Expedition Europe: When I visited The Line, an expatriate told me that he could no longer be reintegrated into the European job market due to his monthly salary.
After writing about my trip last week, here is my report on what will soon be the largest construction site in the world: With 500 billion dollars it would be possible to do a lot against climate change, hunger in the world or the refugee tragedies, but the Saudi crown prince prefers to excavate a desert area of 26,500 km², to pile nine million people on top of each other in just 35 km². My opinion was that hardly more than one percent would be realized, but I wanted to hear what the builders of Neom themselves thought about it. Do you believe in the crown prince's vision?
The excavated line of the car-free sci-fi city “The Line” – two 500-meter-tall, 170-kilometer-long skyscrapers reportedly stand next to each other – was supposedly visible from space, but the construction site itself It only seemed pharaonic in its expanse. It includes: hollowed out cone-shaped mounds of different grain sizes, fenced-in camps of global corporations, small columns of construction trucks, perfect new roads. At the moment only sand and rock have been moved. Police and security cars stood guard at every intersection with warning lights flashing constantly.
Open desert parking space
I discovered a parking lot in the middle of the desert, for me the essence and perhaps the heart of the project. I returned several times to this dusty place surrounded by some dry bushes, where I ate, drank, asked questions and slept.