The Line Grand Prix would be an interesting, long drag race.
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Depending on who you ask this isn’t a “scaling back,” they’re merely working in a modular fashion that will unveil the first 1.5 miles by 2030 and add to that over time.
Which means that if they continue at the current planned rate of construction they should have the whole thing done in another 400 years or so.
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How about Asimov/Heinlein slidewalks? A series of moving belts, each one moving 5 km/h faster than the previous, until the 100 km/h belt. Get on the 5 km/h belt, walk across belts to one going fast enough, then reverse when close to the destination.
All kinds of engineering problems to solve, for sure! Wind blast, mobility issues, etc…
eta: It doesn’t have to be belts. It could be flatbed rail cars, with benches, hand-grips, coffee shops, toilets, etc. Put a wide loop at each end, and have a method of hot-swapping cars for maintenance, restocking and flushing. It’d have to be very precise if you didn’t want to Mind the Gaps.
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… if it’s somehow good for rich people then it’s good for “the economy,” by definition 
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Even economic driven utópic cities can miserably fail too…
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Anyone care to make an Escape 2000 joke? https://youtu.be/GfEyP-ksbo8?si=QsyUux-wir1pRvDE&t=367
My son figured this out at age 11 while playing SimCity.
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Hmm, if we’re going for the target 20 minute trip time, and each belt has an increase of 5kph, there would have to be a series of… 84 belts? That’s… a lot of belts. Oh no, wait - that’s only going in one direction - you’d need twice as many. And since the line is only 200 meters across, each one couldn’t be much more than a meter wide, really. Traveling at more than 500 kilometers per hour on a one meter strip of moving walkway would be quite the experience… Although I suppose the buildings would need deep supports, so the belts would probably have to be closer to 50cm wide to fit.
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holotiles working to move you instead of keeping you in place?
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There you go! Zipping along on HoloTile at 500kph! Every person could get moved along at their own speed (with the tiles also moving people so they don’t collide), for your own personalized transportation solution! I’m sure they’ll announce that as their new plan any day now. (Or teleporters. One or the other.)
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“–and have already started”… yes, for years.
Notably, one of bin Salman’s first strategic moves as defense minister was organizing “Operation Decisive Storm” in 2015 against the Iranian-backed Houthi Rebels in Yemen as an aggressive move to weaken Iranian influence. According to Human Rights Watch, the results of this move were thousands of civilian deaths over the course of 4 years due to repeated Saudi airstrikes—an indefinite worsening of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis as the conflict rages on.
The Human Rights Watch also details the international criticism Saudi Arabia faced in 2018 for Mohammed bin Salman’s alleged involvement, and lack of accountability for, the high-profile murder of a Saudi journalist, which came amidst a slew of mistreatment allegations from Saudi human rights activists and journalists.
Al Jazeera’s article on bin Salman’s PM appointment summarizes his questionable record, despite major reforms:
Prince Mohammed has changed Saudi Arabia radically since he rose to power, leading efforts to diversify the economy from dependence on oil, allowing women to drive and curbing the clerics’ power over society. His reforms, however, have come with a massive crackdown on dissent, with activists, royals, women’s rights activists, and businessmen jailed… the measures targeted many of his direct rivals, thus consolidating the prince’s power over the kingdom.
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“Living in a shot-gun shack” in the voice of Zorak
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“in another part of the world”
“well, how did I get here?”
There is water underground.
Sometimes.
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air conditioning!
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looks like the “Line” is in the extreme north of those satellite maps, in the “green zone”. It might make those ocean views vulnerable to costal flooding, though.
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In response to The Line’s form, Prieto-Curiel and Kondor suggested that a circle may be a more efficient shape for a city.
They calculated that taking The Line’s skyscrapers and arranging them in a circle, in a city they dubbed The Circle, would dramatically reduce commuting distances.
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If you want a specific sci-fi instance, try this on for size. It’s on the nose enough it might have been the inspiration:
Barony’s skyline was dominated by an extremely large rectangular building in its centre, which was surrounded by mostly low-level housing. The structure was 950 stories tall and 45 kilometers long, with no access at ground level, as it was a slave colony.
Source: Barony | Dune Wiki | Fandom
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I think it must be an influence. I have to say, it’s probably the coolest building built i the KC area in decades. Inside is pretty awesome too. The kiddo and I went to see a night of John Williams once, and that was fun!
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