America's Neom: $400 Billion Mega-City In The Desert

[Abdulaziz Al-Karimi]

It seems like the Americans have followed suit and moving towards the future welcome on board.. All tho much smaller then Neom still a major city by itself and can take around 5-million+ residents and upwards

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

It seems like the Americans have followed suit and moving towards the future welcome on board.. All tho much smaller then Neom still a major city by itself and can take around 5-million+ residents and upwards

Not going to happen. No way 5 million people will move to the desert.
The entire population of Nevada (where Las Vegas is) is only 3 million.

Only New York city (pop 8 Million) has more than 4M people in it and it is 778 sq km (300 sq miles) and people consider it too crowded to live in.

50,000 initial is not going to be sustainable. That is the size of a small US town with an operating budget of like $150M tops if it is wealthy. He is talking about mixed housing which means the money raised will be significantly lower. Somebody has to pay to maintain all that infrastructure and city employees.

 

[Ghareeb_Da_Baal]

who is gonna pay for this? print more money or private money???

 

[S.Y.A]

It seems like the Americans have followed suit and moving towards the future welcome on board.. All tho much smaller then Neom still a major city by itself and can take around 5-million+ residents and upwards

dude, saudis are idiots. americans are not. saudis could have used that money to upgrade existing infra, building rest areas and whatnot on motorways. or on S&T and R&D. but, instead, they are going for a vanity project.

Big money but weak infrastructure

Big money but weak infrastructure

saudigazette.com.sa

"... It is shameful that we still see bad roads and sewage trucks that do not only diffuse bad smell but also contaminate the streets.

We also see water tankers parked near houses to supply them with desalinated water because their taps are not connected to the central water network.

It is quite saddening to see the roads that were asphalted yesterday having deep ditches and holes today. It was as if that the asphalt layer was not more than thin paper.

It is not understandable that we began to think of public transport projects only recently and after a long time. It seems to me that these projects, if at all implemented, will only be in more than a city or two. When will this happen, nobody knows.

Time passes on. Officials replace each other. We hear about huge budgets but the basic development is going very slowly at an illogical pace. There is no explanation for this weird situation.... "

Revamp of highway rest stops under way

Motorists and pilgrims on Saudi Arabia's long highways will soon see upgraded fuel and rest stops offering hygienic toilets, clean mosques, good food and quality car repair services.This comes as government starts its rehabilitation program in earnest of an estimated 10,000 rest stops across the...

www.arabnews.com

"....Recently the authorities shut down a well-known roadside rest stop along the Jeddah-Makkah Expressway for violating hygiene and safety standards. The Al-Ruhaili rest stop, about 25 km east of downtown Jeddah, has been operating for over 30 years.
Mohammed Baqar, an Indian expatriate, who travels nearly 5,000 km every week on the Kingdom's roads, told Arab News: “I did not find a mosque or toilet at any of the service stations on the Madinah Highway and the situation is worse on the Riyadh Highway.”
Kalu Mian, a Bangladeshi truck driver who has been working on the country's highways for the last 27 years, said: “It's better not to talk about the cleanliness of the mosques and the sanitation of toilets on the highways.”
Individuals living in remote desert villages own most of the gas stations and allied service centers, including restaurants. These gas stations are poorly managed with dirty toilets. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has lambasted the owners of these stations for the state of the mosques..."

This is the situation of one the richest nations on earth, and they want to build neom. idiots. they will just waste their money and hand it all over to western contractors and builders, and it will turn into a giant ghost city.

 

[R Wing]

dude, saudis are idiots. americans are not. saudis could have used that money to upgrade existing infra, building rest areas and whatnot on motorways. or on S&T and R&D. but, instead, they are going for a vanity project.

Big money but weak infrastructure

Big money but weak infrastructure

saudigazette.com.sa

"... It is shameful that we still see bad roads and sewage trucks that do not only diffuse bad smell but also contaminate the streets.

We also see water tankers parked near houses to supply them with desalinated water because their taps are not connected to the central water network.

It is quite saddening to see the roads that were asphalted yesterday having deep ditches and holes today. It was as if that the asphalt layer was not more than thin paper.

It is not understandable that we began to think of public transport projects only recently and after a long time. It seems to me that these projects, if at all implemented, will only be in more than a city or two. When will this happen, nobody knows.

Time passes on. Officials replace each other. We hear about huge budgets but the basic development is going very slowly at an illogical pace. There is no explanation for this weird situation.... "

Revamp of highway rest stops under way

Motorists and pilgrims on Saudi Arabia's long highways will soon see upgraded fuel and rest stops offering hygienic toilets, clean mosques, good food and quality car repair services.This comes as government starts its rehabilitation program in earnest of an estimated 10,000 rest stops across the...

www.arabnews.com

"....Recently the authorities shut down a well-known roadside rest stop along the Jeddah-Makkah Expressway for violating hygiene and safety standards. The Al-Ruhaili rest stop, about 25 km east of downtown Jeddah, has been operating for over 30 years.
Mohammed Baqar, an Indian expatriate, who travels nearly 5,000 km every week on the Kingdom's roads, told Arab News: “I did not find a mosque or toilet at any of the service stations on the Madinah Highway and the situation is worse on the Riyadh Highway.”
Kalu Mian, a Bangladeshi truck driver who has been working on the country's highways for the last 27 years, said: “It's better not to talk about the cleanliness of the mosques and the sanitation of toilets on the highways.”
Individuals living in remote desert villages own most of the gas stations and allied service centers, including restaurants. These gas stations are poorly managed with dirty toilets. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has lambasted the owners of these stations for the state of the mosques..."

This is the situation of one the richest nations on earth, and they want to build neom. idiots. they will just waste their money and hand it all over to western contractors and builders, and it will turn into a giant ghost city.

Perhaps many of the same allegations were made against Dubai, but the vanity projects paid off.

(PS: I think Neom and other such things are nonsense; like you, I'd rather that this money is spent on existing infra, building up R&D capacity / human capital quality, etc.)

 

[S.Y.A]

Perhaps many of the same allegations were made against Dubai, but the vanity projects paid off.

(PS: I think Neom and other such things are nonsense; like you, I'd rather that this money is spent on existing infra, building up R&D capacity / human capital quality, etc.)

they set up a business enabling environment, they set up an infrastructure. all their projects had practical uses, and did it gradually. they didnt build burj khalifa in the '90s when the tourism was sh*t. they did it much later when it had already become a go to destination.

 

[R Wing]

they set up a business enabling environment, they set up an infrastructure. all their projects had practical uses, and did it gradually. they didnt build burj khalifa in the '90s when the tourism was sh*t. they did it much later when it had already become a go to destination.

I agree. I'm not sure of SA's work on increasing ease of doing business. Dubai infrastructure wasn't great till recently (public transport, etc.)

And while the Burj Khalifa came later, they did have other vanity projects before that. Dubai was also developing at a different time and had the more conservative and prudent leadership of Abu Dhabi to rely on for bailouts as it experimented.