The city of the future project, full of technologies, in Saudi Arabia is progressing well, even if the satellite images to see it are rare.
In the ocher earth, the furrows leave no room for doubt: these are indeed the foundations of The Line, the futuristic city desired by Prince Mohammed ben Salma. Satellite images obtained exclusively by the MIT Technology Review on December 9 perfectly show, from high in the sky, the long rectangle taking shape.
The photos date from October 22 and were released thanks to Soar.Earth, an Australian startup that aggregates several types of satellite data in order to derive the most faithful and precise images. According to Soar, the workers have already dug 26 million cubic meters of rock. Images of The Line taken by drone in October already showed trucks busying themselves around this main line which was beginning to take shape.
Why are there so few satellite images of The Line?
This is, however, the first time that relatively up-to-date satellite imagery has been accessed – if you enter the correct coordinates on Google Maps or Earth, you will notice that the project is not yet visible, even in December 2022. Google explains that its tools are currently focusing on more populated regions of the world, and that it is therefore not surprising that certain sparsely populated areas are less covered for the moment.
Amir Farhand, the CEO of Soar interviewed by MIT, believes that it could be a blocking of information on the part of companies, which would buy satellite images in high definition to keep the exclusive rights so that they don’t end up in the hands of the competition. However, other experts consider that it would simply be a project that is too new, moreover in the middle of the desert, and that the images will eventually arrive.
The Line, the already so controversial “city of the future”
The objective of The Line is to welcome up to 9 million people in a city spread out in length and height, over 170 km, and only 200 meters wide. ” No roads, no cars, no emissions, The Line will use 100% renewable energy and 95% of the land will be preserved for nature “, praises the official Saudi site.
Saudi Arabia’s gargantuan project, valued at more than 500 billion dollars, was launched in 2021, for construction that began in April 2022. If the disproportionate ambitions of Prince Mohammed ben Salma could make you smile, the city raises today more and more controversies.
On the one hand, several men have been sentenced to death for opposing the development of The Line, which spans lands occupied for centuries by the Howeitat tribe, whose tens of thousands of members have been forced by the strength to move. On the other, The Line succeeded in attracting overpaid Western executives, attracted by the million dollars a year offered by Saudi Arabia to carry out its titanic project.
The Line deciphered by a geographer
Geographer Alain Musset deciphered, for Numerama, the ambitions and implications of The Line project, this ” fantasy of architects and urban planners “.