“Last year, British architect Peter Cook, who is involved in the project, called the city an 'amazing absurdity'”, commenting on NEOM's The Line, the overtly ambitious real estate development hawked by Saudi Arabia in recent years, a notion that has been obvious to literally everyone from day one. No amount of glossy propaganda can possibly make it not look like a dumb idea.
Not to mention “the Saudi government has said more than 6,000 people have been moved to facilitate its Neom project, but some human rights groups estimate the figure is higher.”
Displacing a native population (violently, I might add) to make way for a global elite of the uber wealthy? Sounds to me like colonial practices by way of capitalist strategies. Which would be bad enough for a sound real estate development, let alone a terribly dumb one destined for failure.