Neom: Saudi forces 'told to kill’ to clear land for eco-city
www.bbc.com
An ex-intelligence officer tells the BBC he was permitted to shoot dead those resisting eviction.

Col Rabih Alenezi says he was ordered to evict villagers from a tribe in the Gulf state to make way for The Line, part of the Neom eco-project.

One of them was subsequently shot and killed for protesting against eviction.

The Saudi government and Neom management refused to comment.

Neom, Saudi Arabia’s $500bn (£399bn) eco-region, is part of its Saudi Vision 2030 strategy which aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil.

Its flagship project, The Line, has been pitched as a car-free city, just 200m (656ft) wide and 170km (106 miles) long - though only 2.4km of the project is reportedly expected to be completed by 2030.

  • tabris@lemmy.worldEnglish
    85·
    6 months ago

    This is such a stupid project. You could fit the same size city in 6km x 6km and it’d be bigger than what they have planned. Much cheaper and easier as well, and no reason to kill anyone… Oh wait, I see the incentive.

    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      6 months ago

      Nobody would talk about it if it was a standard square city. Masdar city is a square design of 6km² for example, also trying to be a hub of future technologies, and most people will go “mass what city?” The Line attracts attention, and with attention often comes money. At least they have the first part right, the second part isn’t working out as they hoped it would.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
        36·
        6 months ago

        Who cares if people talk about it when it‘s doomed to either become an unlivable hellscape or more likely never see completion because it‘s utterly infeasible? They destroy a huge area, waste billions and worst of all throw many lives into a meat grinder just to get some clout by the dumbest idiots on the planet. In the end of the day more people will dislike and look down on them for this moronic project that many knew would never work.

    • HubertManne@kbin.social
      5·
      6 months ago

      I agree its stupid but the original idea was larger and had a transit system going down it. I think that was the concept. To sorta maximize transit as you did not need to branch it off to go to various places.

      • ditty@lemm.eeEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        Whatever they end up building will still be harder to navigate than traditional city layouts. An example one lemmy user mentioned in a previous post is how unfortunate it’d be if you lived at one end and worked at the other.

        • HubertManne@kbin.social
          3·
          6 months ago

          yeah. I was just pointing out there was a reason. I have been thinking about it in the back of my head today. How valuable is it and is it worth it. When I look at my city metro its basically a hub and spoke and what you see is that most of the spokes are around 15-20 miles out from downtown and I know they have been extended so I think closer to 15 for the original spans. Im thinking this gets to what that other lemmy user said. Having a commute where you go from the end of one spoke downtown to the end of the other would stink. Since there are multiple spokes that are mor places to live that are sorta in that magic 15-20 mile distance. Our metra is similar but goes way farther out but also has way fewer stops. So it can be farther out without being to bad. All the same those branches tend to stop once the commute from downtown is about an hour or so. Im guessing that really the circular city type thing is the way to go and likely why most are like that barring natural barriers like oceans or whatnot.