Neom promises that the city will be totally car free, with a 100% sustainable transport system. However Saudi Arabia literally lives on fossil fuels, so it should reinvent its national economy if other countries restricted it. The project is also accused of greenwashing considered only an attempt to divert attention from far more serious problems on the front of the protection of human rights.

On the other hand, however, supporters deem it necessary to start from one green city and intelligent, powered bywind energy, the sun and 100% carbon-free desalination plants. It is expected to be the ideal solution for bringing water availability back to acceptable standards. The Line will address the challenges humanity faces today in urban life and shed light on alternative ways of living.