The 105-mile-long Neom skyscrapers may have hit a brick wall

Saudi Arabia’s new ultra-rich city Neom could face an unstable future due to rising costs and sloppy construction bottlenecks, according to reports. wall street journal,

Producing its centerpiece, “The Line”, was going to be no less difficult. The ultra-ambitious pair of skyscrapers is expected to span 105 miles across the desert and be taller than the Empire State Building. The desert also forms its western edge which ends at the coast of the Red Sea.

The staggering scale results in staggering costs. According to WSJOfficially, NEOM’s budget was $500 billion, which is more than 50% of Saudi Arabia’s federal budget.

However, those assumptions may have been too optimistic. The first 1.5 miles of the line will cost more than $100 billion, according to staff working on the project and people familiar with the plans.

Furthermore, the entire project is expected to generate easily $2 trillion, which is more than Brazil’s GDP.

“It conflicts with the entire history of the founding and development of cities,” said John E. Fernandez, a professor in the department of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. WSJ,