What Goes Behind the Glitz of MbS’s New Project

BY: Arab Digest

Discovery's NEOM doc: Urban marvel "The Line" emerges in Saudi, labeled 21st-century Babylon by documentary.

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Architects, led by Peter Cook, praise bin Salman's visionary city. Crown prince envisions future with insight.

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NEOM's "The Line": $500B budget, $200B allocated, futuristic "linear city" funded by Saudi sovereign wealth.

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Crown prince's NEOM gigaproject attracts Western talent with large fees and historic infrastructure challenge.

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Bin Salman wields unprecedented power, stifling dissent, shaping grand urban project in Saudi Arabia.

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Peter Cook, an architecture iconoclast, embraces NEOM's potential with little concern for success or failure.

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At NEOM event, Cook on The Line: "Interesting possibility. Bit stupid and unreasonable, engineer friends agree.

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Cook initially favored 150m height, later playfully suggested 500m could be enjoyable after marina's completion.

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