End of the Line

So been meaning to write this one for a while but currently behind with a few rants, so this may come across tepid by my standards, although likely still ranty by the average persons…we’ll see.

Today’s rant is brought to by none other than Saudi Arabia. A place on this Earth most of you won’t be surprised to learn frustrates me…mind you it’s perhaps easier to make a list of Counties that don’t annoy me than those that do.

To be more specific though my latest rant is about the Country's latest major project or in my opinion ‘vehicle of control’, aka ‘The Line’. ‘The Line’ is ultimately a 200m wide, 170km long and 500m above sea level linear box, which will confine 9-million morons at some stage. Ok, it’s not sold as ‘moron-living’, but you’d have to be a moron to live there…David Beckham comes to mind, I’m sure his face will appear somewhere near it or splashed across it soon.

My angst at this project is to understand what it’s really about. The official take is that ‘The Line’ is a reflection of modern and communal living whereby you can ultimately confine the features of a City into one box, making places much more accessible, all under one Roof. To me, it’s effectively a giant live-in shopping mall; Throw all the fluff language around it you want, a spade's a spade. It also claims to utilise 100% renewable energy, which I’m sure, at the risk of going ‘missing’ in an Embassy, some Energy Consultancy will sign-off on somewhere. It won’t be that energy efficient (it just won’t), but you’ll be told that it is, and in such places, there won’t be anyone brave enough to contest it. To add specifics, to undertake any energy efficient driven project, there is an extreme amount of work and cost involved. It’s one-thing to say a project will be ‘LEED Platinum’ or ‘Passive-House Certified’ (as an example of two well known Sustainable and Energy Certifications, which Owners often request with no understanding of what is actually required) but it’s another to actually build projects that comply with them. As ever, the cynical side of me wouldn’t trust that what is built for this project will actually reflect what 100% renewable energy is.

Furthermore, I can’t help but wonder what the real purpose of this project is and what it is in response to. Any construction project is a response to a need, whether it be a road, School or Hospital and often (if budget permits) there will added appeal, such as sustainability directives or innovative construction means and methods or envelope systems. Think of Sydney Opera House, San Francisco’s Golden-Gate Bridge or even Dubai’s ‘Museum of the Future’. The former is evidently an old Building, completed in 1973, but aside from providing an Opera House, as a response to entertainment, the design is unique and synonymous with one of many well-known City skylines across the World. Similar with the Golden-Gate Bridge (completed in 1937), which is a feat of engineering in itself serving first as a Bridge connecting the San Francisco peninsula back to the mainland but also iconic in it’s appearance. ‘Museum of the Future’ (completed in 2022) responds to Dubai’s on-going push to provide an unrivaled entertainment portfolio, with this one showcasing many innovative and futuristic ideologies, services, and products (including AI), which provides an experience for families and groups of friends to share in. The structure itself is ‘LEED Platinum’ and like the others referenced, has a very iconic form, which I can only describe as half an eye-mask.

For ‘The Line’ though, I’m not sure anyone is needing this? Are people really wanting to live in this soulless rectangle of endless monotony? I mean yes there’ll be the usual amenities, neighbourhood's, outdoor (yet indoor) spaces, shops etc, but why do we need everything to be so accessible to the point of not really going anywhere? You can get from one end to another in 34-minutes in what I can only assume is some form of bullet paced monorail. The project also seems to assume a mass of people want to live in the exact same manner, with little to no variety. That we don’t urge for change or space. Sometimes it’s nice to have the option to just go into the big Countryside in order to find peace and quiet from the rat race. Here it seems you’ll be well and truly locked into the rat race with no escape accessible. For me this just seems like the latest vanity project to come out of the Middle East to compete with Dubai’s Burj Khalifa (unnecessarily tall) or the infamous ‘The World’ project, also in Dubai (series of islands loosely resembling the World), which aside from Lebanon is largely derelict – perhaps because everyone wants to live in a box?

In terms of getting in and getting out of this ‘Box’, if you did want to go outside, outside (yes, repeated word on purpose), do you just exit through a door? I foresee some form of uniform with a beret between you and that door, requesting a permit for leaving. Equally, if you wanted to get in, can you just walk in, as you would with a Mall? Is there a day/monthly/annual pass you can purchase? I suspect the inside will be ‘protected’ from the outside, which makes me wonder what all that mirrored facade is about? Are they trying to make the Box invisible?

Additionally, given the limited freedoms of Women right now in KSA, it’s difficult to see how this will serve Women’s rights for freedom and will likely only play into the hands of oppressing Women further and keeping them indoors.

I see this as nothing more than a vehicle to control people. Let’s be honest you may as well call it a penitentiary with many perks. Endless cameras watching, ‘exclusive’ Wi-Fi and communication networks (also watching and listening) and I suspect plenty of Security wandering around. I mean you could argue how is this different from any City in the modern World, and you’d be right. However, this project plays into the hands of such surveillance. At least with an outdoor ‘typical’ City you can still make them work for that surveillance, whereas here, they’ve effectively setup the Middle East’s Big Brother and apparently 9-million people will naively live in the Big Brother house.

One things fair to say about it, if this is ‘modern-living’ then I think we really have reached the end of ‘The Line’…