Cities of the future, sustainability

And a revolution in urban living

Photo by Wambui on Unsplash

Hello and welcome!

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When I was in school, I can remember one of my teachers saying that in the future, we would be watching television on screens on walls. We all gasped at the thought. Back then, colour TVs had only just come on the market and, believe it or not, some people still rented their black and white television sets. How things have changed!

When some old textbooks were handed out, one of the articles was entitled, ‘Will Man Ever Land on the Moon?’ Oh, how we laughed. Of course, he would. He already had! Now, we are talking about Mars and futuristic cities that go way beyond my comprehension.

I love modern architecture. I lived in Dubai and Saudi Arabia and back in the nineties and noughties, when I was there, the glass skyscrapers appeared futuristic to me, even then. But The Line and NEOM are something else. Mind-boggling in its proportions, scale and scope, it has been called ‘a prototype for the future.’ It is a city which is being built in the north-western region of Saudi Arabia and will stretch across three geographical regions. The Line will be 170 km long, 500 meters high and 200 meters wide. It will be home to 9 million people and NEOM will provide everything the residents could ever need within a five-minute walk.

There will be no roads or cars and it will be 100% sustainable. It is an incredibly ambitious project. If you watch the videos, it is fascinating. It is ‘accessible’ from anywhere in the world. It sounds idealistic, to say the least. Jaw-dropping in its futuristic vision.

I lived in Jeddah, a beautiful city on the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia. The hospital where I worked was next to a desalination plant and, in the video of The Line, part of the sustainability of the project is that water will be desalinated from the Red Sea and the salt will be used, instead of being dumped.

I often wondered why solar power wasn’t harnessed more but that is going to be utilised in the bid for sustainability. It all sounds incredibly impressive.

When I was a kid and watched programmes like Thunderbirds a futuristic, sci-fi programme, I couldn’t imagine how dated it would become so quickly. The puppets were positively wooden and the imagery, although ahead of its time, soon became dated as technology progressed. The sixties turned into the seventies, into the eighties and so on. Man has now progressed to the stage where AI plays a major role in all of our lives and it has been used extensively in the development of Neom and The Line. Which makes me wonder. Can man recreate something that has been designed, or created, with the use of AI? And if he can, will he enjoy living there?

I guess that question can only be answered once The Line and NEOM are completed and families move in. It is incredibly ambitious and has been labelled as ‘pioneering the future of livability and business’. I am in awe of the designers, architects, engineers and the myriad of others involved in this project. Would I like to live there? Probably not. I love my back garden which is full of songbirds and beautiful plants and flowers. Of course, these urban spaces will be greener than the hills of Shropshire, but can the feeling of wide open spaces, forest walks and meadows be recreated in such an urban setting? I’m sure it can. Will it feel real? I’m not so sure. Whilst I have the utmost admiration for the designers and innovators of this project, I for one will not be rushing to reserve a unit. Or whatever it is you will be expected to do to snap up one of the cubes in this urban landscape. But then, it wasn’t designed with people like me in mind. It is for the younger generation, the smart, ambitious, optimistic people who will go on to do great things. They are the future.

Have a great week,