Saudi Arabia's Vertical City Construction Site

Saudi Arabian authorities have shared new images from the construction site revealing the progress of the country's planned Desert City.

Millions of ^cubic meters of soil are transported on the City construction site every week. (Photo: NEOM).

As The Line City project continues to develop in the Saudi Arabian desert, new construction details have emerged that reveal the challenges of transforming the rugged strip of land into a futuristic megacity, including using one-fifth of the world's available steel, according to New Atlas . The Line City is a key part of Saudi Arabia's NEOM project , which aims to transform the country's oil-based economy into a tourism-focused one as cutting back on fossil fuels becomes inevitable in the coming years.

The planned Straight City will be 170km long, although the initial phase will be just 2.4km long when completed in 2030. However, it is still an impressive achievement at 500m high and 200m wide. The city will be covered in mirrors on the outside and will accommodate around 300,000 residents, with AI technology and surveillance cameras to monitor everything from garbage collection to water usage.

To make the project a reality, the Saudi government built a new $190 million concrete plant that can produce 20,000 cubic meters ^of concrete per day, most of it for the Vertical City and the rest for other projects in the NEOM complex. In addition, more than 100,000 workers were mobilized to move huge amounts of earth 24/7, to build the massive foundation for the project.

The process of building the foundation pillars of the Straight City. (Photo: NEOM).

Construction of the foundation piers is ongoing, with nearly 1,000 of the more than 30,000 piers completed to date. In addition, according to Arabian Gulf Business Insight, NEOM's chief investment officer Manar Al Moneef said the project is using one-fifth of the world's total steel production. Saudi Arabian authorities hope the project will remain the world's largest consumer of the building material for decades.

NEOM organizers will be more transparent about the construction process to reassure investors and hopefully attract more capital. In addition to Straight City, other prominent projects in the NEOM complex under construction in Saudi Arabia include Treyam, Epicon, and Xaynor.