UKH

https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline?utm_source=google&utm_medium...

It's like TerminatorDuneMinorityReportBladeRunner is happening now.

You say dystopian, but one of the massive things to me is that agreement has been given for this proposed megacity to operate under a separate legislature.

One could see this as an attempt to make everyone corporate slaves, our one could see it as a way of giving young Saudis an enduring future away from constraints of the current religious authorities.

As developments go, Neom is going to need an incredible amount of work on energy efficient air handling, water and sewage reclamation, thermal management, distributed renewable energy systems, vertical farming including hydro- and aquaponics etc. A couple of decades from now, the Saudis and their technology partners could be very well placed for large off-world developments such as Mars.

It all sounds very science fiction, but the government have set a half trillion dollar budget for this. 

Edit:  I think I'd prefer my future megacity to be a floating arcology so it can move around to where-ever the climate is least borked in 50 years time.  Probably a floating arcology with heavy defensive weapons and it's own airforce, spaceforce and navy.  

Why dystopian? It seems to have many laudable utopian aims.

I wonder whether we might see Saudi Arabia leading the world to a sustainable future. With oil on the way out the absolute monarchy must know that a smooth transition to renewables is their only chance of survival, and without the inevitable short-termism of democracies, they have the luxury of the time to implement it as well as the funds.

It's a mini, currently earthbound version of an Iain Banks Orbital. Clearly the future given the state of Biosphere 1.

This remided me of an article I was led to from a twitter brexit thread: 

https://medium.com/@cormack.lawson/charter-cities-the-real-reason-for-brexi...

Charter cities, coming to the UK soon, apparently.

And what happens if a citizen of this wonderful city displeases His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Chairman of the NEOM Company Board of Directors?

Do they go the same way as Jamal Khashoggi?

Yes. 

Before that citizen has even thought of disagreeing in fact. 

Pre-emptive justice in the desert paradise. 

Indeed. When I first read about this project, I had two main questions:

Why does it have to be so long in a straight line? 

How big is the rule book going to be?

Fast rapid transit.  Not a new idea, it was the basis for Heinlein's 1940 short story "The Roads Must Roll".

"America is an irradiated wasteland. Within it lies a city. Outside the boundary walls, a desert. A cursed earth. Inside the walls, a cursed city, stretching from Boston to Washington D.C. An unbroken concrete landscape. 800 million people living in the ruin of the old world and the mega structures of the new one."

Well, if we’re applying pre-emptive justice, then the Dark Judges and their leader Judge Death are needed.

Back before Meadowhall opened in 1990, pretty well the entire climbing population of Sheffield were getting as many hours as they could for the rope access firms which included cleaning all the glass. Maybe there’ll be another emptying of S6, 7, 8 and 10 out to the Gulf for this?

Says Johnny Alpha..

Just looked at wiki

"Also, the scope of the projects based on the crown prince's vision incorporates some technologies that do not even exist yet, like flying cars, robot maids, dinosaur robots, and a giant artificial moon"

It's going to shit, methinks.

You might like to consider the Freedom Ship: http://freedomship.com/

[N.b. I first enjoyed this website and the exciting project it proposes in 1994 when, curiously enough, the company executives were also just about "to commence the primary construction phase of this history-making global project".]

The Charter City thing is something that deserves a thread all of its own: it's too terrifying to be merely a comment on a thread about dystopian design fictions.

The two minutes of Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart discussing charter cities here - https://open.spotify.com/episode/3nd8spqRFCB2p9s0m91NlS?si=dKXBOWBOSo-GOX-P... - is spot on.

Yes, I know, a podcast. I hate podcasts. But those two minutes sum the concept up more pithily than any article I've struggled through, most of which seem to be written by well-meaning people who are struggling with the concept's brazen simplicity.

Less Judge Dredd and more Against a Dark Background.  Banks could see clearly where the right as a belief system combined with obscene wealth was taking us.  I thought that was the one book where he painted a picture of it instead of having characters rant against it.

That linked article lays a lot out coherently.  It doesn’t get in to it, but the same tactics and a subset of the organisations and people cropped up around the origins of the organised covid denialism movement.  A chance to hone their playbook for something more rapid than climate change; not comforting to think they’re even more prepared for the next sudden disaster. 
 

Comes across to me as an overgrown, beautifully finished prison where you get to spend your spare time going to theaters and lounging in coffee shops.

I'd be lucky to last a week there.

I'd quickly miss green spaces, woods and natural wilderness.

Even urban areas around the world mostly have an organic element to them where they have grown out of necessity.

This just comes across as so many Middle East projects do that it's being proposed because one person wants it to exist.

Take Qatar with all its beautiful buildings. One for the ministry of agriculture. Another for commerce. All massively underutilised with no shops or cafes at the bottom making their sky scraper scene incredibly boring to walk around. But it looks good from the palace. They even moved the airport so the could build taller.

It's an attitude of build it and they will come, but it hasn't worked for many ME projects and I suspect this may be the same.

I haven't read Against a Dark Background. Thanks for the tip - I'll get a copy tomorrow.

I agree with you about the linked article, and the Byline/OpenDemocracy-style work it does connecting the Mercer/Koch/Cato network to the UK right-wing adherents of charter cities. However it's written for someone like me, or you: someone whose interest has already been piqued and to whom those names might already mean something.

I don't think the term 'charter city' has entered the vernacular yet, or even crossed the horizon of most people's awareness. Much of the coverage of HART/GBD we discussed previously was similarly detailed and based on solid research, but I think such detail alienates those who only want to know, Will this be bad for me? In what way will it be bad for me?

I hope that the unions get onto talking about these zones in public, because they've been superb communicators recently, aware of the complexity behind such issues but distilling their public explanations into easily ingestible points. They have a more immediate fight on their hands at present, but I think this will be the next no matter who ends up PM.

The context/setting is so like that of the SF novel I wrote 30 years ago, but withdrew from publication for various quite complicated reasons. I still have every intention of publishing it at some point in the nearish? future ... but under a pseudonym. It's just too strong/other/other from my other work to go out under my own name.

Ok, no green spaces and woods, but do you realise that there are stunning desert landscapes with almost unlimited scope for exploratory desert climbing within weekend reach? Look on google earth - whole new Wadi Rum's and amazing looking granite areas too. A climber's paradise.

Couldn't be worse than living in Purley anyway - talk about dystopia.....

Hey hey hey 

Purley has ............ ?

Screw it, I won't be here for long

If we end up living in privatised cities as slaves to American corporate fascists, the please feel free to yell "told you so!" but that article is bollocks.

I think I'd rather live on Gruinard Island

Well for one, I read in the guardian that they have no plans to lift the alcohol ban!

The whole thing just seems to be a case of "let's show something cool to the boss" and this boss is someone who is quite happy to dismember people that displease him. Hardly a great breeding ground for a well thought out, long term project. 

I, for one, am awaiting the advent of the spindizzies

I think I could manage about two weeks...Two weeks...Two Weeeksss...TWWWOO WEEEEKSS!!!!

And where do the people who are going to build and service this Utopia going to live? 

In the Arab cities I've been in there has been a rather nice, safe-feeling atmosphere at night without the influence of alcohol.

Is there are bouldering wall? And does it have a café?

Thanks for sharing the Alistair Campbell, Rory Stewart discussion. I learned something.