While Neom struggles to create ground-breaking urbanism, it is having more success replicating suburbia in the desert, writes Tom Ravenscroft.

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Despite grand ambitions and a barrage of flashy renders, progress on Neom has been slow. Eight years after the project was announced there is little to show for the reported $50 billion Saudi Arabia has already spent across the region’s 10 huge developments.

Following a slew of delays and controversies, reports now suggest that the money has dried up. “We rushed at 100 miles an hour,” a Saudi official is reported as saying last week in The Times. “We are now running deficits. We need to reprioritise.”

The centrepiece of Neom, the proposed 170-kilometre-long The Line, is little more than a scratch across the desert – albeit a very long one. Originally planned to house over a million people by 2030, this projection has been greatly scaled back to 300,000, although even this seems over-ambitious. Austrian architect Wolf Prix’s prediction that a stunted The Line will become a high-end hotel appears to be moving closer to reality.

Neom initially appeared to have significant momentum despite its fantastical nature

In the mountains, the Trojena ski resort was originally “set for completion by 2026”. However, this deadline already looks impossible, with reports of construction complications and delays. The Olympic organisation has cast doubts over the development being ready in 2029 – three years after the original deadline – to host the Asian Winter Games. Last week a Saudi official was quoted in The Times saying “it will be three or four years late”.

One project that does appear to have moved at pace is the luxury island destination of Sindalah, which opened earlier this year with a party attended by celebrities including Tom Brady, Will Smith and Alicia Keys. The resort has none of the ambition of Neom’s headline-grabbing schemes – it is merely a collection of high-end hotels and villas surrounding yachting marinas.

Sindalah is by far the most realistic of the Neom developments, which may explain why it has actually been built. However, despite the official opening, it also appears to have run into issues. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, the luxury resort has actually closed, though the reasons are unclear. Perhaps it’s contending with another potential issue that Neom has to face – a lack of demand for what is being built.

With the direct backing of Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and seemingly infinite resources from the country’s $925 billion Public Investment Fund, Neom initially appeared to have significant momentum despite the fantastical nature of the plans.

But that momentum now appears to be slowing. Amid reports of worker fatalities and human rights abuses, Neom’s chief executive Nadhmi al-Nasr, who has led the project since 2018, was removed. In the wake of this shake-up, a complete review has been ordered, which will consider the feasibility of The Line and other key projects. According to reports, the review is expected to lead to widespread staff redundancies and relocations.

Neom is having more success building much more conventional buildings

Neom is discovering that fantastical buildings are much harder to create than sci-fi renders.

While progress on its much-publicised, overly ambitious signature projects stutters, Neom is having more success building much more conventional buildings. Across the desert, numerous camps have sprung up to house the 140,000 people working on the scheme, with many more under construction.

Each of the camps is, in effect, a small town that can be seen in satellite photography published on Dezeen today. They are isolated settlements, hundreds of miles from any existing real town, surrounded by fences and accessed through guard houses.

Within these security perimeters, the design of the towns is best described as Sim City urbanism. Each has a standard organisational formula, with blocks of seemingly identical housing units arranged around clusters of central communal facilities.

The settlements appear to be the bleakest version of suburbia

These uninspiring, repetitive blocks are where the vast workforce assembled to build Neom’s marvels are living. Photos uploaded to Google Maps from within the settlements show sparse, shared rooms with multiple bunk beds.

The heart of these purpose-built, semi-permanent towns are canteens, shops and other central administration blocks. Images uploaded to Google Maps from inside the canteens, which look like budget all-inclusive resorts, give a further insight into the daily life of the thousands-strong workforce.

There are also numerous sports facilities, with each of the individual housing districts served by swimming pools, gyms, tennis courts and even cricket pitches.

However, complete with sterile versions of American staples Starbucks and Dunkin’ (formerly known as Dunkin’ Doughnuts), the settlements appear to be the bleakest version of suburbia.

Neom has yet to deliver anything radical

These settlements are far from the “civilizational revolution” promised by Bin Salman. Neom promised a radical new urbanism, but in reality is only producing sterile desert suburbia.

Eight years after it was first announced, Neom has yet to deliver anything radical. With the fate of the project seemingly under threat, these desert towns may end up being the entire legacy of the Neom project.

This legacy highlights the flawed expansive gestures of many future-looking mega projects that often ignore the needs of the people they are built for. Is this really the direction that architecture should be headed?

Rather than looking for urbanistic silver bullets to provide for Saudi Arabia’s growing population, the country’s priority should be improving and enhancing the existing fabric of its cities. This is where the demand and need actually is.

Of course, this could incorporate many of the core principles of The Line – increased density, reduced reliance on cars, et cetera.

With the money that Saudi Arabia has, and is spending on Neom, it could have turned Riyadh into the world’s most liveable city. Instead it has created a huge money pit, the literal pit it has dug, and the blandest type of urbanism imaginable.

Tom Ravenscroft is the editor of Dezeen.

The main image is from Google Maps, copyright Airbus, CNES / Airbus, Maxar Technologies.

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