SAUDI ARABIA'S MEGA PROJECTS.

• Author: Alzaibag, Faisal

Faisal Alzaibag is a Saudi Arabian engineer with a career focused on the planning, implementation and management of a variety of mega-scale sector projects, from inception and development, to commissioning and operations, and holds an executive qualification in planning smart cities from MIT. The Journal of International Affairs spoke with Mr. Alzaibag about Saudi Arabia's plan to build a new city called NEOM.

Journal of International Affairs (JIA): Saudi Arabia recently announced "The Line," a major component of its NEOM mega project. What makes The Line project so unique and what vision does it lay out for the future of smart cities?

Faisal Alzaibag (FA): By 2045, around 3 billion people will live with no access to infrastructure. Cities and how we build them today cannot sustain in the face of the growing demands of our future. The announcement of The Line records a revolutionary and transformational moment in history. Designed from the ground up to address the most critical urban challenges facing mankind's sprawl, The Line redefines the way we look at and live in cities. This bold initiative brings to life what a smart city is; a city that embodies design, innovation and technology, built on the five new pillars that make a city a smart one--proximity, density, diversity, mobility, and sustainability Globally unmatched, The Line is the first city built and integrated to be smart from its foundations, as opposed to a surface layer of technological quick-fixes.

We're on the cusp of major changes that will shape cities as we know them. Taking a step back and examining the notion of cities and how they evolved helps us understand why. Cities are clusters built around relatively dense and thriving populations, essentially, multi-use zones. Historically, cities evolved within the environmental and technological constraints of their eras and sprawled around bodies of water to support living, agriculture, and trade. These features were necessary to foster organic growth and allow inhabitants to live and work efficiently in-between these different multiused areas. Later, during the early 1900's and onwards, the automobile and industrial revolutions influenced cities and how we developed them. This approach, compounded by single-use zoning, or Euclidean zoning, has put a great toll on both our cities and the environment. The Line provides a blueprint for cities that addresses our future challenges. A vital aspect of The Line is the centralized decision-making, which enables quick and efficient action and policymaking processes that yield results, as compared to the lengthy process of consensus and passing bills to rectify 150 year-old building codes.

JIA: Planned megacities are something we see in the Gulf states but not in many other places. What are the benefits of planning and building a city from the ground up and why do you think Gulf states have led the way in this regard?

FA: Gulf States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are ambitious and fast developing countries that aim to establish themselves on the global map. The 2030 vision has put the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on a trajectory of becoming...